[Question] Do you think decreasing the consumption of animals is good/​bad? Think again?

[Vasco Grilo]

Question

Do you think decreasing the consumption of animals is good/​bad? For which groups of farmed animals?

Context

I stopped eating animals 4 years ago mostly to decrease the suffering of farmed animals^[1]. I am glad I did that based on the information I had at the time, and published in online journals of my former university a series of 3 articles whose title reads “Why we should decrease the consumption of animals?”. However, I am no longer confident that decreasing the consumption of animals is good/​bad. It has many effects:

• Decreasing the number of factory-farmed animals.

  • I believe this would be good for chickens, since I expect them to have negative lives. I estimated the lives of broilers in conventional and reformed scenarios are, per unit time, 2.58 and 0.574 times as bad as human lives are good (see 2nd table). However, these numbers are not resilient:

    • On the one hand, if I consider disabling pain is 10 (instead of 100) times as bad as hurtful pain, the lives of broilers in conventional and reformed scenarios would be, per unit time, 2.73 % and 26.2 % as good as human lives. Nevertheless, disabling pain being only 10 times as bad as hurtful pain seems quite implausible if one thinks being alive is as good as hurtful pain is bad.

    • On the other hand, I may be overestimating broilers’ pleasurable experiences.

  • I guess the same applies to other species, but I honestly do not know. Figuring out whether farmed shrimps and prawns have good/​bad lives seems especially important, since they are arguably the driver for the welfare of farmed animals^[2].

• Decreasing the production of animal feed, and therefore reducing crop area, which tends to:

  • Increase the population of wild animals, which I do not know whether it is good or bad. I think the welfare of terrestrial wild animals is driven by that of terrestrial arthropods, but I am very uncertain about whether they have good or bad lives. I recommend checking this preprint from Heather Browning and Walter Weit for an overview of the welfare status of wild animals.

  • Decrease the resilience against food shocks^[3]. As I wrote here:

    • The smaller the population of (farmed) animals, the less animal feed could be directed to humans to mitigate the food shocks caused by the lower temperature, light and humidity during abrupt sunlight reduction scenarios (ASRS), which can be a nuclear winter, volcanic winter, or impact winter^[4].

    • Because producing calories from animals is much less efficient than from plants, decreasing the number of animals results in a smaller area of crops.

    • So the agricultural system would be less oversized (i.e. it would have a smaller safety margin), and scaling up food production to counter the lower yields during an ASRS would be harder.

    • To maximise calorie supply, farmed animals should stop being fed and quickly be culled after the onset of an ASRS. This would decrease the starvation of humans and farmed animals, but these would tend to experience more severe pain for a faster slaughtering rate.

    • As a side note, increasing food waste would also increase resilience against food shocks, as long as it can be promptly cut down. One can even argue humanity should increase (easily reducible) food waste instead of the population of farmed animals. However, I suspect the latter is more tractable.

  • Increase biodiversity, which arguably increases existential risk due to ecosystem collapse (see Kareiva 2018).

• Decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, and therefore decreasing global warming.

  • I have little idea whether this is good or bad.

  • Firstly, it is quite unclear whether climate change is good or bad for wild animals.

  • Secondly, although more global warming makes climate change worse for humans, I believe it mitigates the food shocks caused by ASRSs^[5]. Accounting for both of these effects, I estimated the optimal median global warming in 2100 relative to 1880 can range from 0.1 to 4.3 ºC. I think the plausible range of the optimal global warming is even wider, because I have neglected many sources of uncertainty in my estimate above (like the impact of ASRSs on the energy system, which depends on the fraction of energy coming from fossil fuels).

• Improving human health^[6], and therefore increasing productivity /​ economic growth.

  • Better health is good because it leads to greater wellbeing, but economic growth has questionable longterm effects.

  • In the last few hundred years, economic growth has been associated with better living conditions (good), but also with higher existential risk (bad).

  • I think the focus should be on differential progress, but I do not know whether better health, and greater economic growth contribute positively or negatively to that.

• Decreasing the risk from pandemics linked to zoonotic diseases.

• Mitigating antimicrobial resistance:

  • From Carrique-Mas 2020, “the greatest quantities of antimicrobials (in decreasing order) were used in pigs (41.7% of total use), humans (28.3%), aquaculture (21.9%) and chickens (4.8%). Combined AMU in other species accounted for < 1.5%”.

  • Boeckel 2015 projects that “antimicrobial consumption [in livestock production] will rise by 67% by 2030 [relative to 2010]”.

• Expanding the moral circle to farmed animals, as changes in behaviour (eating less animals) can cascade into changes in values (caring about animals).

  • This is good for farmed animals, but might be bad for wild animals if they have negative lives, and consuming less animals spreads memes of non-interference and environmentalism.

  • On the other hand, the reduction in the consumption of animals could be good for wild animals if achieved through increasing the concern for all forms of suffering, regardless of whether or not it is caused by humans.

  • Changes in values can potentially be locked (for example, via advanced artificial intelligence), and therefore have beneficial/​harmful longterm effects.

• Decreasing the number of potential working animals like cows, which could be useful in scenarios where there is a major widespread loss of industry or electricity.

There is also uncertainty regarding how much a decrease in consumption translates to a reduction in production, but I think this mainly affects the magnitude of the overall effect, not its sign. It looks like Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation Now does not adequately address my concerns.

For further context, feel free to check Brian Tomasik’s essays on reducing suffering, which introduced me to the indirect effects of changing the consumption of animals. I believe this post is a good place to start. Bear in mind Brian subscribes to negative utilitarianism.

My answer

Having the previous factors in mind, I do not know whether it is good/​bad to decrease the consumption of animals at scale. Brian tends to agree:

If I could press a button to reduce overall meat consumption or to increase concern for animals, I probably would. In other words, I think the expected value of these things is perhaps slightly above zero. But my expected value for them is sufficiently close to zero that I don’t feel great about my donations being used for them.

I also feel like decreasing the consumption of animals is positive, but suppose I am biassed towards overweighting the identifiable decrease in severe pain caused to factory-farmed animals. I guess welfarist approaches (e.g. corporate campaigns for chicken welfare) are more robustly beneficial than abolitionist ones (e.g. promotion of veganism), but both arguably decrease the consumption of animals, which can be either beneficial or harmful.

In any case, I plan to continue following a whole-food plant-based diet^[7], because:

• I would say it makes me healthier and happier, and therefore more productive.

  • It makes me happier not only due to improved health, but also because causing severe pain to factory-farmed animals would feel pretty bad.

  • Based on these data from the Welfare Footprint Project, supposing each broiler provides 2 kg of edible meat, and that the elasticity of production with respect to consumption is 0.5^[8], eating 100 g of chicken causes 75.4 min (= 50.27*60/​2*0.1*0.5) of disabling pain if it is produced in a conventional scenario, and 25.9 min (= 17.26*60/​2*0.1*0.5) if in a reformed one^[9].

• I guess (hope?) I am overall contributing to a better world, in which case increased productivity is good.

These arguably do not apply to the general population. I believe it is quite hard to tell whether a random person is overall making a positive/​negative contribution to the world, essentially for the same reasons I prefer differential progress to economic growth.

Nevertheless, I suspect most people would claim they are overall contributing to a better world. Consequently, according to the reasoning above, they would decide on eating animals based on impacts on productivity, i.e. adopt the “anything goes” approach described by Rob Bensinger. Overall, boycott-itarianism, only eating animals which have sufficiently high welfare, seems better.

Finally, it is worth noting the impact of a random person on farmed animals can apparently be neutralised at a very low cost. I guess it is of the order of magnitude of 0.399 $/​year (= 12.0/​30.1), as I estimated:

• The cost-effectiveness of corporate campaigns for broiler welfare is equivalent to creating 30.1 human-years per dollar.

• The lives of all farmed animals combined are 12.0 times as bad as the lives of all humans combined are good.

Even if the real cost is 100 times higher, most people would more easily donate 39.9 $/​year (= 0.399*100) to, for example, Animal Charity Evaluators’ top charities than follow a plant-based diet?

Acknowledgements

Thanks to David Denkenberger, Stijn Bruers, Julian Jamison, and Ariel Simnegar for feedback on a draft^[10].

1. ^

   In addition, improving health, and mitigating global warming played a minor role. Fun fact, Lewis Bollard’s 1st appearance on The 80,000 Hours Podcast was an important part of my investigation of the conditions of farmed animals.

2. ^

   Note I also care about the welfare of large animals like pigs and cows/​bulls.

3. ^

   I first heard about this from Michael Hinge’s appearance on Hear This Idea.

4. ^

   Additionally, a smaller population of animals would result in a smaller stock of animals and edible animal feed, and larger stock of plant-based foods to be eaten during the ASRS. Nonetheless, these effects would be smaller than the reduction in the production of edible animal feed.

5. ^

   This occurred to me during a meeting with people from Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters (ALLFED).

