Nice discussion, this is something I’ve thought about before but haven’t put to paper.
As for the effectiveness of using animals to lift people out of poverty vs other methods, I have no grounds to comment. I can see why the well-being of animals wouldn’t be considered in the economic equation (though disagree with it) for the very line of reasoning you’ve proposed about certain subsets of humanity not being considered in years past.
Even as a non-speciesist, from a utilitarian standpoint, I could still see the ‘possibility’ of animals as investment being a good option in that humans tend to have more flow on effects than animals. Increase the well-being of a human and bring them out of poverty and they might go on to develop their nations economy, reduce population growth (through the relationship between child mortality and pop. growth), and develop new technology. Increase the well-being of an animal and nothing really happens beyond that. Having said that, there are also negative flow on effects of reducing poverty, such as the poor meat eater problem and, I suspect, increased environmental damage.
Even if we accept that though, taking the long view on animal welfare means that we ought to search for viable and effective alternatives to animal exploitation for animal use to bring people out of poverty. If we eliminated animal use today, many billions of animals won’t be exploited in the future, in a way somewhat reminiscent of the X-risk argument.
It comes back to the practical nature of the question though. Presumably animals are used to reduce poverty because they work. Some important work could be in either proving that this is not the case (if it’s not the case), proving that something else is better (if that’s the case) or in finding/developing a more effective solution that doesn’t involve animal abuse. Fact of the matter is, for those people that don’t mind animal exploitation, or place very low weight on it, they will do what is most effective for the humans involved. If that happens to not involve animals, all the better.
As an after thought, it’s similar to the problem of global warming. In an ideal world, few people actually want fossil fuels to be the leading source of energy, it just happens to be the most cost-effective and easiest in the short term. Find a better solution and the market will switch (assuming no mass misleading of the populace), almost no question.
Nice discussion, this is something I’ve thought about before but haven’t put to paper.
As for the effectiveness of using animals to lift people out of poverty vs other methods, I have no grounds to comment. I can see why the well-being of animals wouldn’t be considered in the economic equation (though disagree with it) for the very line of reasoning you’ve proposed about certain subsets of humanity not being considered in years past.
Even as a non-speciesist, from a utilitarian standpoint, I could still see the ‘possibility’ of animals as investment being a good option in that humans tend to have more flow on effects than animals. Increase the well-being of a human and bring them out of poverty and they might go on to develop their nations economy, reduce population growth (through the relationship between child mortality and pop. growth), and develop new technology. Increase the well-being of an animal and nothing really happens beyond that. Having said that, there are also negative flow on effects of reducing poverty, such as the poor meat eater problem and, I suspect, increased environmental damage.
Even if we accept that though, taking the long view on animal welfare means that we ought to search for viable and effective alternatives to animal exploitation for animal use to bring people out of poverty. If we eliminated animal use today, many billions of animals won’t be exploited in the future, in a way somewhat reminiscent of the X-risk argument.
It comes back to the practical nature of the question though. Presumably animals are used to reduce poverty because they work. Some important work could be in either proving that this is not the case (if it’s not the case), proving that something else is better (if that’s the case) or in finding/developing a more effective solution that doesn’t involve animal abuse. Fact of the matter is, for those people that don’t mind animal exploitation, or place very low weight on it, they will do what is most effective for the humans involved. If that happens to not involve animals, all the better.
As an after thought, it’s similar to the problem of global warming. In an ideal world, few people actually want fossil fuels to be the leading source of energy, it just happens to be the most cost-effective and easiest in the short term. Find a better solution and the market will switch (assuming no mass misleading of the populace), almost no question.