Bestiality!

J@m3z Aitch in reply to Shazbot5 says:

all we lose from meat is gustatory pleasure

Unfortunately, this is where utilitarianism struggles. How can we measure and compare our utility from gustatory pleasure with another species utility from life? On the surface it seems evident that dying’s disutility surely outweighs gustatory utility, but that conclusion seems to rely on assumptions about inter-special (someone give me a better word, please!) equivalency in utility perception.

Another complicating factor is that in a meatless world, there’d be far fewer agricultual animals than there are now. If, as was suggested to me above, living a fairly miserable life is superior to not living, then a vast reduction in farm animals might, ceteris paribus, cause a vast reduction in net utility.

Offsetting that, though, is that feeding people directly with vegetable matter would require less cropland than does feeding people indirectly with vegetable matter, via the intervening animal. (My understanding is that, iirc, there’s only ten percent efficiency in transferring caloric energy from grain through cows to human, compared to consuming grains directly). So that might leave more land for wildlife. But would the amount of wildlife equal the lost domestic animals?

And how would we compare the utility of wild vs, domestic agricultural animals? There’s been criticism here of industrial animal operations, but I find that term overly broad. Some practices strike us as horrible, and despite the conceptual problem of measuring other species’ utility, I’m willing to agree wholeheartedly (what I know of veal operations, or some chicken “factories,” to use a loaded term). But I’ve been on industrial scale dairy farms that treat the animals well. The feed is high quality, because it results in better milk, and the cows, while confined within barns, are free to move about and their bedding is cleaned regularly. (Not that there aren’t other legitimate criticismsnof such operations, such as extensive use of antibiotics and difficulty in managing their nutrient/waste streams, too often resulting in waste overflows into local waterways, but I’m just focusing on animal utility here.)

And while living free and wild sounds wonderful, in a romantic sort of way, let’s not forget thst nature can be red in tooth and claw, wild animals are often diseased and parasite ridden, and we know factually that most wild animals live longer and healthier lives in captivity.

I’m not trying to make an argument either for or against meat consumption. In fact I say this as someone who becomes more uncomfortable with meat consumption each time I teach environmental politics (even though I teach it from a fairly conservative, not Look-How-We’re-Destroying-The-Environment!!, perspective), and who is working on substantially reducing his meat consumption. I’m just noting the difficulties I see in using a utilitarian analysis (and of course I’m something of a utilitarian, but as you may know, ine who believes utility is subjective and not directly comparable). And perhaps Singer has satisfactorily covered this and I just am unaware of his response.

Sorry if folks find this comment ridiculously lengthy. That’s what happens when I decide to take an Adderal. 😉Report