6. ^

   The EAT-Lancet diet only has 12.2 % (= (153 + 30 + 62 + 19 + 40)/​2500; see Table 1) of calories coming from animals, and, according to the results of 3 approaches, would decrease adult deaths by 21.7 % (= (0.19 + 0.224 + 0.236)/​3; see Table 2). This suggests decreasing the consumption of animals improves health at the margin, even if it is unclear whether the optimal consumption of animal products is zero.

7. ^

   Fruits, vegetables, cereals, legumes, berries, nuts, seeds, herbs, spices, water, and supplements.

8. ^

   The elasticity will be something between 0 and 1, so I used 0.5. However, it looks like there is significant uncertainty.

9. ^

   The Welfare Footprint Project defines disabling pain as follows:

   Pain at this level takes priority over most bids for behavioral execution and prevents all forms of enjoyment or positive welfare. Pain is continuously distressing. Individuals affected by harms in this category often change their activity levels drastically (the degree of disruption in the ability of an organism to function optimally should not be confused with the overt expression of pain behaviors, which is less likely in prey species). Inattention and unresponsiveness to milder forms of pain or other ongoing stimuli and surroundings is likely to be observed. Relief often requires higher drug dosages or more powerful drugs. The term Disabling refers to the disability caused by ‘pain’, not to any structural disability.

10. ^

    Names ordered by descending relevance of contributions.

[Joe91]

I’m probably being overly simplistic here, but I think that opposing excessive coercion and gratuitous suffering (rights violations in other words) is very important from a prudent utilitarian perspective. Some may argue that this approach doesn’t apply as much to animals, but perhaps it should as the world becomes less speciesist.

[Vasco Grilo]

Thanks for commenting, Joe!

I think that is definitely an important point, and it makes me believe the conditions of factory-farmed animals should be improved such that their rights are less violated. However, I do not know whether it outweights other factors like the increased human starvation in abrupt sunlight reduction scenarios, and potentially preventing wild animals from having good lives. Copy-pasting from my reply further down:

A hallmark of naive utilitarianism is strongly optimising for a single metric (e.g. number of factory-farmed animals) without adequately accounting for other potential important effects (e.g. on wild animals and longterm future).

[Joe91]

I agree that it would be possible for the harms of factory farming to be outweighed by the factors you have mentioned. However, I would be hesitant to strongly believe this without extensive justification. Back of the envelope calculations could be flawed due to bias, incomplete information, setting a bad precedent, flow-on effects, reputational damage, etc.

Another point is that reduced opposition to factory farming could prolong a situation which is both bad for farm animals and probably a suboptimal solution to the problems you have raised (ASRS, wild animal welfare). For example, factory farming might slow the development of more advanced/​resilient foods. It could be best to pursue optimal solutions to each problem.

[Vasco Grilo]

Back of the envelope calculations could be flawed due to bias, incomplete information, setting a bad precedent, flow-on effects, reputational damage, etc.

I agree, reality is hard! On the other hand, I would say such points should push us towards being less certain about what is right/​wrong. A hallmark of naive utilitarianism is strongly optimising for a single metric (e.g. number of factory-farmed animals) without adequately accounting for other potential important effects (e.g. on wild animals and longterm future).

Another point is that reduced opposition to factory farming could prolong a situation which is both bad for farm animals and probably a suboptimal solution to the problems you have raised (ASRS, wild animal welfare).

I think you are alluding to a really important heuristic, which is thinking about what the optimal world would look like, and then figure out what would move us towards it. My ideal world does not include factory-farming (even if factory-farmed animals had positive lives, there likely are more efficient ways of producing wellbeing), which suggests opposition to factory-farming is good.

Nonetheless, opposition to factory-farming may also lead to effects which push against arriving to an optimal world. For example, my optimal world does not include lots of wild animal suffering, and abolitionist approaches to farmed animal welfare may decrease the likelihood of humans deciding to improve the lives of wild animals. So I am more sympathetic to welfare reforms than simply decreasing the consumption of animals.

In terms of ASRSs, I agree preparedness and response plans as well as R&D of resilient foods is more cost-effective at the margin than increasing the consumption of factory-farmed animals. However, directing edible animal feed to humans is probably one of the best approaches to increase food supply during ASRSs.

[Vasco Grilo]

Some may argue that this approach doesn’t apply as much to animals, but perhaps it should as the world becomes less speciesist.

I’m Not a Speciesist; I’m Just a Utilitarian. Great piece from Brian Tomasik illustrating key differences between animals and humans:

When we examine the above list of points, we see that most of the utilitarian arguments for deontological /​ virtue-ethical behavior only apply regarding our interactions with other humans.^a For example:

1. Game-theoretic considerations only apply to other agents smart enough to interact in a game-theoretic way with us, which seems to exclude most non-human animals.

