Thanks for writing this up! It’s great to see more people think about the relationship between animal advocacy and longtermism.
It seems important to distinguish between a) the abolition of factory farming and b) a long-term change in human attitudes towards animals (i.e. establishing antispeciesism). b) is arguably more important from a long-term perspective, and it is a legitimate concern cultivated meat (and similar technologies) would only achieve a).
However, proponents of the “technology-based strategy” usually argue that a) also indirectly helps achieve b), as it allows people to endorse animal rights without cognitive dissonance. I am not entirely sure about this, but it’s at least a plausible counterconsideration.
Even without this effect, I don’t really understand why you seem to think that abolishing factory farming through non-moral means would cause lock-in. Why can’t attitude change / moral progress still happen later?
It seems important to distinguish between a) the abolition of factory farming and b) a long-term change in human attitudes towards animals (i.e. establishing antispeciesism).
I agree. I think all too often when longtermists hear about animals and longtermism, they reject the idea by pointing to their speculation that factory farming will soon be eliminated, while forgetting other animals, or speciesism at large.
b) is arguably more important from a long-term perspective, and it is a legitimate concern cultivated meat (and similar technologies) would only achieve a).
I agree, and if I understand you correctly that’s part of my point. In the post, I wrote about other types of factory farming that are not for the purpose of food. So I think we might be making a similar point here.
I don’t really understand why you seem to think that abolishing factory farming through non-moral means would cause lock-in.
The lock-in I am pointing at is missing the opportunity to eliminate FFFF for moral reasons. In other words, we cancelled our option to do it for moral reasons. My arguments about why this lock-in is bad can easily be wrong, but I think this being a lock-in seems uncontroversial.
Why can’t attitude change / moral progress still happen later?
It can, my worries are that:
It might not happen in the same probability (i.e. advocates might be relieved to have solved a problem and moved onto other problems)
It might not happen with the same quality (very speculative here, just my intuitive worry that changes due to economic pressure just won’t produce the same social changes.)
Hi Holly, I believe that’s possible. Note that I am not suggesting that we might over advocate for wild animals welfare, in fact, we are likely under advocating, and likely will continue so. My point here is that after FFFF is replaced, we might be complacent and go off guard about the general idea of raising animals for human use. Of course, if they will keep on fighting for other types of msitreatment of animals, my post will be much weaker or even useless!
I feel like the reductio ad abusurdum of your argument then is “Never encourage (maybe even discourage) anything that helps someone unless that thing is moral reasoning.”
I feel like the reductio ad abusurdum of your argument then is “Never encourage (maybe even discourage) anything that helps someone unless that thing is moral reasoning.”
But that’s actually not my view. First, I wasn’t discussing about “helping someone”, but eliminating a moral catastrophe, particularly FFFF. Also, I didn’t claim that non-moral motivations are always not helpful, I was particularly discussing the scenario where 100% of FFFF is eliminated by non-moral reasons.
It seems important to distinguish between a) the abolition of factory farming and b) a long-term change in human attitudes towards animals (i.e. establishing antispeciesism). b) is arguably more important from a long-term perspective, and it is a legitimate concern cultivated meat (and similar technologies) would only achieve a).
There is another concern if one has the goal of increasing welfare instead of abolishing factory-farming:
I wonder whether decreasing the current consumption of farmed animals may be bad for future farmed animals (I did not mention this here). According to my calculations, an improvement in chicken welfare per time equal to 43.9 % (= 0.580/(-0.580 + 1.90)) of that linked to going from a conventional cage to a cage-free aviary would be enough to reach neutrality, which suggests there may be chickens with positive lives in the next few decades if corporate campaigns continue to be at least decently successful.
Efforts to reduce the consumption of animals decrease the chance of futures where there are lots of factory-farmed animals living good lives, so such efforts may decrease welfare. One can counter that animals would have to be too expensive for them to live good lives, but this does not seem true. Hens in cage-free aviaries are more expensive that ones in conventional cages, but the increase in welfare is quite large. Assuming the increase in welfare is proportional to the increase in price, the increase in price from cage-free aviaries to conditions as positive as those of cage-free aviaries are negative would be 87.8 % (= 2*0.439) the increase in price from conventional cages to cage-free aviaries. Economic growth over the next few decades, potentially boosted by transformative AI, also means consuming animals with better lives will be more affordable.
It looks like decreasing the consumption of animals is only robustly good (in terms of increasing welfare) if one is confident that factory-farmed animals will continue to have negative lives?
Thanks for writing this up! It’s great to see more people think about the relationship between animal advocacy and longtermism.
It seems important to distinguish between a) the abolition of factory farming and b) a long-term change in human attitudes towards animals (i.e. establishing antispeciesism). b) is arguably more important from a long-term perspective, and it is a legitimate concern cultivated meat (and similar technologies) would only achieve a).
However, proponents of the “technology-based strategy” usually argue that a) also indirectly helps achieve b), as it allows people to endorse animal rights without cognitive dissonance. I am not entirely sure about this, but it’s at least a plausible counterconsideration.
Even without this effect, I don’t really understand why you seem to think that abolishing factory farming through non-moral means would cause lock-in. Why can’t attitude change / moral progress still happen later?
Thank you, Tobias, for your comment!
I agree. I think all too often when longtermists hear about animals and longtermism, they reject the idea by pointing to their speculation that factory farming will soon be eliminated, while forgetting other animals, or speciesism at large.
I agree, and if I understand you correctly that’s part of my point. In the post, I wrote about other types of factory farming that are not for the purpose of food. So I think we might be making a similar point here.
The lock-in I am pointing at is missing the opportunity to eliminate FFFF for moral reasons. In other words, we cancelled our option to do it for moral reasons. My arguments about why this lock-in is bad can easily be wrong, but I think this being a lock-in seems uncontroversial.
It can, my worries are that:
It might not happen in the same probability (i.e. advocates might be relieved to have solved a problem and moved onto other problems)
It might not happen with the same quality (very speculative here, just my intuitive worry that changes due to economic pressure just won’t produce the same social changes.)
“Why can’t attitude change / moral progress still happen later?” E.g. when we’re advocating for concern for wild animal suffering?
Hi Holly, I believe that’s possible. Note that I am not suggesting that we might over advocate for wild animals welfare, in fact, we are likely under advocating, and likely will continue so. My point here is that after FFFF is replaced, we might be complacent and go off guard about the general idea of raising animals for human use. Of course, if they will keep on fighting for other types of msitreatment of animals, my post will be much weaker or even useless!
I feel like the reductio ad abusurdum of your argument then is “Never encourage (maybe even discourage) anything that helps someone unless that thing is moral reasoning.”
But that’s actually not my view. First, I wasn’t discussing about “helping someone”, but eliminating a moral catastrophe, particularly FFFF. Also, I didn’t claim that non-moral motivations are always not helpful, I was particularly discussing the scenario where 100% of FFFF is eliminated by non-moral reasons.
Hi Tobias,
There is another concern if one has the goal of increasing welfare instead of abolishing factory-farming: