I suppose I agree with this. And I’ve been mulling over why it still seems like the wrong way to think about it to me, and I think it’s that I find it rather short-termist. In the short term if farms shut down they might be replaced with nature, with even less happy animals, it’s true. But in the long term opposing speciesism is the only way to achieve a world with happy beings. Clearly the kinds of farms @NickLaing is talking about, with lives worth living but still pretty miserable, are not optimal. Figuring out whether they are worth living or not seems only relevant to trying to reduce suffering in the short term, but not so much in the long term, because in the long term this isn’t what we want anyway.
I suppose I agree with this. And I’ve been mulling over why it still seems like the wrong way to think about it to me, and I think it’s that I find it rather short-termist. In the short term if farms shut down they might be replaced with nature, with even less happy animals, it’s true. But in the long term opposing speciesism is the only way to achieve a world with happy beings. Clearly the kinds of farms @NickLaing is talking about, with lives worth living but still pretty miserable, are not optimal. Figuring out whether they are worth living or not seems only relevant to trying to reduce suffering in the short term, but not so much in the long term, because in the long term this isn’t what we want anyway.