2. Decision-theoretic motivations for promises and honesty likewise only apply to agents who can understand the relevance of such commitments.

3. Striking fear into the hearts of a populace only applies to animals that read the news or spread gossip (except for other animals that may be present to directly witness or hear, e.g., a slaughter taking place).

4. Breaking down bonds of social cohesion only applies to animals who enter into long-term trusting relationships with humans. (So, e.g., it might be bad on balance to violate the trust of your pet dog even for good reasons but not bad on balance to break the trust of a wild animal for good reasons.)

The only arguments from the previous section that seem to apply clearly in the case of animals are

1. overriding severe miscalculation of costs vs. benefits regarding actions that harm some individuals

2. preventing self-serving behavior that’s justified under the pretext of advancing the greater good.

While these two considerations are important, the main force of the utilitarian arguments for deontology is lost in the case of non-human animals.

In essence, as I commented, humans are not only moral patients, but also moral agents.

[JBentham]

Thanks for writing this. I’m pretty skeptical of your points related to food shocks and abrupt sunlight reduction scenarios, especially given the academic controversy surrounding nuclear winter scenarios (which I don’t believe you’ve adequately updated on despite this controversy being pointed out to you beneath one of your other posts). A nuclear exchange that’s of the magnitude required to potentially cause nuclear winter is also exceedingly unlikely before AGI arrives.

Also, note that in any such scenario, the human population will be far lower than it is today, so the quantity of animal feed is almost certainly not going to be the thing that determines whether humanity recovers from collapse (especially if we’re assuming that such a scenario occurs in the next few decades before AGI, when animal product consumption is expected to be pretty high).

Robin Hanson has also questioned whether farmland used to grow crops for animal feed would be ‘re-wilded’ - at least some of it will be used for development, which will actually reduce wild animal numbers. In any case, whether or not wild animals have net-negative lives is incredibly uncertain.

So, the direct effects on factory farmed animals of reducing consumption, plus lower greenhouse gas emissions (which, given my skepticism about your food shock points, and the fact that climate change probably increases the risk of an existential catastrophe by reducing global stability and increasing the likelihood of extreme/​tail-risk climate scenarios), seem to make reducing consumption net-positive.

[Vasco Grilo]

Nice points!

I’m pretty skeptical of your points related to food shocks and abrupt sunlight reduction scenarios, especially given the academic controversy surrounding nuclear winter scenarios (which I don’t believe you’ve adequately updated on despite this controversy being pointed out to you beneath one of your other posts).

I did not update my analysis on why more global warming might be good to mitigate the food shocks caused by abrupt sunlight reduction scenarios following the comments because I was already aware of the controversy. I decided to defer to the results of Luisa Rodriguez, who thought about the matter much more than me. My position is similar to the one Toby Ord expresses in The Precipice (emphasis mine):

There are significant remaining uncertainties at all stages of our understanding of nuclear winter:

1. How many cities are hit with bombs?

2. How much smoke does this produce?

3. How much of the soot is lofted into the stratosphere?

4. What are the effects of this on temperature, light, precipitation.

5. What is the resulting reduction in crop yields?

6. How long does the effect last?

7. How many people are killed by such a famine? Some of these may be reduced through future research, while others may be impossible to resolve.

Some of these may be reduced through future research, while others may be impossible to resolve.

Skeptics of the nuclear winter scenario often point to these remaining uncertainties, as they show that our current scientific understanding is compatible with a milder nuclear winter. But uncertainty cuts both ways. The effect of nuclear winter could also be more severe than the central estimates. We don’t have a principled reason for thinking that the uncertainty here makes things better. Since I am inclined to believe that the central nuclear winter scenario is not an existential catastrophe, the uncertainty actually makes things worse by leaving this possibility open. If a nuclear war were to cause an existential catastrophe, this would presumably be because the nuclear winter effect was substantially worse than expected, or because of other—as yet unknown—effects produced by such an unprecedented assault on the Earth.

It would therefore be very valuable to have additional research on the uncertainties surrounding nuclear winter, to see if there is any plausible combination that could lead to a much deeper or longer winter, and to have fresh research on other avenues by which full-scale nuclear war might pose an existential risk.

I agree that:

Also, note that in any such scenario, the human population will be far lower than it is today, so the quantity of animal feed is almost certainly not going to be the thing that determines whether humanity recovers from collapse (especially if we’re assuming that such a scenario occurs in the next few decades before AGI, when animal product consumption is expected to be pretty high).

