The shortest answer is that I find the “Meat Eater Problem” repugnant and indicitative of defective moral reasoning that, if applied at scale, would lead to great moral harm.
My underlying reasoning is that one should increase impartial welfare instead of human welfare, and I think striving to be impartial leads to better outcomes, not great moral harm. Taking the meat-eater problem seriously implies caring a lot more about animals, not at all killing people (which is what you might be implying with “great moral harm”). If more people took effects on animals as seriously as people worried about the meat-eater problem do, this would be majorly mitigated, as the consumption of animals with bad lives would decrease a lot.
Instead, naïve hedonistic utilitarians should be asking themselves
Neglecting uncertain effects and overconfidence are hallmarks of naive utilitarianism, but I would say these apply more to supporters of extending human lives than to people worried about the meat-eater problem.
By ignoring uncertain effects on farmed animals, GiveWell and Ambitious Impact are implicitly assuming they are certainly irrelevant. I find this view quite extreme, given the large uncertainty involved, and I am not aware of GiveWell or Ambitious Impact having justified it in anything close to sufficient detail.
I do not take the numbers I present at face value.
Nevertheless, I am not confident that saving human lives globally, and in China, India or Nigeria is harmful to animals:
Even if it is so for farmed animals nearterm, it can still be beneficial overall. For example, I wouldsay at least chickens’ lives can become positive over the next few decades in some animal-friendly countries.
Many of my modelled inputs are highly uncertain. However, this means extending human lives globally, and in China, India and Nigeria may be, in the nearterm, not only beneficial, but also hugely harmful.
Hi JWS.
My underlying reasoning is that one should increase impartial welfare instead of human welfare, and I think striving to be impartial leads to better outcomes, not great moral harm. Taking the meat-eater problem seriously implies caring a lot more about animals, not at all killing people (which is what you might be implying with “great moral harm”). If more people took effects on animals as seriously as people worried about the meat-eater problem do, this would be majorly mitigated, as the consumption of animals with bad lives would decrease a lot.
Neglecting uncertain effects and overconfidence are hallmarks of naive utilitarianism, but I would say these apply more to supporters of extending human lives than to people worried about the meat-eater problem.
I do not take the numbers I present at face value.