You (Glenn) seem to be considering just two alternatives: eating factory-farmed animals, or being vegan. Are you implying, perhaps, that it may be ethical to consume animals if they're humanely raised and painlessly slaughtered (assuming this was possible)? My own view is that it's not ethical to consume animals no matter how they lived and died. I think that animals have inherent value and a fundamental right not to be treated as property or resources for human use. Even "humane" farming still treats animals instrumentally rather than as beings with their own interests and desires.
Animal rights lawyer and philosopher Gary Francione has been making this case for decades. His arguments are convincing to me.
I think this kind of Bayesian reasoning, starting with priors, is a lot more useful for estimating probabilities of objective truths. It seems like a misuse to apply it to morality, as we see here.
Perhaps the overwhelming popularity of their position (eating animals or at least eating animal products) leads to a lack of incentives in providing philosophical papers and arguments in favor. When you’ve got 99% of humanity what is the incentive to argue?
I haven’t really “read the literature” but I have thought about it in some detail. Because I think most factory farming is terrible and if I could stop it by going vegetarian I would. But I know that I can’t so it doesn’t make sense to me shoulder the costs when there are no benefits to anyone. I don’t feel particularly guilty over it because I believe it is a government failure, not an individual one. People want animals treated humanely and have expressed this preference, over and over. But corporations lie and hide information and the government lets them get away with it. The point of the government is to solve similar common good type problems!
I don’t think predator or omnivore animals are immoral. And while I certainly hold humans to different standards in some ways I have trouble seeing why, as we are animals, it is immoral for us to eat other animals.
You (Glenn) seem to be considering just two alternatives: eating factory-farmed animals, or being vegan. Are you implying, perhaps, that it may be ethical to consume animals if they're humanely raised and painlessly slaughtered (assuming this was possible)? My own view is that it's not ethical to consume animals no matter how they lived and died. I think that animals have inherent value and a fundamental right not to be treated as property or resources for human use. Even "humane" farming still treats animals instrumentally rather than as beings with their own interests and desires.
Animal rights lawyer and philosopher Gary Francione has been making this case for decades. His arguments are convincing to me.
I think this kind of Bayesian reasoning, starting with priors, is a lot more useful for estimating probabilities of objective truths. It seems like a misuse to apply it to morality, as we see here.
Perhaps the overwhelming popularity of their position (eating animals or at least eating animal products) leads to a lack of incentives in providing philosophical papers and arguments in favor. When you’ve got 99% of humanity what is the incentive to argue?
I haven’t really “read the literature” but I have thought about it in some detail. Because I think most factory farming is terrible and if I could stop it by going vegetarian I would. But I know that I can’t so it doesn’t make sense to me shoulder the costs when there are no benefits to anyone. I don’t feel particularly guilty over it because I believe it is a government failure, not an individual one. People want animals treated humanely and have expressed this preference, over and over. But corporations lie and hide information and the government lets them get away with it. The point of the government is to solve similar common good type problems!
I don’t think predator or omnivore animals are immoral. And while I certainly hold humans to different standards in some ways I have trouble seeing why, as we are animals, it is immoral for us to eat other animals.