Walter Block wrote a reply to Huemer on ethical vegetarianism. His reply was riddled with errors, so I thought it would be worth refuting line by line. Block in Block quotes (pun intended) — I’m not.
Let’s first just remember Huemer’s argument — it’s wrong to cause vast suffering for trivial reason. Eating meat does that. So it’s wrong. The first claim is obvious and the second claim is an indisputable empirical fact.
I am a libertarian. I view most tractates on political economy, of which Huemer [33] is certainly one, through the perspective of this philosophy. I shall be thorough in my examination of this author’s support for vegetarianism, but only from that perspective. I do so because this author, too, is a libertarian [30, 31, 32], and my claim shall be that his support for animals is contrary to that overall perspective of his.
Libertarianism is a political philosophy advocating limited government. It does not, however, have much to say about lots of areas of philosophy — there’s no ready libertarian solution to population ethics, animal ethics, or whether tornadoes are bad. Tornadoes don’t violate the non-aggression principle, but they’re still clearly bad. Thus, merely claiming that libertarianism has nothing to say about a subject is woefully insufficient to prove that libertarians should have nothing to say about the topic. Libertarians, just like non-libertarians should agree with correct ethical views and disagree with incorrect ethical views — if there’s a compelling argument against eating meat, libertarians should be persuaded of it, just as non-libertarians should.
This book [33]1 appears as a dialogue, or a debate, between two college students, M and V. The former, presumably, standing for “meat-eater” or, supporter of meat eating, while the latter articulates the viewpoint of the vegan, vegetarian, or opponent of eating meat. My method shall be to quote elements of their debate, and subject them to a libertarian2 analysis.3 Let us begin [33, p. 2].
M: … So what made you give up meat?
V: I figured out that meat-eating is morally wrong.
M: So if you were stranded on a lifeboat, about to die of starvation, and there was nothing to eat except a chicken, would you eat it?
V: Of course.
M: Aha! So you don’t really think meat-eating is wrong.
V: When I say something is wrong, I don’t mean it’s wrong in every conceivable circumstance. After all, just about anything is okay in some possible circumstance. I just mean that it is wrong in the typical circumstances we are actually in.
How does this compare to libertarianism? First of all, this philosophy does not pertain to all of ethics, in which fits V’s (Huemer’s) “okay” and “wrong.” Rather, it deals with, solely, a small aspect of the freedom viewpoint. As a first approximation, it asks only one question, and gives only one answer. The question: when is the use of force, or violence, or threat, justified? The answer: only in response to a previous rights violation: the prior use of force, or violence, or threat thereof. But we can narrow this down even further: libertarianism is, at bottom, a punishment theory; it offers the proper response to rights violations. It is almost, but not quite, indifferent on whether or not initiatory violence should occur. But it is adamant that if it does, then it is justified to pay back the criminal in kind.
If libertarianism only pertains to when the use of force is justified, then it should pertain to the eating of animals. After all, force and violence are employed against animals. But, if what Block means is something more limited — for example, the use of force against humans — then libertarianism doesn’t have anything to say about it; but then we can apply other principles. One couldn’t reasonably object to the claim that one ought to save the world if they can at no personal cost by pointing out that that has nothing to do with libertarianism — if libertarianism is going to be so restrictive as to only be about the use of force in a way that doesn’t apply to eating meat, then it will be unable to cover lots of important ethical questions; if it can’t cover those, then it shouldn’t be shoehorned into every dispute. Providing a libertarian analysis of animal rights will then be as bizarre as providing a libertarian analysis of saving the world, before arguing one has no moral reason to save the world because it has nothing to do with the initiation of force. Block is a hammer — in this case, the hammer is libertarianism — in search of a nail.
Second, my libertarianism brooks no exceptions. None, zero. His ethics does. I take that as a weakness. Vegetarianism can hardly be a strong ethical principle if even its strongest proponent allows exceptions to it.
This is a deeply confused remark. What ethical vegetarianism means, as defined by Huemer, is just that it’s typically wrong to eat meat, in the situation that most of us find ourselves in, to eat meat. If we call ethical nonkillism as the idea that it’s typically wrong to kill people, Block would agree with that. While the most fundamental principles may not have exceptions, they may lead to higher order rules that do have exceptions. This is obviously true — as long as Block thinks that it’s typically wrong to kill people, his ethical system must allow higher order principles which admit of exceptions.
