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Consistent Vegetarianism and the Suffering of Wild Animals

jpe.ox.ac.uk

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Re: Consistent Vegetarianism and the Suffering of Wild Animals

#51

Post by CuriouslyC »

schoen wrote: post #23

I'm a long-term vegetarian animal rights supporter and I support the publication of work like this, even though many people take it as a sort of anti-vegetarian propaganda, because I think this is how we make progress in understanding issues! Very often in academic philosophy people write papers that say "relatively widespread position X seems to have weird consequence Y", which then provides possible evidence agains…

Predators are in a sense moral agents - assuming you accept that maintaining equilibrium of the system in which they exist is good - because without predators prey invariably destroy their habitats.

Re: Consistent Vegetarianism and the Suffering of Wild Animals

#52

Post by magic_beans »

afandian wrote: post #14
magic_beans wrote: post #3

> From the abstract: "Ethical consequentialist vegetarians believe that farmed animals have lives that are worse than non-existence." This article assumes that people are vegetarians because they are sad for farm animals... Absolutely untrue. The largest concentrated majority of vegetarians in the world are vegetarians for religious reasons, under the belief that eating animals is an act of violence we have a moral r…

The abstract is necessarily shorter than the paper. If you read as far as the second sentence of the paper you will see your point addressed.

I did read the whole paper ;)

Re: Consistent Vegetarianism and the Suffering of Wild Animals

#53

Post by elif »

DominikPeters wrote: post #20
elif wrote: post #12

His comparison of very low estimates of livestock population (a 2004 estimate of 17B chicken compared to the 2009 estimate of 50B https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poultry_farming#World_chicken_... ) to the entire wild animal population is a particularly negligent simplification, and the cherry-picked stats and inexplicable use of scientific notation for 60B and common notation for 17B show his motive for it. The fact is…

I think the two estimates you mention are different things: 17B is the population of chickens alive in a single moment, 50B for number slaughtered in a year. (Broiler chickens live much less than a year.) The comparison of farm and wild population sizes is relevant, because humans have control over both the size of the chicken population (through choice of eating habits) and the size of wild animal populations (throu…

How do I have control over wild animal population? Hunting?

Is the implication that hunting a wild bird whose individual suffering I have ascertained is somehow a preferable alternative to picking a box from the shelf that says chikn nuggets instead of one which says chicken nuggets?

Or am I to believe that all wild animals suffer equivalently because of some hand wavey quantification of an academic in some no name journal?

Re: Consistent Vegetarianism and the Suffering of Wild Animals

#54

Post by magic_beans »

cjbprime wrote: post #5
magic_beans wrote: post #3

> From the abstract: "Ethical consequentialist vegetarians believe that farmed animals have lives that are worse than non-existence." This article assumes that people are vegetarians because they are sad for farm animals... Absolutely untrue. The largest concentrated majority of vegetarians in the world are vegetarians for religious reasons, under the belief that eating animals is an act of violence we have a moral r…

It doesn't assume that. Those religious vegetarians are not "Ethical consequentialist vegetarians". Consequentialism is an ethical framework, so consequentalist vegetarians are vegetarian for ethical reasons.

The paper assumes that people are vegetarians because they believe farm animals have worse lives than wild animals... which is a heftily false assumption to begin with.

Re: Consistent Vegetarianism and the Suffering of Wild Animals

#55

Post by magic_beans »

nileshtrivedi wrote: post #8
cjbprime wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't assume that. Those religious vegetarians are not "Ethical consequentialist vegetarians". Consequentialism is an ethical framework, so consequentalist vegetarians are vegetarian for ethical reasons.

"Avoding voilence" is not an ethical reason?

Did YOU read the paper?

Re: Consistent Vegetarianism and the Suffering of Wild Animals

#56

Post by muninn_ »

schoen wrote: post #49
muninn_ wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I reject that as an appropriate or meaningful subset of what it means to be vegetarian, hence my comment. It's basically nonsense as far as I'm concerned. Do you have any supporting view of ethical consequentialist vegetarianism as a sound philosophical position or argument?

The foundational work that advances this view is Peter Singer's Animal Liberation , from 1975, and a whole bunch of other philosophers have written about it since then.

Thank you. This looks like a book I should read.

Re: Consistent Vegetarianism and the Suffering of Wild Animals

#57

Post by DominikPeters »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #51
schoen wrote: post #23

I'm a long-term vegetarian animal rights supporter and I support the publication of work like this, even though many people take it as a sort of anti-vegetarian propaganda, because I think this is how we make progress in understanding issues! Very often in academic philosophy people write papers that say "relatively widespread position X seems to have weird consequence Y", which then provides possible evidence agains…

Predators are in a sense moral agents - assuming you accept that maintaining equilibrium of the system in which they exist is good - because without predators prey invariably destroy their habitats.

"Moral agents" are usually taken to be those beings that can make moral judgements. Wikipedia says: 'Moral agency is an individual's ability to make moral judgments based on some notion of right and wrong and to be held accountable for these actions. A moral agent is "a being who is capable of acting with reference to right and wrong."' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_agency)

Re: Consistent Vegetarianism and the Suffering of Wild Animals

#58

Post by cjbprime »

TillE wrote: post #38
cjbprime wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's specifically talking about ethical consequentalism, which is related to utilitarianism -- the idea that you should act in a way to maximize happiness and minimize suffering. Some vegetarians are not consequentialists, and so they can reject this argument for the reason you describe, but I know many who are.

I've been around a lot of hardcore vegans, and literally none of them would subscribe to the bizarre abstract philosophy of "minimizing suffering" in the wild. It's an absurdity. The idea is to remove human causes of destruction, not to intervene in nature to manufacture some kind of utopia. Again, absurd. Essentially nobody would actually believe this, aside from philosophical masturbation.

That's the point of the paper, though, right? The paper compels them to explain why they find it okay to dismiss the idea as absurd, if they want to consider themselves as being ethically consistent regarding animal suffering.

Re: Consistent Vegetarianism and the Suffering of Wild Animals

#59

Post by afandian »

magic_beans wrote: post #52
afandian wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The abstract is necessarily shorter than the paper. If you read as far as the second sentence of the paper you will see your point addressed.

I did read the whole paper ;)

OK sorry!

Re: Consistent Vegetarianism and the Suffering of Wild Animals

#60

Post by pera »

schoen wrote: post #23

I'm a long-term vegetarian animal rights supporter and I support the publication of work like this, even though many people take it as a sort of anti-vegetarian propaganda, because I think this is how we make progress in understanding issues! Very often in academic philosophy people write papers that say "relatively widespread position X seems to have weird consequence Y", which then provides possible evidence agains…

I understand your point, but don't you think that referring to "ethical consequentialist vegetarians" as "consistent vegetarians" or simply "vegetarians" is a bit dishonest? I'm also a long-term vegetarian and animal rights supporter, same my family and many of my friends; I think I have never met an ethical consequentialist vegetarian in my entire life... I believe this article says more about consequentialism than vegetarianism in "general" (if there is such a thing).
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