However, even if animal feed has a negligible impact on the likelihood of recovery, it may influence the chance of collapse.

Robin Hanson has also questioned whether farmland used to grow crops for animal feed would be ‘re-wilded’ - at least some of it will be used for development, which will actually reduce wild animal numbers. In any case, whether or not wild animals have net-negative lives is incredibly uncertain.

Agreed, but note that “uncertain effect with zero expected value” + “certain effect with positive expected value” = “uncertain effect with positive expected value”. If the combined effect is sufficiently uncertain, I think it is often better to learn more, and keep options open, instead of acting as if one of the options is robustly good/​bad.

So, the direct effects on factory farmed animals of reducing consumption, plus lower greenhouse gas emissions (which, given my skepticism about your food shock points, and the fact that climate change probably increases the risk of an existential catastrophe by reducing global stability and increasing the likelihood of extreme/​tail-risk climate scenarios), seem to make reducing consumption net-positive.

I would say this corresponds to the common sense view, and I believe it may well be right. However, because of what I said just above, I do not think we should act as if we are sure that is the case.

[JBentham]

I agree that animal feed may influence the chance of collapse, but I again think this will be negligible given high expected animal product consumption pre-AGI and the much smaller human population.

I certainly agree that we should not act as if we are sure, but I also think that saying we are completely “clueless” or “don’t know” is also inaccurate. We should of course take these considerations seriously, and think about them carefully and try to get more information about them (and to be clear, I also discount the climate-related worries for the possibility of AGI arriving before then).

[Sanjay]

I expect that answering this question overall (for all animals) is hard, but there exist specific animals for which it’s (probably) easy. A chicken farmed in the most egregious factory farmed conditions likely has a materially negative quality of life (as you noted), but also has minimal impact on climate change. I’m not sure how to size the effects of chicken farming on cropland for feed or the oversized-ness of the food system, so it’s possible this example could be rendered more complex by that consideration. Avian flu can be nasty (avian flu has been associated with mortality of c.50% in the past), so chickens seem likely to be a risk factor for pandemics.

[Vasco Grilo]

Hi Sanjay,

I agree the case for reducing consumption is stronger for factory-farmed chickens (or other animals living super bad lives which have a small impact on global warming).

[Matt_Sharp]

Hey Vasco—I love how your posts often bring together points about different cause areas, making connections between topics that those focused on particular causes are perhaps either unaware of or choose to ignore because they are complicated and inconvenient!

Do you have an estimate of how likely an abrupt sunlight reduction scenario (ASRS) is to occur over the next (e.g.) 100 years? My intuition is that for the cases of volcanic and impact winters it’s extremely low, perhaps less than 0.1%. In which case it probably comes down to the likelihood and consequences of nuclear war.

I also wonder to what extent food shocks could be mitigated by the development of plant (or fungi) crops that are much more able to tolerate ASRS conditions. I can imagine these sorts of crops might be developed for the purposes of space exploration, e.g. if humans attempt to establish permanent bases on the Moon and Mars over the coming decades.

[Vasco Grilo]

Thanks, Matt!

I love how your posts often bring together points about different cause areas, making connections between topics that those focused on particular causes are perhaps either unaware of or choose to ignore because they are complicated and inconvenient!

Nice that you like them!

Do you have an estimate of how likely an abrupt sunlight reduction scenario (ASRS) is to occur over the next (e.g.) 100 years? My intuition is that for the cases of volcanic and impact winters it’s extremely low, perhaps less than 0.1%. In which case it probably comes down to the likelihood and consequences of nuclear war.

I agree nuclear war is the driver of the risk from ASRSs. When I last estimated the risk, I used Metaculus’ community prediction for a global thermonuclear war by 2070, which is currently at 13 %. For the ejection of soot into the stratosphere conditional on a global nuclear war (as defined by the Metaculus’ question), I used the results of Luisa Rodriguez, who thought about the matter much more than me. To estimate the reduction in future value given a certain soot ejection, I relied on historical data about socioeconomic indices plus a bunch of guesses.

I also wonder to what extent food shocks could be mitigated by the development of plant (or fungi) crops that are much more able to tolerate ASRS conditions. I can imagine these sorts of crops might be developed for the purposes of space exploration, e.g. if humans attempt to establish permanent bases on the Moon and Mars over the coming decades.

Great point, increasing the consumption of animals is far from the only way to increase resilience against food shocks. From ALLFED’s page on resilient food solutions:

• High-tech solutions:

  • Single cell protein from CO₂ and hydrogen.

  • Food from plant fiber.

  • Single cell protein that uses natural gas.