To make this clear, I’ll spell things out: I’m a utilitarian. Thus, I think one should never, if deciding between A and B when A produces more utility, do B. This typically leads to the result that it’s wrong to eat meat, even if there are possible worlds where it doesn’t. The fundamental principle has no exceptions — the higher order heuristic does.
Our author’s next sally is this [33. p. 4]: “V: Okay. It also seems to me that it’s wrong to cause a very large amount of something bad, for the sake of some minor good. Would you agree with that?” I part company with him on this query for several reasons. First, this, too, has nothing to do with libertarianism. It is a matter, instead, of utilitarianism. Now, of course, the two are not totally unrelated. But they are not synonyms for each other either. And, as I say, my interests are in the former, not the latter.
Whether a principle is uninteresting to Block has nothing to do with whether it’s correct. If we reflect on the principle that it’s long to cause a ton of bad things for the sake of a minor good, it seems very obvious. The fact that Block doesn’t care much about this principle doesn’t go to whether it’s true. Huemer, in his reply to Block, gives the following hilarious response
For instance, Block avers that he does not care whether it is unethical for a large corporation to drive a small company out of business, because libertarianism doesn’t say anything about that [1, p. 54]. He goes on to explain that libertarians qua libertarians are “not at all interested” in whether torturing animals is morally alright, since libertarians only care about the question of what constitutes just law [1, p. 55] (plus, to a small degree, whether initiation of force is alright [1, p. 54]). I find this bizarre. If Block were completely uninterested in moral questions, I could at least understand that, for that is how psychopaths are. But he avows interest in one type of ethical question: the question of when it is morally acceptable to coercively punish someone for some action. He allegedly doesn’t care about any other kind of wrong, or any other problem, besides the problem of unjust law (or lack of law) – because that, in Block’s view, is what libertarianism is about. (But see section 4 below for contrary indications.) Imagine a libertarian hospital run by Walter Block’s cousin, Doctor Joe Block.
A patient comes to see Dr. Block about a medical problem:
Patient: Doctor, I’m feeling a pain in my chest.
Block: Was it caused by force or fraud?
Patient: What? Of course not.
Block: Then stop complaining and go home.
Patient: But I think I might be having a heart attack!
Block: Having a heart attack and not having a heart attack are both compatible with libertarianism. So, as a libertarian, I am not at all interested in that.
Next Block says
Second, this point is vulnerable to a counter-example. The masochist seeks pain, not instrumentally, but as an explicit goal.
I think suffering has to, by definition, be the type of thing that one wouldn’t want if they were fully rational. Thus, the masochists “pain” wouldn’t really be suffering — as long as a rational version of them would want that mental state, it’s not suffering. But also, even if we grant that suffering is occasionally good — such as in the masochist case — this wouldn’t apply to the torture of animals.
As far as libertarianism is concerned, pain is irrelevant. They say that “location, location, location” is the be all and end all of real estate. Well, “rights, rights and rights” play a similar role for laissez faire capitalism, and this example of Huemer’s is orthogonal to that concept.
But lots of things are immoral even when they don’t violate rights. It’s immoral to cheat on your spouse, kick your dog, or be rude to little old ladies crossing the street, making fun of their dead children. Maybe these are immoral in ways that libertarianism has nothing to say about, but they’re immoral nonetheless.
A similar objection pertains to this statement: “I think it’s wrong to knowingly inflict a great deal of pain and suffering on others, just for the sake of getting relatively minor benefits for yourself.” Joke: the masochist asks the sadist to beat him with a stick. Replies the latter: “NO!” It is not “wrong,” an ethical not a “what-should-be-legal” concern of libertarianism, to beat a masochist who relishes that act.
We can just expand the principle to “it’s wrong to knowingly inflict a great deal of pain and suffering on others, just for the sake of getting relatively minor benefits for yourself without their consent.” Also, my above comments explain why this isn’t really suffering.
Let us consider another example. A large corporation underbids a small mom and pop operation. The former earns a miniscule profit, relative to its overall balance sheet position (a “some minor good”) while the latter goes bankrupt and suffers grievously (“a very large amount of something bad.”) Perhaps this is unethical. I don’t know, I don’t care. My concern is solely with the fact that this is entirely compatible with libertarianism, contrary to Huemer’s implicit contention to the contrary. In any case, interpersonal comparisons of utility are intellectually fraught, as even our author himself admits [33, p. 11]: “… we don’t have statistics on the quantity of suffering, since there’s no established way of measuring suffering.”
