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i mostly enjoyed reading this. it's uncommon and well-argued except the end. i think you hurt it by ending with a barb.
i agree with the ultimate goal of minimizing potential suffering, but i don't believe cows or chickens possess a meaningful capacity to suffer. pigs probably suffer more but still not at the level i would agree with an ethical obligation to make broad changes. i am also wary of the wealthy and powerful pushing vegetarianism and veganism by ethical or climate arguments while they have no intention of changing their diets.
but i'll say again, i agree with the ultimate goal. when it is possible and price-competitive to industrialize lab-grown meat, and so we no longer need factory farming to fill consumer demand, at that point i believe we will be ethically obligated to end such practices, but not until that point.
in short, i believe humans have the right to consume meat because i do not believe animals experience meaningful suffering, but when it becomes widely practicable to replace factory-slaughtered meat consumption with lab-grown meat consumption then we will be obligated to do so.
How does this work on the substrate level? You may like pigs more or whatever but they're clearly organisms on the same level of sophistication as cows. (Naturally humans are not far off from either)
pigs are probably more intelligent than cows. if they are, and if cows do experience meaningful suffering in the environment of a factory farm, pigs subject to comparable conditions would suffer more. greater intelligence, greater awareness, greater experience of suffering.
if they're not, then i'd just strike "pigs probably suffer more." though i strike that already now, as i don't believe any common meat livestock has an internal observer capable of experiencing suffering.
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While, as an omnivore, I can't really disagree with you in practice, the word "meaningful" seems to do a lot of work. What is the difference between meaningful suffering and meaningless suffering?
that, for example, chickens are meat automatons; that no chicken possess an even-for-a-chicken subjective experience of being. a free-range chicken might be far healthier than a tightly caged chicken, its diet better and its environmentally-caused pain and aggregate stress minimized so its meat and eggs are better quality than the other, but because there is nothing inside its head it's meaningless to say the free-range chicken has "experienced a better life" than a tightly caged chicken. neither are capable of experiencing life. i'm mostly sure of the same of cows, but the only beef i buy i know the supply chain and those cows certainly had "good" lives. same for the pork.
i was thinking on how certain i'd say i am, but i realized there's a contradiction in my argument. i'm sure enough right now animals can't suffer we shouldn't change anything, but when lab-grown meat is commonly available the possibility animals have been suffering is enough to demand action? that would mean my argument in truth is "animals are probably suffering, but what are you gonna do, go vegan?" that doesn't hold ethically.
but i'm sure there's nothing wrong with consuming slaughtered meat right now . . . just as i'm sure it will be wrong to consume slaughtered meat when lab-grown is commonly available. i guess it's necessity. when we don't have to bring chickens and cows and pigs into this world to get their meat, then it will be wrong to, and i guess i can square this all by extending that to any slaughtered meat. even in the future of "artisanal" free-range chicken and lovingly raised cows and pigs. if chicken thighs and steak and bacon can be acquired through kill-free processes, that will be the only ethical way to consume meat, at least for those with the true economic choice.
On what grounds? As far as I know, the physiology of pain responses is not significantly different between humans and non-human vertebrates, and a subjective experience of pain explains their behavior in response to harm at least as well as the alternative. We can't of course know for a fact what goes on in the head of other species, but that goes for humans as well.
It doesn't seem all that contradictory to me. You can very well say that eating animal meat is justified if (Utility of eating animals - utility of not eating animals) > (harm of eating animals - harm of not eating animals) * probability of that harm occurring (to cover the possibility that you're right about animal suffering). Widespread availability of lab-grown meat will increase the utility of not eating animals by providing a hopefully satisfactory alternative, thus decreasing the relative value of eating them, while the harm would be unchanged.
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