“everyone agrees that it’s wrong to harm a person a lot in order to produce a much smaller benefit for yourself.”
Two quibbles:
Harm is a subjective, and not really the point. A surgeon does some harm when performing surgery. The patient knows this, and hopes that the other effects of surgery will outweigh the harm. So the patient has given consent; that is, they have waived their right not to be cut open and fiddled with inside. This doesn’t depend on how likely it is to succeed, it depends on the patient giving consent after being adequately informed. Norms, obligations, rights, and consent are all closely intertwined in a single fabric. Leave one out and the others are useless. Consent is almost an exception, as we can (at least casually) imagine a world where everything was done according to norms and obligations, and no one ever gave consent. I haven’t got a nice counterexample, but I don’t think it would work. Which repairman should show up at my house if I don’t need to consent to let them in?
Someone might decide the contents of this post have done them great harm, but since their consent is not needed, no one should care. Harm is not an objective quantity that can be neatly measured, but even if it was, that would be beside the point. The question is, what norms are we committed to, what obligations and rights do those create, and who gets to consent to the waiving of rights or the dropping of obligations (same thing)?
Given the context of the post, it might seem better to rephrase the proposition as “everyone agrees that it’s wrong to cause great suffering in a person in order to produce a small benefit for yourself.”
So the proposition should be qualified to allow exceptions when either no norm prohibits the person from creating suffering, or when the subjects of the suffering have given proper consent.
Second quibble: If the proposition is true, what counts as a person? When should other moral agents consider the suffering of a creature relevant and when should they not? Or given the first quibble, who must/can consent when a creature is caused to suffer? Some people are very compassionate, and dread the suffering even of insects (e.g. the Jains). This is a valid emotion, but is it morally unquestionable?
Two quibbles is not enough to refute a point. But it is enough to make one suspect that more explanation is needed.
Dr. Huemer - You use "factory farming" in a way that I take to mean that animal farming in non factory-type circumstance would be of lower moral concern? I'm just trying to understand what you mean by using "factory" so consistently.
Animals on small farms (sometimes referred to as "family farms" - though most large farms are also family businesses too) tend to live a worse life than those on larger operations. That has to do with quality of facilities (water access, feed systems, etc), quality of feed, access to veterinarians and medication, and so on. Further, the worst examples of animal mistreatment I've seen or heard about were at small operations. When I say small, I'm referring to roughly <100 dairy cows or <500 sows. Perhaps all of those fall into "factory" for your use of the word, I just wanted to understand your distinction.
There seem to be a whole lot of people who think it's not wrong to harm someone for a tiny benefit, based upon what I think it means to choose to cause harm, namely people who make a strong active-passive distinction and think "allowing" preventable horrific suffering isn't causing.
If social opprobrium continues to be too limited for widespread change there is another solution in substitution: lab grown meat if it ever becomes economical and vegetable protein. Impossible Sausage and Beyond Cookout Classic burgers are so good I prefer them over animal meat. They currently cost more, but these companies have only been in business for eight and twelve years respectively. There is plenty of room for competition and innovation in this space to drive down costs and capture market share.
It's wildly more popular to share something that improves the lives of the people you care about rather than convincing them to diminish their lives for the benefit of others. Meat substitutes are great these days, spread the word!
>Q: Should we stop predators from killing other animals? This appears to be impossible, and even if it could be done, it would completely disrupt the ecology.
Michael is a vegetarian, so it’s understandable that he hasn’t interacted with the hunting community much. But this is wrong.
First, controlling predator populations is a prime goal of many wildlife divisions, and many hunters enjoy predator hunting. While we likely wouldn’t be able to get rid of some predators (e.g. coyotes), which already have bounties on them in many states, we totally could eradicate bear or cougar populations if it were legal.
Second, “the ecology” isn’t a thing. All wildlife is managed. The concept of “disrupting” this is simply confused. Indeed, what Michael likely considers to be the wildlife of Colorado, only exists because of Colorado’s management of the land, specifically in the issuance of hunting tags and permits.
Indeed, if Michael got his way, and everyone turned Vegan, this would cause a significant “disruption” to “the ecology”.
I very strongly disagree that eating insects is permissible. It's not at all obvious whether insects are conscious--I lean towards the view that they can. Additionally, because they're so small and inefficient, insect farming requires way more animals to be mistreated than other kinds of farming. For instance, about 98% of total animal years produced by the farming industry come from the honey industry. In light of that, not only are honey and silk impermissible, honey might even be among the worst animal products.
Equating factory farming with meat eating is wrong. Factory farming is horrible not because the owners are sadistic and enjoy torturing animals, but because capitalism leads to large corporations with no personal responsibility and pursuing maximum profits at all costs.
The consumers don't demand that the animals be tortured. In fact, they'd much rather prefer healthy animals who are not full of antibiotics and hormones.
