Thanks for this interesting discussion; for others who read this and were interested, I thought I’dlinksomepreviousEAdiscussions on this topic in case it’s helpful :)
One brief addition: I think the kind of conscientious omnivorism you describe (‘I do try to only consume animals I think have had reasonable welfare levels’) might have similar opportunity costs to veg*ism, and there’s some not very conclusive psychological literature to suggest that, since it is a finer grained rule than ‘eat no animals’, it might even be harder to follow.
Obviously, this depends very much on what we mean by opportunity cost, and it also depends on how one goes about only trying to eat happy animals. I’m not sure what the best answer to either of those questions is.
Thanks for this interesting discussion; for others who read this and were interested, I thought I’d link some previous EA discussions on this topic in case it’s helpful :)
One brief addition: I think the kind of conscientious omnivorism you describe (‘I do try to only consume animals I think have had reasonable welfare levels’) might have similar opportunity costs to veg*ism, and there’s some not very conclusive psychological literature to suggest that, since it is a finer grained rule than ‘eat no animals’, it might even be harder to follow.
Obviously, this depends very much on what we mean by opportunity cost, and it also depends on how one goes about only trying to eat happy animals. I’m not sure what the best answer to either of those questions is.