I haven’t thought too much about this, but I think it’s worth taking a step back to put the poor meet-eater problem into perspective. Overall, I think a utilitarian strives to maximize the integral of utility over time from now until infinity, where utility is a function of the state of affairs (e.g. poverty, factory farms, etc.).
In that light, let me suggest the analogy of a utilitarian hiker who wants to climb the highest point, Mount Utility, and stay there forever to enjoy the view (let’s ignore plate tectonics forming a new higher mountain elsewhere). The hiker roughly knows the direction of Mount Utility—they need to keep moving towards less poverty and less factory farms. When they look at the map, however, they see that there is just one train connection. It goes to No Poverty Ville, where they can change to the Cultured Meat Express to Mount Utility. The problem is that No Poverty Ville is actually at 5 m lower see level than they are now; and maybe even 10 km further away from Mount Utility. But since there are no other train lines, to maximize the integral of utility over time, they start the journey.
Now I don’t know the parameters of the poor meat-eater problem (maybe Current Town is quite high above sea level, No Poverty Town is super low, there is a super long layover to take the Cultured Meat Express, maybe there is a real nice railroad under construction that does not go through a utility valley). This comment is just to illustrate that sometimes it can be worth taking paths through utility valleys.
I haven’t thought too much about this, but I think it’s worth taking a step back to put the poor meet-eater problem into perspective. Overall, I think a utilitarian strives to maximize the integral of utility over time from now until infinity, where utility is a function of the state of affairs (e.g. poverty, factory farms, etc.).
In that light, let me suggest the analogy of a utilitarian hiker who wants to climb the highest point, Mount Utility, and stay there forever to enjoy the view (let’s ignore plate tectonics forming a new higher mountain elsewhere). The hiker roughly knows the direction of Mount Utility—they need to keep moving towards less poverty and less factory farms. When they look at the map, however, they see that there is just one train connection. It goes to No Poverty Ville, where they can change to the Cultured Meat Express to Mount Utility. The problem is that No Poverty Ville is actually at 5 m lower see level than they are now; and maybe even 10 km further away from Mount Utility. But since there are no other train lines, to maximize the integral of utility over time, they start the journey.
Now I don’t know the parameters of the poor meat-eater problem (maybe Current Town is quite high above sea level, No Poverty Town is super low, there is a super long layover to take the Cultured Meat Express, maybe there is a real nice railroad under construction that does not go through a utility valley). This comment is just to illustrate that sometimes it can be worth taking paths through utility valleys.