Instead of trying to change 95% of population's mind, vegans and vegetarians should be trying to change policy for stricter regulations.
One could argue that this strategy of attacking meat eaters is immoral because of how ineffective it is. You're utilizing your energy for virtue signalling and feeling good about yourself instead of bringing some real change for those poor animals that are being tortured right now!
Our ancestors have been eating meat for millions of years. Our ancestors have been adapting to changing environments for millions of years. We survived this long. Best to keep doing what we’ve been doing.
That’s a good heuristic for generating priors but to be wise you must update based on evidence. The evidence is that veganism is healthy. It might not be optimal (I suspect it’s not) but it is certainly possible to survive and thrive without eating animals.
If you’re interested in being a better person in this way but skeptical of the potential harm to yourself, I recommend reducing your meat consumption and/or preferring more ethical meat. Steak is probably the best in terms of suffering caused since it’s a single death for a LOT of food, and cows usually live better lives than pigs and chickens.
Yes, we should keep adapting to changing conditions. This is why I wrote: ”Our ancestors have been adapting to changing environments for millions of years. We survived this long. Best to keep doing what we’ve been doing.“ That is to keep adapting. It makes sense to change our diets to fit our current situations while keeping in mind the past and our feelings, especially feelings of hunger for certain types of food and how those foods make us feel.
As Arie pointed out, this is a terrible heuristic. But, even on its own terms, this argument doesn't work. Factory farming has not been around for millions of years, and that's what Huemer is primarily targeting.
Being more confident that animals don't have rights than he is, I think that hunting is perfectly fine, and that's how people got meat before the dawning of agriculture.
I don't have anything against humanely farmed meat either, it's more expensive but it exists. And most North American beef cows don't have hellish lives either.
In my opinion animal advocates should encourage people to eat beef instead of poultry, eat less meat, and refrain from buying factory farmed eggs. That's a much easier sell than veganism and it eliminates the vast majority of animal suffering from your diet.
I like the Whole Foods approach espoused by John Mackey myself. Just picked up a copy of his Whole Foods Cookbook a few weeks ago. I’ve yet to delve into it though. Maybe Prof. Huemer should do a post on it.
Obesity and its consequences are not to be ignored. Daily exercise, fruit, vegetables, grains, dairy and meat works best for me. I don’t eat paleo.
Here’s the way I put it in my most recent post.
“I think it’s important to mention that humans aren’t fixed. We are still evolving. This raises certain questions as to how we should live our lives.
For example, should we eat paleo because that is our ‘true diet?’ That is the diet that we evolved with over most of the past 7 million years? Maybe.
But would eating paleo be best given that it’s 2024. The Paleolithic era is over and we might do better adapting to our current situation? I suppose my answer to this question is in what I eat. I don’t follow a strict paleo diet. But this is an example of a religious question.
What is the right answer to a religious question? It depends on you.“
"However, some animals are insentient, such as scallops & clams, so they’re fair game. Insects are probably also insentient, so, e.g., silk and honey products are probably fine."
What is the evidence for this?
"A: Most eggs & dairy are produced through factory farming, so that is also bad."
Does this not imply one should be vegan, rather than vegetarian?
I think moral philosophers are often concerned with staying terminologically consistent with very old literature and distancing from many non-philosopher vegans' notion that the term "vegan" is permanently bound to one person's particular definition from one organization.
I think rather, that while there is strong evidence for mammals being sentient, there is very little to no evidence with regards to certain bivalves (and, arguably, insects).
Intuitively, it makes sense. Sentience (the ability to have subjective experiences, including suffering) requires the presence of a certain apparatus. Not just nerves but complex nervous systems that perform certain functions. If the parts aren't there, how can there be the function? Bivalves have very simple nervous systems. It seems implausible that they should be able to suffer.
The case with insects is weaker than with bivalves. To be determined as science progresses.
I *think* Mike avoids the term veganism for the same reason he focuses on factory farming. He doesn't want to get bogged down in marginal details.
Huemer doesn't seem to *imply* that; he seems to explicitly say it.
I guess I might agree if I didn't think that higher-order effects like societal normalization and playing into false industry propaganda that animal products are necessary were sufficiently large.
“everyone agrees that it’s wrong to harm a person a lot in order to produce a much smaller benefit for yourself.”
Two quibbles:
Harm is a subjective, and not really the point. A surgeon does some harm when performing surgery. The patient knows this, and hopes that the other effects of surgery will outweigh the harm. So the patient has given consent; that is, they have waived their right not to be cut open and fiddled with inside. This doesn’t depend on how likely it is to succeed, it depends on the patient giving consent after being adequately informed. Norms, obligations, rights, and consent are all closely intertwined in a single fabric. Leave one out and the others are useless. Consent is almost an exception, as we can (at least casually) imagine a world where everything was done according to norms and obligations, and no one ever gave consent. I haven’t got a nice counterexample, but I don’t think it would work. Which repairman should show up at my house if I don’t need to consent to let them in?
