From a consequentialist perspective, I think what matters more is how these options affect your psychology and epistemics (in particular, whether doing this will increase or decrease your speciesist bias, and whether doing this makes you uncomfortable), instead of the amount of suffering they directly produce or reduce. After all, your major impact on the world is from your words and actions, not what you eat.
That being said, I think non-consequentialist views deserve some considerations too, if only due to moral uncertainty. I’m less certain about what are their implications though, especially when taking into account things like WAS.
A few minor notes to your points:
In terms of monetary cost, I think the cost of buying vitamin supplements is approximately cancelled out by the cost of buying meat.
At least where I live, vitamin supplements can be super cheap if you go for the pharmaceutical products instead of those health products wrapped up in fancy packages. I’m taking 5 kinds of supplements simultaneously, and in total they cost me no more than (the RMB equivalent of) several dollars per month.
Also, I wouldn’t eat any meat out of the house, so you can assume that the impact of my eating on my friends is irrelevant.
It might be hard to hide that from your friends if you are eating meat when being alone. All the time people mindlessly say things they aren’t supposed to say. Also when your friends ask you about your eating habit you’ll have to lie, which might be a bad thing even for consequentialists.
From a consequentialist perspective, I think what matters more is how these options affect your psychology and epistemics (in particular, whether doing this will increase or decrease your speciesist bias, and whether doing this makes you uncomfortable), instead of the amount of suffering they directly produce or reduce. After all, your major impact on the world is from your words and actions, not what you eat.
That being said, I think non-consequentialist views deserve some considerations too, if only due to moral uncertainty. I’m less certain about what are their implications though, especially when taking into account things like WAS.
A few minor notes to your points:
At least where I live, vitamin supplements can be super cheap if you go for the pharmaceutical products instead of those health products wrapped up in fancy packages. I’m taking 5 kinds of supplements simultaneously, and in total they cost me no more than (the RMB equivalent of) several dollars per month.
It might be hard to hide that from your friends if you are eating meat when being alone. All the time people mindlessly say things they aren’t supposed to say. Also when your friends ask you about your eating habit you’ll have to lie, which might be a bad thing even for consequentialists.
Thanks, these are really interesting and useful thoughts!
Might be irrelevant, but have you considered moving to the US for the increased salary?
Thanks for the suggestion, but I’m currently in college, so it’s impossible for me to move :)