hi vasco, i can see the parallel too yes, often thinking about vegans: you complain that meat eaters don’t see the suffering, but you yourself can’t see the suffering in nature...
As to animal farming being beneficial re increasing the welfare of the creatures you mention: I’m not sure about the experiences of those small animals. If it’s a matter of increasing their numbers, I hold more of a person-affecting view re population ethics so more doesn’t mean better for me. Thirdly, i feel the suffering of farmed animals is so clearly terrible that i’d need a lot of certainty on this before I’d think it’s a good thing for other organisms. But i saw you posted something on this—which i still have to read.
you complain that meat eaters don’t see the suffering, but you yourself can’t see the suffering in nature...
I am not sure I understand. I can see the suffering in nature in the sense I acknowledge the suffering of wild animals. I think increasing animal farming is beneficial because it decreases the suffering of (wild) soil nematodes, mites, and springtails much more than it increases the suffering of farmed animals.
If it’s a matter of increasing their numbers, I hold more of a person-affecting view re population ethics so more doesn’t mean better for me.
It is the opposite of increasing their numbers. I think people who care more about decreasing the number of future negative lives, relative to what is implied by classical utilitarianism, should be even more in favour of increasing animal farming. I estimate eating 0.1 kg less of chicken meat decreases the living time of chickens by 2.87 animal-days, but increases the living time of soil nematodes, mites, and springtails by 6.16 M animal-years for feed crops replaced with temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands[1], which is 783 M times as many animal-years. The increase in the time of suffering is so large that I estimate it is enough to outweigh the smaller suffering per animal-year of soil animals. For that same replacement, I estimate the increase in the net suffering of soil nematodes is 4.81 k times as large as the increase in the net suffering of the directly affected animals (broilers).
hi vasco, i can see the parallel too yes, often thinking about vegans: you complain that meat eaters don’t see the suffering, but you yourself can’t see the suffering in nature...
As to animal farming being beneficial re increasing the welfare of the creatures you mention: I’m not sure about the experiences of those small animals. If it’s a matter of increasing their numbers, I hold more of a person-affecting view re population ethics so more doesn’t mean better for me. Thirdly, i feel the suffering of farmed animals is so clearly terrible that i’d need a lot of certainty on this before I’d think it’s a good thing for other organisms. But i saw you posted something on this—which i still have to read.
Thanks for the reply, Tobias.
I am not sure I understand. I can see the suffering in nature in the sense I acknowledge the suffering of wild animals. I think increasing animal farming is beneficial because it decreases the suffering of (wild) soil nematodes, mites, and springtails much more than it increases the suffering of farmed animals.
It is the opposite of increasing their numbers. I think people who care more about decreasing the number of future negative lives, relative to what is implied by classical utilitarianism, should be even more in favour of increasing animal farming. I estimate eating 0.1 kg less of chicken meat decreases the living time of chickens by 2.87 animal-days, but increases the living time of soil nematodes, mites, and springtails by 6.16 M animal-years for feed crops replaced with temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands[1], which is 783 M times as many animal-years. The increase in the time of suffering is so large that I estimate it is enough to outweigh the smaller suffering per animal-year of soil animals. For that same replacement, I estimate the increase in the net suffering of soil nematodes is 4.81 k times as large as the increase in the net suffering of the directly affected animals (broilers).
Because temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands have more soil animals per unit area than feed crops.
sorry, with the “you complain that...” i was addressing imaginary vegans-who-don’t-get-the-WAS-thing, not you :)
I’ll read your article first before going into this further. Definitely an interesting question.
Thanks! I look forward to your thoughts. As a side note, I read your book How to Create a Vegan World: A Pragmatic Approach around 5 years ago, and I really liked it.
glad to hear that :)