Someone might decide the contents of this post have done them great harm, but since their consent is not needed, no one should care. Harm is not an objective quantity that can be neatly measured, but even if it was, that would be beside the point. The question is, what norms are we committed to, what obligations and rights do those create, and who gets to consent to the waiving of rights or the dropping of obligations (same thing)?
Given the context of the post, it might seem better to rephrase the proposition as “everyone agrees that it’s wrong to cause great suffering in a person in order to produce a small benefit for yourself.”
So the proposition should be qualified to allow exceptions when either no norm prohibits the person from creating suffering, or when the subjects of the suffering have given proper consent.
Second quibble: If the proposition is true, what counts as a person? When should other moral agents consider the suffering of a creature relevant and when should they not? Or given the first quibble, who must/can consent when a creature is caused to suffer? Some people are very compassionate, and dread the suffering even of insects (e.g. the Jains). This is a valid emotion, but is it morally unquestionable?
Two quibbles is not enough to refute a point. But it is enough to make one suspect that more explanation is needed.
Dr. Huemer - You use "factory farming" in a way that I take to mean that animal farming in non factory-type circumstance would be of lower moral concern? I'm just trying to understand what you mean by using "factory" so consistently.
Animals on small farms (sometimes referred to as "family farms" - though most large farms are also family businesses too) tend to live a worse life than those on larger operations. That has to do with quality of facilities (water access, feed systems, etc), quality of feed, access to veterinarians and medication, and so on. Further, the worst examples of animal mistreatment I've seen or heard about were at small operations. When I say small, I'm referring to roughly <100 dairy cows or <500 sows. Perhaps all of those fall into "factory" for your use of the word, I just wanted to understand your distinction.
There seem to be a whole lot of people who think it's not wrong to harm someone for a tiny benefit, based upon what I think it means to choose to cause harm, namely people who make a strong active-passive distinction and think "allowing" preventable horrific suffering isn't causing.
If social opprobrium continues to be too limited for widespread change there is another solution in substitution: lab grown meat if it ever becomes economical and vegetable protein. Impossible Sausage and Beyond Cookout Classic burgers are so good I prefer them over animal meat. They currently cost more, but these companies have only been in business for eight and twelve years respectively. There is plenty of room for competition and innovation in this space to drive down costs and capture market share.
It's wildly more popular to share something that improves the lives of the people you care about rather than convincing them to diminish their lives for the benefit of others. Meat substitutes are great these days, spread the word!
>Q: Should we stop predators from killing other animals? This appears to be impossible, and even if it could be done, it would completely disrupt the ecology.
Michael is a vegetarian, so it’s understandable that he hasn’t interacted with the hunting community much. But this is wrong.
First, controlling predator populations is a prime goal of many wildlife divisions, and many hunters enjoy predator hunting. While we likely wouldn’t be able to get rid of some predators (e.g. coyotes), which already have bounties on them in many states, we totally could eradicate bear or cougar populations if it were legal.
Second, “the ecology” isn’t a thing. All wildlife is managed. The concept of “disrupting” this is simply confused. Indeed, what Michael likely considers to be the wildlife of Colorado, only exists because of Colorado’s management of the land, specifically in the issuance of hunting tags and permits.
Indeed, if Michael got his way, and everyone turned Vegan, this would cause a significant “disruption” to “the ecology”.
I very strongly disagree that eating insects is permissible. It's not at all obvious whether insects are conscious--I lean towards the view that they can. Additionally, because they're so small and inefficient, insect farming requires way more animals to be mistreated than other kinds of farming. For instance, about 98% of total animal years produced by the farming industry come from the honey industry. In light of that, not only are honey and silk impermissible, honey might even be among the worst animal products.
I think what Huemer cares about among insects is pain, not consciousness.
Equating factory farming with meat eating is wrong. Factory farming is horrible not because the owners are sadistic and enjoy torturing animals, but because capitalism leads to large corporations with no personal responsibility and pursuing maximum profits at all costs.
The consumers don't demand that the animals be tortured. In fact, they'd much rather prefer healthy animals who are not full of antibiotics and hormones.
Instead of trying to change 95% of population's mind, vegans and vegetarians should be trying to change policy for stricter regulations.
One could argue that this strategy of attacking meat eaters is immoral because of how ineffective it is. You're utilizing your energy for virtue signalling and feeling good about yourself instead of bringing some real change for those poor animals that are being tortured right now!
Our ancestors have been eating meat for millions of years. Our ancestors have been adapting to changing environments for millions of years. We survived this long. Best to keep doing what we’ve been doing.
If vegetarianism works best for you, go ahead.
Humans have raped, tortured, and killed each other for just as long.
"Best to keep doing what we've been doing"?
