Thanks for this thoughtful piece. I really appreciate the pragmatic framing and the effort to look beyond the binary of vegan vs. non-vegan.
That said, I’d like to challenge the heuristic that the bigger the animal, the better, based on the idea that fewer individuals are killed per calorie. While it’s true that, for example, chickens’ small size increases the number of animals killed, higher-order consequences might shift the overall moral cost calculation.
Compared to chickens, cows live much longer, may suffer more intensely, produce more greenhouse gas emissions, and require far more land, contributing to biodiversity loss and causing additional animal deaths through crop production. So, when factoring in these broader effects, chickens might actually be the preferable choice, even putting aside that they arguably offer better nutrition per calorie.
Curious how you see these downstream consequences factoring into the argument.
Thanks for this thoughtful piece. I really appreciate the pragmatic framing and the effort to look beyond the binary of vegan vs. non-vegan.
That said, I’d like to challenge the heuristic that the bigger the animal, the better, based on the idea that fewer individuals are killed per calorie. While it’s true that, for example, chickens’ small size increases the number of animals killed, higher-order consequences might shift the overall moral cost calculation.
Compared to chickens, cows live much longer, may suffer more intensely, produce more greenhouse gas emissions, and require far more land, contributing to biodiversity loss and causing additional animal deaths through crop production. So, when factoring in these broader effects, chickens might actually be the preferable choice, even putting aside that they arguably offer better nutrition per calorie.
Curious how you see these downstream consequences factoring into the argument.