Huemer in his reply paper explains why this is silly — Huemer didn’t have anything to say about whether libertarianism supports vegetarianism; he argued that eating meat is wrong. When one makes an argument in ethics, they do not always have a specific moral framework in mind — one can declare slavery wrong without relying on any specific moral theory, just by pointing out that every remotely plausible moral theory thinks it’s bad.
For example, Block tells us, “In this philosophy [viz., libertarianism] the only crimes are those with (human) victims.” Nor is Block merely avowing his own beliefs. He criticizes me more than once for not arguing in libertarian-typical ways or taking sufficiently libertarian positions [1, pp. 54, 59-60, 62]. Despite being a libertarian myself, I find this argument form not at all persuasive. I do not accept any position simply because it is the libertarian position. I first figure out what I believe about a variety of philosophical issues, then look for labels to describe my views. I call myself a libertarian because that term happens to correspond to my political views. I do not first decide that I’m a libertarian and then adjust my views to make sure that the label fits me; that would be irrational. If it should turn out that I endorse some libertarian views and some non-libertarian views, that is of no concern to me. One must of course hold a consistent set of beliefs. But there is no inconsistency in holding libertarian views about some issues but not others. For instance, there is nothing inconsistent in supporting gun rights, capitalism, and ethical vegetarianism – regardless of whether the last position counts as “libertarian” or not. If Block is right (I don’t think that he is) that libertarianism only recognizes crimes with human victims, then so much the worse for libertarianism; that gives us no evidence at all that only human victims matter morally.
Next, Block says
Huemer then launches into a critique of the claim that we, in libertarian terms, have a right to initiate violence against animals, since we are more intelligent than they are. He rejects the notion that it would be good or proper for us to do so -- on that ground. I entirely agree with him here. Some smart animals, dolphins, chimpanzees, pigs, are smarter than some human beings: the senile, the comatose, babies under the age of two months, etc
However, that is not the ground on the basis of which I reject animal rights. Instead, it is their inability to homestead them via petition. According to Rothbard [65]:
There is, in fact, rough justice in the common quip that ‘we will recognize the rights of animals whenever they petition for them.’ The fact that animals can obviously not petition for their ‘rights’ is part of their nature, and part of the reason why they are clearly not equivalent to, and do not possess the rights of, human beings. And if it be protested that babies can’t petition either, the reply of course is that babies are future human adults, whereas animals obviously are not.
Several points.
Why does it matter whether they can petition for their rights? More specifically, what is the libertarian justification for the claim that what matters is whether one will be able to, at some future juncture, petition for their rights?
What about terminally ill babies? They’ll never be able to petition for rights? Can one cause them a great deal of suffering for trivial reasons?
What about the mentally disabled? They can’t petition for their rights.
This would also imply bizarrely that, if a baby hit it’s head and died before it could petition for its rights, that would retroactively make it’s suffering less bad when it suffered as a baby. Thus, if the reason that it’s wrong to hurt a baby is because it will have rights later, then if you torture a baby to death, that’s not wrong — after all, dead babies never petition for their rights. We can even paraphrase Rothbard here “There is, in fact, rough justice in the common quip that ‘we will recognize the rights of babies that are about to be murdered whenever they petition for them.’”
Why is petitioning so all-important? Because this lies at the very core of libertarianism. This philosophy is predicated upon the non-aggression principle (NAP). It is illicit, unlawful, for anyone to initiate violence against an innocent person or his property, or threaten him thereby, unless permission is given. But the opposite side of the coin of this principle is private property rights
The NAP is wrong — Huemer explains why here. Sometimes, you should initiate force — for example, if you could prevent a trillion holocausts by threatening to punch someone, you should do so. But also, you can accept the NAP and think that’s not all that morality consists in. This is obvious — it’s immoral to cheat on one’s spouse or to tell a person to commit suicide when you know they’re suicidal, but they’re probably not rights violations.
For, if I own your jaw, and I punch it, or, you stole from me the shoes you are now wearing and I repossess it, then, you are the criminal, not I. So, we need a theory of private property rights. According to the libertarian viewpoint, this is based on homesteading, and self-ownership, the “mixing of labor” with virgin land of Locke, and the legitimate title transfer theory of Nozick.5 But petitioning is a sort of homesteading of rights. When you petition, you “mix your labor” with, you link to, your rights.