• Low-tech solutions:

  • Simple, scalable greenhouses.

  • Seaweed.

  • Reallocating food for humans and animals.

  • Leaf protein concentrate.

  • Relocation of cool tolerant crops.

[Sanjay]

Not sure if I missed it, but another factor might be AMR. (Anti-microbial resistance is a mechanism for factory farming leading to pandemics, which you mention. But AMR causes other harms too)

[Vasco Grilo]

Thanks! I have now added:

• Mitigating antimicrobial resistance:

  • From Carrique-Mas 2020, “the greatest quantities of antimicrobials (in decreasing order) were used in pigs (41.7% of total use), humans (28.3%), aquaculture (21.9%) and chickens (4.8%). Combined AMU in other species accounted for < 1.5%”.

  • Boeckel 2015 projects that “antimicrobial consumption [in livestock production] will rise by 67% by 2030 [relative to 2010]”.

[Jason]

I wonder how the magnitude of these various effects would scale between 1 additional percent of the population going vegan vs. 10 percent vs. 100 percent.

Specifically, at least in the medium run, it seems that many of the inputs of producing crops are sunk costs, and that a reduction in the demand for farmed animal feed would cause agricultural producers to keep growing many crops but try to sell them as biofuel material. At least here in the US, Big Corn is powerful and could probably get Congress to mandate /​ subsidize more biofuel use to a certain point. Or they could probably get some other method to maintain a crop market and keep the farmers /​ ag lobby content, again to a certain point.

So I am not confident a small-to-medium refuction in animal feed demand would ultimately impact crop acreage that much. I don’t know about other markets though!

[MichaelStJules]

The same crops are already used for bioethanol before being sold and fed to farmed animals, as distillers grains. Decreasing animal product consumption could therefore reduce bioethanol revenues from selling the byproducts for feed, but it could also reduce input grain costs.

[Vasco Grilo]

Great point, Jason!

So I am not confident a small-to-medium refuction in animal feed demand would ultimately impact crop acreage that much.

I agree confidence is not warranted.

I don’t know about other markets though!

It looks like there is significant variation across countries (the relevant metric is per capita production, but I did not immediately find it):

[Rocket]

Decreasing the production of animal feed, and therefore reducing crop area, which tends to: Increase the population of wild animals

Could you share the source for this? I’ve wondered about the empirics here. Farms do support wild animals (mice, birds, insects, etc), and there is precedent for farms being paved over when they shut down, which prevents the land from being rewilded.

[Vasco Grilo]

Thanks for asking!

70 % to 80 % of deforestation is driven by conversion of primary forest to agriculture or tree plantations:

Since more agriculture tends to result in more deforestation, I guess less agriculture leads to less/​more deforestation/​forestation. In any case, I do not know whether terrestrial arthropods have good or bad lives, so regardless of whether their population would increase or decrease due to greater consumption of animals, I would not be able to tell whether the effect was good or bad.

[Rocket]

Thanks for this! I would still be interested to see estimates of eg mice per acre in forests vs farms and I’m not sure yet whether this deforestation effect is reversible. I’ll follow up if I come across anything like that.

I agree that the quality of life question is thornier.

[Vasco Grilo]

You are welcome!

I would still be interested to see estimates of eg mice per acre in forests vs farms

Brian Tomasik has some estimates. For rainforest, the density of wild terrestrial arthropods as a fraction of the global mean is 1.02 to 5 (95 % confidence interval). For Cerrado, which is a proxy for farmland, it is 0.70 to 3.00. I fitted lognormal distributions to these values, and got that the expected value for the density of wild terrestrial arthropods in rainforests is 72.4 % (= 1.55/​0.899 − 1) higher than that for Cerrado. Overall, it looks like there are more wild terrestrial arthropods in forests, but it is not super clear, judging from the overlap between the 95 % confidence intervals.

I’m not sure yet whether this deforestation effect is reversible.

Yes, I do not know either. From the point of view of resilience against ASRSs, it would be good if abandoned farmland remained deforested such that it could quickly start being used if needed.

[Brian_Tomasik]

Thanks! It’s worth noting that the rainforest and Cerrado numbers in that piece are very rough guesses based on limited and noisy data. As one friend of mine would say, I basically pulled those numbers out of my posterior (...distribution). :) Also, even if that comparison is accurate, it’s just for one region of the world; it may not apply to the difference between, e.g., temperate forests and grasslands. All of that said, my impression is that crop fields do tend to have fewer mammals and birds than wild grassland or forest. For birds, see the screenshot of a table in this section.

[Rocket]

Fantastic, thanks for sharing!

