If I understood correctly, the argument is that eating animals can lead people to disregard the welfare of animals. I agree this is currently the case, as most farmed animals have net negative lives, disregarding their welfare is useful to avoid cognitive dissonance.
However, if people started eating animals with net positive lives out of concerns about animal welfare, I would expect animal welfare to remain in people’s minds. I am also unsure about whether there is a conflict between animal rights and eating high welfare animals. If these had super good lives, and were killed without any pain (this could even occur at the end of their healthy lives, in which case the killing would actually be preventing their suffering, like euthanasia), I guess no rights would be violated.
Humans have a right to life, but whenever a human is born, it is being sentenced to death (in as much as we think the lifespan of the universe is finite). This is still fine as long as the human as a good life, so I would guess the same applies to animals.
That being said, I am open to abolitionist approaches being more effective than welfarist ones. I do not think it is obvious either way.
I have now watched Jeff’s talk.
If I understood correctly, the argument is that eating animals can lead people to disregard the welfare of animals. I agree this is currently the case, as most farmed animals have net negative lives, disregarding their welfare is useful to avoid cognitive dissonance.
However, if people started eating animals with net positive lives out of concerns about animal welfare, I would expect animal welfare to remain in people’s minds. I am also unsure about whether there is a conflict between animal rights and eating high welfare animals. If these had super good lives, and were killed without any pain (this could even occur at the end of their healthy lives, in which case the killing would actually be preventing their suffering, like euthanasia), I guess no rights would be violated.
Humans have a right to life, but whenever a human is born, it is being sentenced to death (in as much as we think the lifespan of the universe is finite). This is still fine as long as the human as a good life, so I would guess the same applies to animals.
That being said, I am open to abolitionist approaches being more effective than welfarist ones. I do not think it is obvious either way.