See my comments above — even if we’re believers in this theory of property rights, we still won’t conclude that morality consists in nothing else.
Yes, babies, the comatose, the senile, those who are asleep, cannot do so, but we go by species, not individual, membership. If and when chimps or pigs or dolphins learn to earn their rights in this way, libertarians will then indeed have to rethink their rejection of rights for these species.6
Why in the world would we go by species membership? Block gives literally no argument for this — he just asserts this is what we do. But this has obviously absurd results — for example, if there was a severely mentally disabled human that, when they took a DNA test, was revealed to technically be a different species, it would be okay to viciously torture them to death. Similarly, if babies were a different species up until they turned two as a result of some virus — even if they maintained the same physical and mental capacities, while just having technically different DNA — then it would be okay to torture infants for fun. This is implausible. Additionally, Block’s view entails that, if an alien were very stupid and couldn’t petition for rights, even if it could experience as much suffering per second as a billion humans, it wouldn’t be wrong to cause it suffering for trivial reasons. We could inflict as much suffering as was experienced during the holocaust on this being, and it wouldn’t be wrong — after all, it can’t homestead so it doesn’t matter. Finally, Block’s position entails that it’s fine to set cats on fire, engage in bestiality, or viciously torture puppies to death. Thus, Block would have to bite the bullet on the scenario laid out by Norcross at the start of his paper.
Consider the story of Fred, who receives a visit from the police one day. They have been summoned by Fred’s neighbors, who have been disturbed by strange sounds emanating from Fred’s basement. When they enter the basement they are confronted by the following scene: Twenty-six small wire cages, each containing a puppy, some whining, some whimpering, some howling. The puppies range in age from newborn to about six months. Many of them show signs of mutilation. Urine and feces cover the bottoms of the cages and the basement floor. Fred explains that he keeps the puppies for twenty-six weeks, and then butchers them while holding them upside-down. During their lives he performs a series of mutilations on them, such as slicing off their noses and their paws with a hot knife, all without any form of anesthesia. Except for the mutilations, the puppies are never allowed out of the cages, which are barely big enough to hold them at twenty-six weeks. The police are horrified, and promptly charge Fred with animal abuse. As details of the case are publicized, the public is outraged. Newspapers are flooded with letters demanding that Fred be severely punished. There are calls for more severe penalties for animal abuse. Fred is denounced as a vile sadist.
Finally, at his trial, Fred explains his behavior, and argues that he is blameless and therefore deserves no punishment. He is, he explains, a great lover of chocolate. A couple of years ago, he was involved in a car accident, which resulted in some head trauma. Upon his release from hospital, having apparently suffered no lasting ill effects, he visited his favorite restaurant and ordered their famous rich dark chocolate mousse. Imagine his dismay when he discovered that his experience of the mousse was a pale shadow of its former self. The mousse tasted bland, slightly pleasant, but with none of the intense chocolaty flavor he remembered so well. The waiter assured him that the recipe was unchanged from the last time he had tasted it, just the day before his Philosophical Perspectives, 18, Ethics, 2004 accident. In some consternation, Fred rushed out to buy a bar of his favorite Belgian chocolate. Again, he was dismayed to discover that his experience of the chocolate was barely even pleasurable. Extensive investigation revealed that his experience of other foods remained unaffected, but chocolate, in all its forms, now tasted bland and insipid. Desperate for a solution to his problem, Fred visited a renowned gustatory neurologist, Dr. T. Bud. Extensive tests revealed that the accident had irreparably damaged the godiva gland, which secretes cocoamone, the hormone responsible for the experience of chocolate. Fred urgently requested hormone replacement therapy. Dr. Bud informed him that, until recently, there had been no known source of cocoamone, other than the human godiva gland, and that it was impossible to collect cocoamone from one person to be used by another. However, a chance discovery had altered the situation. A forensic veterinary surgeon, performing an autopsy on a severely abused puppy, had discovered high concentrations of cocoamone in the puppy’s brain. It turned out that puppies, who don’t normally produce cocoamone, could be stimulated to do so by extended periods of severe stress and suffering. The research, which led to this discovery, while gaining tenure for its authors, had not been widely publicized, for fear of antagonizing animal welfare groups. Although