In terms of best practices. We don’t stand a chance without meat.
That’s a good heuristic for generating priors but to be wise you must update based on evidence. The evidence is that veganism is healthy. It might not be optimal (I suspect it’s not) but it is certainly possible to survive and thrive without eating animals.
If you’re interested in being a better person in this way but skeptical of the potential harm to yourself, I recommend reducing your meat consumption and/or preferring more ethical meat. Steak is probably the best in terms of suffering caused since it’s a single death for a LOT of food, and cows usually live better lives than pigs and chickens.
A vegan diet is probably much healthier than what most people eat, provided you supplement with B12. The healthiest diets are plant-dominant.
Yes, we should keep adapting to changing conditions. This is why I wrote: ”Our ancestors have been adapting to changing environments for millions of years. We survived this long. Best to keep doing what we’ve been doing.“ That is to keep adapting. It makes sense to change our diets to fit our current situations while keeping in mind the past and our feelings, especially feelings of hunger for certain types of food and how those foods make us feel.
As Arie pointed out, this is a terrible heuristic. But, even on its own terms, this argument doesn't work. Factory farming has not been around for millions of years, and that's what Huemer is primarily targeting.
Being more confident that animals don't have rights than he is, I think that hunting is perfectly fine, and that's how people got meat before the dawning of agriculture.
But hunting cannot support the human population in 2024. Thus farming.
I don't have anything against humanely farmed meat either, it's more expensive but it exists. And most North American beef cows don't have hellish lives either.
In my opinion animal advocates should encourage people to eat beef instead of poultry, eat less meat, and refrain from buying factory farmed eggs. That's a much easier sell than veganism and it eliminates the vast majority of animal suffering from your diet.
I like the Whole Foods approach espoused by John Mackey myself. Just picked up a copy of his Whole Foods Cookbook a few weeks ago. I’ve yet to delve into it though. Maybe Prof. Huemer should do a post on it.
Here’s a moderate perspective that we might find agreement on. It’s been a while since I’ve seen it. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt5726712/
Yes our ancestors were eating meat but their average life expectancy was less than 40 - not old enough to develop heart disease.
In general, ancestral diets are not necessarily good indicators of healthy eating behaviors.
See here: https://www.the-nutrivore.com/post/should-we-eat-like-hunter-gatherers
.
Obesity and its consequences are not to be ignored. Daily exercise, fruit, vegetables, grains, dairy and meat works best for me. I don’t eat paleo.
Here’s the way I put it in my most recent post.
“I think it’s important to mention that humans aren’t fixed. We are still evolving. This raises certain questions as to how we should live our lives.
For example, should we eat paleo because that is our ‘true diet?’ That is the diet that we evolved with over most of the past 7 million years? Maybe.
But would eating paleo be best given that it’s 2024. The Paleolithic era is over and we might do better adapting to our current situation? I suppose my answer to this question is in what I eat. I don’t follow a strict paleo diet. But this is an example of a religious question.
What is the right answer to a religious question? It depends on you.“
"However, some animals are insentient, such as scallops & clams, so they’re fair game. Insects are probably also insentient, so, e.g., silk and honey products are probably fine."
What is the evidence for this?
"A: Most eggs & dairy are produced through factory farming, so that is also bad."
Does this not imply one should be vegan, rather than vegetarian?
For Huemer, ethical vegetarianism is ostroveganism.
Huemer is a vegan.
Oh okay. The post uses the phrase 'vegetarian', not 'vegan', so I'm assuming these claims are it is in relation to vegetarianism?
What people in philosophy call ethical vegetarianism usually is just veganism.
Yeah and it's terribly confusing terminology.
I think moral philosophers are often concerned with staying terminologically consistent with very old literature and distancing from many non-philosopher vegans' notion that the term "vegan" is permanently bound to one person's particular definition from one organization.
Is that where the definition of vegan comes from, though? I've never heard that.
Interesting. I was unaware of this distinction.
I think rather, that while there is strong evidence for mammals being sentient, there is very little to no evidence with regards to certain bivalves (and, arguably, insects).
Intuitively, it makes sense. Sentience (the ability to have subjective experiences, including suffering) requires the presence of a certain apparatus. Not just nerves but complex nervous systems that perform certain functions. If the parts aren't there, how can there be the function? Bivalves have very simple nervous systems. It seems implausible that they should be able to suffer.
The case with insects is weaker than with bivalves. To be determined as science progresses.
I *think* Mike avoids the term veganism for the same reason he focuses on factory farming. He doesn't want to get bogged down in marginal details.
No, it seems to imply that you can eat dairy and eggs from properly certified farms.
Huemer doesn't seem to *imply* that; he seems to explicitly say it.
I guess I might agree if I didn't think that higher-order effects like societal normalization and playing into false industry propaganda that animal products are necessary were sufficiently large.