[matty]

Would you be against breeding (forcibly impregnating) humans, giving them good lives then murdering and eating them? That would be “net positive” according to your logic.

[Vasco Grilo]

Thanks for the thought experiment!

I am very strongly against forcibly impregnating or murdering humans under almost all circumstances, including the one you describe. Humans are not only moral patients, but also moral agents, and these being forcibly impregnated or murdered is highly anti-cooperative. I follow expectational total hedonistic utilitarianism, but this only justifies creating net positive lives all else equal. In a society where humans are forcibly impregnated and murdered for food, I think it is fair to say that all else would not be equal! One should take into account the actions involved in the creation of lives, and forced impregnation and murder are actions with pretty bad consequences. For example, they would tend to normalise violence and inequality, which correlate with lower wellbeing longterm.

These concerns apply to animals too. Forcibly impregnating or murdering animals is still uncooperative, and my ideal world does not involve those. However, by decreasing the consumption of animals, one may accidently increase the suffering of wild animals, and the existential risk from ASRSs. So, as a precautionary measure, I think it would be better to increase resilience to ASRSs before/​while driving down the number of factory-farmed animals. I think welfare reforms are more robustly good because they significantly decrease the suffering of factory-farmed animals while not decreasing much the resilience against ASRSs, at least in the nearterm (in the longer term, continued welfare reforms will increase prices, and therefore decrease the consumption of animals).

[matty]

So the thing wrong with breeding, murdering and eating humans is the harmful effects it would have on other humans not the treatment of the victim?

[Vasco Grilo]

My understanding was that, in the though experiment you described, “the victim” would have a good/​positive life. By definition, having a good/​positive life means it being lived is better than it not existing, everything else equal. So there is a sense in which I would be happy to add positive lives to the universe regardless of what they involve, as long as the expected total hedonistic utility of the rest of the universe did not decrease (or decreased less than the extra utility coming from the added life). In practice, the situation you described being good is highly implausible.

[matty]

So if some people went off to live very remotely in the woods with no contact with other people and started breeding, murdering and eating humans where the children’s lives are “net positive” that would be okay to you?

[Vasco Grilo]

Everything else equal^[1], I would rather have such children exist. However, I would not be okay with that situation, because I think we can do much better. For example, if the children had net positive lives, it would make sense to let them live longer. A situation where each person decides when to end their lives painlessly would also be better than one involving murders.

1. ^

   This would be impossible. For example, the children would have to eat, and the production of food would influence the population of wild animals.

[MichaelStJules]

Children eat less than adults, so you can feed more children at the same time than adults with the same amount of food. If they’re young enough (or otherwise unaware), they won’t understand or expect their deaths. Children also seem more hedonistically reactive than adults, both positively and negatively, so if you ensure they are happy (good food, play, affection), they’d plausibly be happier than adults treated just as well.

So, it’s not clear that letting people decide when they die is better from a classical utilitarian perspective and ignoring indirect effects, e.g. the productivity of adults and how it contributes to others’ welfare. Adults are also more self-sufficient, which counts further in their favour.

[Vasco Grilo]

Great points, Michael. I found the situation intuitively quite bad, and therefore stumbled into some motivated reasoning. I would be okay with the situation described by matty as long as the lives of the children were sufficiently good (to offset the negative effects to the mothers, and the pain involved in the murders), and neglecting indirect effects.

Nevertheless, in practice, if a bunch of humans contacted me describing their great plan to produce lots of utility along the lines described by matty, I would just report them to the police. I think having such plans in real life correlates with bad outcomes (compared to non-existence), even if the plan itself describes a good outcome (compared to non-existence).

[matty]

But if they repeatedly bred humans and killed them there would be just as much “utility” as if you let the children live longer so it’s all good!

[Lizka]

We’re issuing matty a 1-week ban for this comment thread; matty’s comments here are counterproductive and not a type of discourse acceptable on the Forum. They’re very rhetorically loaded (and almost entirely phrased in the form of rhetorical questions — a bad idea for a collaborative discussion) and they don’t seem to be serious or remotely charitable attempts to understand Vasco’s point of view.

E.g. I don’t think that a reasonable reader can actually believe that Vasco’s answer to matty’s question here — “So the thing wrong with breeding, murdering and eating humans is the harmful effects it would have on other humans not the treatment of the victim?” — is “Yes.”

The comments also heavily lean on using graphic descriptions of violence towards humans in a pretty careless way, which doesn’t help; that kind of content should be approached more thoughtfully.

I think it’s possible to outline strong disagreement and to point out possible contradictions (both of which can be incredibly useful) while still following Forum discussion norms. I’d want to see this from matty in the future.