this research clearly gave Fred the hope of tasting chocolate again, there were no commercially available sources of puppy-derived cocoamone. Lack of demand, combined with fear of bad publicity, had deterred drug companies from getting into the puppy torturing business. Fred appeals to the court to imagine his anguish, on discovering that a solution to his severe deprivation was possible, but not readily available. But he wasn’t inclined to sit around bemoaning his cruel fate. He did what any chocolate lover would do. He read the research, and set up his own cocoamone collection lab in his basement. Six months of intense puppy suffering, followed by a brutal death, produced enough cocoamone to last him a week, hence the twenty-six cages. He isn’t a sadist or an animal abuser, he explains. If there were a method of collecting cocoamone without torturing puppies, he would gladly employ it. He derives no pleasure from the suffering of the puppies itself. He sympathizes with those who are horrified by the pain and misery of the animals, but the court must realize that human pleasure is at stake. The puppies, while undeniably cute, are mere animals. He admits that he would be just as healthy without chocolate, if not more so. But this isn’t a matter of survival or health. His life would be unacceptably impoverished without the experience of chocolate
Next Block says
Huemer attempts, quite successfully, to tug at our heart-strings with this example [33, p.14]: “V: So let’s say you saw a couple of boys pour gasoline on a cat, then light the cat on fire, just for the fun of watching it writhe in agony. They laugh, showing that they got some enjoyment out of it. To you, this seems perfectly alright?”
But, qua libertarians, we are simply not at all interested in what is, or is not, “perfectly alright.” Remember, this philosophy is solely concerned with what constitutes just law.
This is obviously not the question. Maybe libertarianism in a political sense is concerned with the law, but on an individual moral level, libertarianism can’t cover everything. The correct moral system should obviously be concerned with what is perfectly alright. I imagine the following dialogue.
Walter Block: Pores gasoline on a cat and then lights it on fire.
Huemer: Walter, that’s clearly morally wrong.
Block: But, qua libertarians, we are simply not at all interested in what is, or is not, “perfectly alright.” Remember, this philosophy is solely concerned with what constitutes just law.
Huemer: But surely you shouldn’t do wrong things.
Block: Who cares what’s wrong — all I care about is just law!
This would be a bizarre response. You can’t defend some practice merely by saying it shouldn’t be illegal.
So, the relevant question is whether or not these obviously evil boys should go to jail.
Why are these boys obviously evil, Walter? They haven’t engaged in any rights violations — rights only apply to humans after all. Shouldn’t libertarians be unconcerned with whether they’re evil? If Walter knew people who were torturing cats, he’d presumably suggest that they stop — why does he not do the same for eating meat?
We assume that they are the proper owner of the felines in question. And the answer is that these monstrous, abominable youngsters should not be incarcerated. We can return Huemer’s heart-string pulling favor. Suppose these young lads have PhDs in bio chemistry, and are doing equally painful experiments on cats with the view toward curing cancer. Would we then have the same attitude toward them? Presumably not. But the cats, we may stipulate, would be writhing in just the same amount of agony in each case. Heart-strings are now held constant. The cats suffer equally. Therefore, their pain is irrelevant
This is clearly wrong. Huemer’s principle is that it’s wrong to cause vast amounts of agony for trivial reasons. Curing cancer is obviously not a trivial reason. Maybe you should torture the cats to try to cure cancer, maybe you shouldn’t — that’s a harder case. Either way though, this won’t be a counterexample to Huemer’s actual arguments.
Their torture is illicit if they have a right not to be molested in this horrific manner; if not, then not. Huemer, with this example, fails to demonstrate that they have a right not to be mistreated in this way. He only asserts it would be wrong to torture these cats for unimportant reasons; such as the sick pleasure these boys enjoy thereby. Presumably, curing cancer would be an important reason, but our author never weighs in on whether or not experiments on them to this end which would be equally painful would be justified. However, there is no metric on the basis of which we can definitively say that curing cancer outweighs sadistic pleasure. Thus this distinction is problematic.
Of course we can — curing cancer makes a vast number of people vastly better off, while a bit of sadistic pleasure only makes a few people slightly better off. It produces much more well-being and averts more suffering. Huemer doesn’t weigh in on controversial issues about the precise purview of animal rights — instead, he appeals to uncontroversial arguments that what most people do every day is wrong. No need to discuss the edge cases so much!
