Would it be ethical to grow meat in a vat without a brain associated with it? Personally, I think pretty clearly yes.
So breeding suffering out of animals would seem to be between growing meat in a vat and what we have now. So it would seem to be a step in the right direction.
We, and animals, almost certainly have suffering because it had survival value for us and animals in the environment in which we evolved. Being farmed for meat is not that environment. I don’t think removing suffering from our farmed animals has a downside. Of course, removing it from wild animals would probably not be a good thing, but would probably correct itself relatively quickly in the failure of non-suffering animals to survive.
I wonder about more intermediate stages. Animals suffering less is one obviously. Animals with less nervous systems would be another (though probably not practical). More ideas?
Most vegetarians would think that activities that normally make animals suffer are bad in themselves. They may have originally have used suffering as a reason to figure out that those activities are bad,m but they’re bad in themselves. You can’t just take away the bad consequences and make them good.
Also, utilitarianism has a problem with blissful ignorance. Most vegetarians would probably think that animals that are engineered to be unable to suffer have a blissful ignorance problem; they are being harmed and just don’t realize it.
Most vegetarians would probably think that animals that are engineered to be unable to suffer have a blissful ignorance problem; they are being harmed and just don’t realize it.
Do carrots have a blissful ignorance problem, then?
The problem only exists for beings with some sort of mind that has moral relevance. I would guess that most vegetarians believe that animals have such a mind, but not carrots.
I’m not a vegetarian myself. I was just describing how people think. I don’t know that they have a coherent concept of “acts that are bad in themselves”.
Most vegetarians would think that activities that normally make animals suffer are bad in themselves.
Presumably the moral win in reducing or eliminating the suffering of farmed meat would have more to do with non-vegetarians than vegetarians. But really, is the point here to do something better than is already done, or is to impress vegetarians?
Would it be ethical to grow meat in a vat without a brain associated with it? Personally, I think pretty clearly yes.
So breeding suffering out of animals would seem to be between growing meat in a vat and what we have now. So it would seem to be a step in the right direction.
We, and animals, almost certainly have suffering because it had survival value for us and animals in the environment in which we evolved. Being farmed for meat is not that environment. I don’t think removing suffering from our farmed animals has a downside. Of course, removing it from wild animals would probably not be a good thing, but would probably correct itself relatively quickly in the failure of non-suffering animals to survive.
I wonder about more intermediate stages. Animals suffering less is one obviously. Animals with less nervous systems would be another (though probably not practical). More ideas?
Most vegetarians would think that activities that normally make animals suffer are bad in themselves. They may have originally have used suffering as a reason to figure out that those activities are bad,m but they’re bad in themselves. You can’t just take away the bad consequences and make them good.
Also, utilitarianism has a problem with blissful ignorance. Most vegetarians would probably think that animals that are engineered to be unable to suffer have a blissful ignorance problem; they are being harmed and just don’t realize it.
Do carrots have a blissful ignorance problem, then?
The problem only exists for beings with some sort of mind that has moral relevance. I would guess that most vegetarians believe that animals have such a mind, but not carrots.
So what happens when you engineer a “mind that has moral relevance” out of an animal?
And going a bit upthread, what do you mean by acts that are “bad in themselves”?
I’m not a vegetarian myself. I was just describing how people think. I don’t know that they have a coherent concept of “acts that are bad in themselves”.
Presumably the moral win in reducing or eliminating the suffering of farmed meat would have more to do with non-vegetarians than vegetarians. But really, is the point here to do something better than is already done, or is to impress vegetarians?