Hi Vasco, thanks for the answer and the upvote (I guess it was you).
I actually (lightly) downvoted your initial comment because you broadly dismissed the arguments made in the post by asserting they are value-dependent without engaging with the implied empirical claims. There is a sense in which everything is value-dependent, so I find this type of language very unproductive.
I upvoted your last comment about the content.
Even if it would be true that most people feel like this, you cannot pretend that most people feel the same way about a pet than about a random animal, less so about what they regard as food.
Agreed. However, the question is whether there is a relevant difference between causing pain to a random pet and random chicken. Rethink Prioritiesâ median welfare ranges of chickens and pigs are 0.332 and 0.515 (humans have the reference value of 1), so I expect the difference to be quite small from an hedonistic perspective.
It is great that you base your arguments on other peopleâs research. Then add a sentence or two clarifying it (in addition, this would add some information on the values you used). All these are very speculative still, but this is not the issue -though it could be mentioned.
The issue with your post is that you claim something you do not demonstrate at all. If youâd framed the post as something similar to âReplacing chicken meat with beef or pork: pain vs emissions analysisâ, your post would be really very good. I still think you should add some description to the values used, but just including the reference from RP would probably suffice for this. And if itâd include the information that replacing chicken with no-meat does not move the needle nearly as much as replacing it for beef or pork, it would be even better, as this is very relevant context.
But this is not what you do. You have done very interesting and useful calculations. But your claims go much, much further than what you can claim with them. You narrow your analysis to a comparison of two specific aspects of the issue, basically neglecting the rest. I hope you see that the issue goes beyond pain and emissions. You most likely think that these two aspects are the most important ones for the analysis but do no support -or even mention- this. Doing it would probably clarify the values behind your analysisâif you really want to go broad. Or you could just say sth like âassuming pain and emissions are the driving aspects of this problem...â. But do not even do this.
A stupid example. Thereâs people who care mostly about the amount of pleasure in the universe and (claim) not to care much for suffering. Assuming chickens get some pleasure at all in their lives, the amount of pleasure in the universe would increase by eating more chicken and less pork or beef. Even if they currently wouldnât experience any pleasure, the potential would be huge⌠and the analysis completely opposite to yours. And this is not taking into account any other aspects than animal pleasure.
I am sure you see all this, and that you wanted to write as short an essay as possible. But to do this, then you have to be very specificâotherwise, a very good analysis like yours ends up not holding the water you claim it holds.
I actually (lightly) downvoted your initial comment because you broadly dismissed the arguments made in the post by asserting they are value-dependent without engaging with the implied empirical claims. There is a sense in which everything is value-dependent, so I find this type of language very unproductive.
I upvoted your last comment about the content.
Agreed. However, the question is whether there is a relevant difference between causing pain to a random pet and random chicken. Rethink Prioritiesâ median welfare ranges of chickens and pigs are 0.332 and 0.515 (humans have the reference value of 1), so I expect the difference to be quite small from an hedonistic perspective.
Hi Vasco, merry Christmas and so on!
It is great that you base your arguments on other peopleâs research. Then add a sentence or two clarifying it (in addition, this would add some information on the values you used). All these are very speculative still, but this is not the issue -though it could be mentioned.
The issue with your post is that you claim something you do not demonstrate at all. If youâd framed the post as something similar to âReplacing chicken meat with beef or pork: pain vs emissions analysisâ, your post would be really very good. I still think you should add some description to the values used, but just including the reference from RP would probably suffice for this. And if itâd include the information that replacing chicken with no-meat does not move the needle nearly as much as replacing it for beef or pork, it would be even better, as this is very relevant context.
But this is not what you do. You have done very interesting and useful calculations. But your claims go much, much further than what you can claim with them. You narrow your analysis to a comparison of two specific aspects of the issue, basically neglecting the rest. I hope you see that the issue goes beyond pain and emissions. You most likely think that these two aspects are the most important ones for the analysis but do no support -or even mention- this. Doing it would probably clarify the values behind your analysisâif you really want to go broad. Or you could just say sth like âassuming pain and emissions are the driving aspects of this problem...â. But do not even do this.
A stupid example. Thereâs people who care mostly about the amount of pleasure in the universe and (claim) not to care much for suffering. Assuming chickens get some pleasure at all in their lives, the amount of pleasure in the universe would increase by eating more chicken and less pork or beef. Even if they currently wouldnât experience any pleasure, the potential would be huge⌠and the analysis completely opposite to yours. And this is not taking into account any other aspects than animal pleasure.
I am sure you see all this, and that you wanted to write as short an essay as possible. But to do this, then you have to be very specificâotherwise, a very good analysis like yours ends up not holding the water you claim it holds.