Let us now consider Huemer’s analysis of the nuclear bomb in the basement challenge to libertarianism:
V: Say I want to keep a nuclear bomb in my basement. Every day that I keep the bomb there, let’s say, there is a tiny chance that something will accidentally set off the bomb. This chance is much lower than the probability that I will kill someone in a traffic accident while driving my car. And yet, it’s okay for me to drive the car, but it’s not okay to keep the nuclear bomb in my basement.
M: I agree. No one should have personal nuclear bombs.
V: And that’s because the harm of a nuclear bomb accident is much greater than the harm of a traffic accident. If I have a car accident, I might kill someone. But if I accidentally set off the bomb, it’ll destroy the entire city. So the acceptable risk level is much lower in the case of the nuke.
M: Sounds reasonable. I would add also that you have good reasons for wanting to drive – like, you need to get to work. But I don’t think you have very good reasons for wanting to have the nuclear bomb.
This is not a counterexample to libertarianism as analyzed by Huemer. Rather, he is arguing that it’s wrong to frequently risk inflicting vast amounts of suffering for trivial reasons, such that the expected disvalue of the action is equivalent to that of inflicting vast amounts of suffering for trivial reasons.
This is not exactly the correct libertarian view on the matter. It is not at all “because the harm of a nuclear bomb accident is much greater than the harm of a traffic accident.” In this perspective, we are allowed to “harm” each other in a myriad of ways, ranging from competing for sexual partners to competition amongst firms, to competing for grades at school, all of which can “harm” the losers thereby. Rather, it is a matter of rights violations, not “harm.” The reason nukes in basements in big cities should be prohibited by law is that there is no way to confine their explosive power to criminals. Innocents, necessarily, will be murdered if the bomb goes off. These devices, then, constitute an illicit threat, which is part and parcel of the libertarian NAP to combat. But suppose we lived on Jupiter, and each of us had holdings of 10,000 square miles. Would an atom bomb then be properly allowed to be placed in the middle of someone’s property, in his basement? Yes.7
Let’s imagine that each day that you ate meat, there was a 1 in 10 chance that you’d trigger an unpredictable chain reaction of events that would violate no-one’s rights but would decrease the total welfare of the world by half. It would be wrong to eat meat then. Thus, it’s not just about risking rights violations — it’s also about risking vast amounts of harm.
Here is Huemer in his role as mathematician:
V: Now, if Peter Singer is right, then the meat industry is about as bad as a practice that tortured 74 billion people a year would be. If there were such a practice, it would be incredibly bad. M: Good thing Peter Singer isn’t right.
V: But if there is a 1% chance that he’s right, then the meat industry is about as wrong as a practice that has a 1% chance of torturing 74 billion people a year. Which is about as wrong as a practice that definitely tortures 740 million people a year.
M: That sounds crazy. 740 million?
V: That’s 1% times 74 billion. A thing with a 1% chance of doing the equivalent of harming 74 billion people in some way is 1% as bad as a thing that harms 74 billion people in that way. Which means it is as bad as harming 740 million people.
M: But it’s 99% likely that such an action wouldn’t harm anyone – then it would be as bad as an action that harms zero people. V: Sorry, let me rephrase. You have reason to avoid actions that, from your point of view, might cause something bad. The strength of this reason is proportional to (i) the probability that the action will cause something bad, and (ii) the magnitude of the bad outcome that might occur. So, if there is a 1% chance that Peter Singer is right, then the reason we have for abolishing the meat industry is about as strong as the reason that we would have for abolishing a practice that tortured 740 million people a year.
Here is a reductio regarding that “calculation”: There is a .00000000001% chance8 that unless Huemer gives up his veganism and engages in meat eating, three times per day, the heavens will fall and we will all die a horrid, painful death. This is relevant? To what? The point is, anyone can make up any “calculation” of this sort to prove a point. For the skeptic, nothing is 100% true. This calculation of his establishes nothing.
This number is obviously absurdly high — and there will be an equal risk that if Huemer gives up his veganism the heavens will fall. The fact that one can make up absurd expected value calculations doesn’t corrupt rational value calculations. If there is a 1 in 1000 chance that the worst thing ever is going on, it will still be pretty serious, in expectation.
Consider this dialogue between M and V [33, p. 21]:
M: … let me ask you this: if you had to kill either a pig or a person, would you really just flip a coin?
V: Why can’t I just not kill anyone?