[GideonF]

This seems a really weird ban to me to be honest. I don’t see why in ethical discussions we can’t use extreme cases that try and stir an emotional reaction- in many ways our emotions are a key tool in deciding what is ethical. And with regards to the example you have given, I very much think a reasonable person can take Matty’s interpretation of Vasco; indeed, I still don’t see why this interpretation is incorrect. Vasco seems to be suggesting that as long as ones life is worth living, been bred for slaughter is only morally bad because of the impacts on other people, not on the person being slaughtered it seems like highlighting a key crux between kantian and utilitarian viewpoints, rather than being uncharitable.

[Vasco Grilo]

Thanks for commenting, Gideon.

And with regards to the example you have given, I very much think a reasonable person can take Matty’s interpretation of Vasco; indeed, I still don’t see why this interpretation is incorrect.

I actually upvoted some of matty’s comments in this thread because of that, and did not downvote any. They made me question my arguments, and I think that is quite useful in general. However, I agree with Lizka that the tone could have been better (although I personally did not feel offended by it, because I do not see a big intrinsic difference between factory-farming humans and e.g. chickens).

Vasco seems to be suggesting that as long as ones life is worth living, been bred for slaughter is only morally bad because of the impacts on other people, not on the person being slaughtered

I agree if “bad” means better than non-existence. I disagree if “bad” is interpreted as in common usage of language, which I think pressuposes a counterfactual with higher value than non-existence. In other words, having a barely good life is better than nothing, but could be much better.

[MichaelStJules]

I agree that the same points could have been made in a less counterproductive way. Specifically, I found them a bit aggressive and condescending (like “gotcha!”). I can see how this could warrant a temporary ban. (I don’t have strong views either way about whether it should.)

I also agree that “forcibly impregnating” is graphic and I’m not sure if it’s even generally accurate for animal agriculture, since I expect milder reactions from farmed animals than “forcibly” suggests.

However — and I don’t know if you had them in mind, so you can correct me if you didn’t — the other terms, like ‘breeding’, ‘killing’ and ‘eating’, don’t really have any better alternatives for making the same points. They’re also standard terms in both animal ethics and animal agriculture (well, ‘slaughter’ instead of ‘killing’, and ‘slaughter’ is both more precise and graphic, or sometimes ‘dispatch’, ‘process’ or ‘harvest’, which are much less precise/​descriptive and less graphic; and ‘murder’ isn’t applicable to nonhuman animals, because it refers to unlawful killing.) I don’t think we should deter people from using them.

(EDITED)

I’m not sure either way whether the example you pointed out was a reasonable interpretation of what Vasco wrote, but I think that’s what votes and explanations should be used for, unless it becomes a disruptive pattern. Vasco did refer to both reasons applying to the direct victims and reasons applying to others affected, and the OP is mostly about whether or not the effects on others are generally more important than the effects on farmed animals.

[Vasco Grilo]

Thanks for commenting, Michael.

I agree that the same points could have been made in a less counterproductive way. Specifically, I found them a bit aggressive and condescending (like “gotcha!”). I can see how this could warrant a temporary ban. (I don’t have strong views either way about whether it should.)

This is my view too.

However — and I don’t know if you had them in mind, so you can correct me if you didn’t — the other terms, like ‘breeding’, ‘killing’ and ‘eating’, don’t really have any better alternatives for making the same points.

On the one hand, I believe applying the same terms to both humans and non-human animals is helpful to break speciesism. On the other, it can be offensive to people who attribbute quite different moral weights to humans and non-human animals (I do not).

Furthermore, my understanding from Vasco’s writing and comments is that he’s a classical utilitarian or close, so the replaceability argument should apply in principle even to humans, as long as the average human life-moment isn’t worse, or greater numbers can make up for a worse average.

Agreed. To clarify, I strongly endorse expectational total hedonistic utilitarianism (which I think is the same as classical utilitarianism).

This is basically what matty pointed out in the last comment, and it seems worth it for Vasco to explicitly consider and respond to this point. Vasco did call it uncooperative, both if done to humans and to other humans.

Good point! I had not realised that, possibly because of the tone. I will reply.

[MichaelStJules]

Hey Vasco, I edited my response around when you were replying, and replaced the bottom part of my comment. What I had before and decided to replace wasn’t useful/​relevant in response to Lizka. I’m just flagging this for you, but feel free to leave your comment as is.

[Vasco Grilo]

Good point. The utility equals the product between population size, quality of life and duration of the situation. So I agree that one can make the situation better by increasing any of these.