M: You’re driving, your brakes have failed, and you’re going to run over a kid, unless you swerve aside and hit a pig.
V: Hit the pig.
M: What if it was ten pigs?
V: Still hit the pigs.
M: What about a hundred pigs?
V: I don’t know.
Now, juxtapose that conversation with this one [33, p. 22]:
M: Well, at last you’ve admitted that humans are more important than animals!
V: You mean that human lives are more valuable than animal lives.
M: Isn’t that what I said?
V: I was just clarifying. How does this make it okay to torture animals?
M: Human pleasure or pain matters more than animal pleasure or pain. You just admitted it.
V: No, I don’t agree with that. I think that what’s bad about pain is what it feels like. Therefore, how bad a painful experience is, is just a matter of how bad it feels. It doesn’t depend on how big your vocabulary is, or how fast you can solve equations, or anything else that doesn’t have to do with how it feels.
There seems to be a tension between these two statements. Call the first A, the second, B. According to the latter, since pigs and people feel pain equally, to the same extent given the same degree of violence inflicted upon them, and that is the only relevant consideration – vocabulary size and ability in mathematics count for naught – we should treat members of both species equally, in terms of protecting them from suffering, and not inflicting it on them ourselves. This on its face would appear to be what philosophers consider a “howler.” But statement A is content with having the driver hit 10 pigs rather than one person. Its author only balks at 100 swine. Perhaps his cut-off point, the place in which he becomes indifferent between human and porcine lives and levels of suffering is 20 of the latter and 1 of the former. But, if they suffer equally from the same level of invasion, it is difficult to discern the reason for not treating these two species in the identical manner; that is, we should be indifferent between molesting 10 pigs and 10 members of our fellow species. Nor is this just a slip of our author’s pen, well, word processor. He doubles down on his contention [33, p. 23]
Huemer thinks humans are worth saving more than pigs because — perhaps among other things — they can experience more pleasure and pain and they’ll live longer. Thus, it’s consistent to say that the same amount of pain is morally equally bad, regardless of whether it’s experienced by a pig or a person, but a person will generally matter more because they’ll have a better life overall.
It is thus difficult to conclude but that Huemer sees pigs and people on a par in terms of the right not to be subjected to suffering, or, at least, that he declines to deny this. Such contention can be made even more pellucidly clear when he writes [33, p. 49]:
This is not a confusing point. He’s unsure if pig pain is less bad than people pain, but thinks people death is worse than pig death.
“M: But do you agree that human pains are more important than animal pains?
V: I don’t know,” and again [33, p. 51]:
“V: … It may be that a few years of factory farming causes more suffering than all the suffering in human history.”
Let me say that I admire Huemer for saying this. In that regard, he reminds me of Bernie Sanders. The latter didn’t run away from “socialism” in 2015, when it was much less popular than at present (2020). A staunch democrat, he applied this concept to extending the vote for felons, even while still incarcerated, a position which did not garner him many votes. What do the senator from Vermont and the professor from Colorado have in common? They are both rigorously logical, and follow the implications of their basic premises wherever they lead them. I disagree with both sets of premises, and both conclusions, but venerate both men for their logical rigor, and courage of their convictions.9
Cool!
We now arrive at the Killian case [33, pp. 26-28]. This worthy murders innocents and steals their cars. Would it be licit to purchase an automobile from Mr. Killian; to have anything to do with him at all in terms of commercial interactions? Our Colorado University professor offers us a resounding “No!” Killian – a stand-in for factory farms – is evil and the law should prevent us from interacting with him in any way, shape, manner or form (apart from perhaps placing him in jail, which is implicitly approved of).
This is not part of Huemer’s argument. Instead, Huemer argues that it would be wrong to purchase automobiles from Mr. Killian if you knew that, to produce the automobiles, they’d kill more people and steal cars. Also, one can think it’s immoral even if it shouldn’t be immoral.
But Huemer proves far too much here. The implication is that we should also eliminate trading relationships with the likes of Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, China, etc. It is an empirical issue as to whether such a policy will help or hurt the victims of these brutal governments, a question of great import to utilitarians. On the one hand, trade with us will boost the prestige, and hence longevity, of their rulers. On the other hand, with commercial interaction comes greater wealth, less hatred, which will inure to the benefit of the downtrodden. But, assume that the benefits of commercial engagement with these dictatorial regimes outweigh the costs, would Huemer then approve? Not if he adheres to his Killian example. But matters are even worse for his analysis. For the U.S. government, too, is a mass murderer. It cannot be denied that this organization has done away with more innocent people than Killian has ever dreamt of dispatching. So are we to have to truck at all with the denizens of Washington DC? No more paying taxes? No more abiding by their numerous regulations? No more using their currency? No more utilizing their roads, parks, museums? No more working for, or attending, public universities? That would appear to be the logical implication of this example. But this philosopher, himself, does not disengage with the U.S. government in any such manner
The claim isn’t that one shouldn’t do deals with bad people — it’s that one shouldn’t do deals when they know that those deals will result in vast amounts of unnecessary suffering. This is obviously true.
Our author’s analysis, here, is also problematic. He states [33, p. 32]:
M: Wait a minute. If the meat industry reduces its production, then farm animals won’t be better off; there will just be fewer of them. It’s better to have a low-quality life than not to live at all. So we’re doing future generations of animals a favor by eating animals today!7
V: Would you accept this argument if it were applied to people? What if a particular race of people were bred solely to serve as slaves? Then you could say that those particular people would not have existed if not for the practice of slavery. Would this make slavery okay?
Not okay. Of course not. But better than the alternative! The economist was asked: “How is your wife?” Came the answer: “compared to what.” V (Huemer) is comparing slavery with non-slavery. But, the correct comparison is, rather, between slavery and non-existence. Where there’s a will there’s a way. Where there’s life, there’s hope. Hope for what? Well, maybe, a rescue? Maybe a successful rebellion? Maybe, a change of heart on the part of our lords and masters? The issue he avoids is, would it be better that the alternative? Which would we prefer: all human beings as slaves to their presumably very powerful alien overlords, or no members of our species alive at all? As for me, I am pro-human. Some of my best friends are human beings. I would rather I and my fellows exist in such vile conditions – than not at all. Even if slavery continues forever, life is better than non-existence, in my subjective opinion.
I’ll quote Huemer’s reply
I addressed this argument in my book, where I pointed out that the argument, if sound, would also support raising a special race of humans as slaves (or for food, or to torture for fun, etc.). About these slaves, it would also be true that they would not be alive at all if there were no such industry. One can even imagine that the slave traders in this industry – in between beating their slaves, packing them into train cars like sardines, and so on – would take a page from Professor Block and declare themselves friends of the slaves.
Block is aware of this objection, which he quotes from my book. What is his response? He agrees that slavery would still be “not okay. Of course not,” then immediately adds, “But better than the alternative!”, whereupon he simply restates the precise argument that my objection was an objection to.
It is difficult to understand what is going on here. Is Block agreeing with me or disagreeing? My objection was essentially this:
1. The argument in defense of the meat industry is analogous to the argument in defense of the slave industry (with people who are specifically bred to be slaves).
2. The argument in defense of the slave industry is unsound.
3. Therefore, the analogous argument in defense of the meat industry is unsound. Which premise might Block be disputing? He makes no effort to dispute that the analogy is fair; indeed, he adds his own analogy apparently comparing our use of animals to a race of aliens coming and enslaving all mankind. So as far as I can tell, Block embraces premise (1).
He also endorses premise (2) when he agrees with me that it would not be okay to breed people to be slaves. He therefore must accept (3), which follows from (1) and (2). But then Block immediately goes on to simply restate the argument that we just showed to be unsound.
Perhaps Block actually disagrees with (2) but simply expressed himself misleadingly. Perhaps his view is that running a slavery industry, as described, would be permissible because it is “better than the alternative.” If that is his view, then he could consistently claim that operating the meat industry in the status quo is also permissible. But this would be quite a remarkable view. I don’t know what kind of libertarianism it is that endorses involuntary slavery. In any case, this seems like about as clear a reductio as the earlier one about torturing babies.
There are two more problems with Block’s argument, apart from leading to an endorsement of slavery. First, the argument presupposes that our only options are (a) torturing animals horribly in factory farms, or (b) killing (or letting die?) all farm animals (including all members of their species?). (I’m not sure what Block thinks the second alternative is; he refers to vegans as “a genocide threat” to farm animals [1, p. 59], so I assume he thinks that we’d have to extinguish their species.) Here are two more alternatives: (c) treating farm animals humanely, (d) not raising any animals for food but allowing their species to exist in the wild. (There are in fact wild chickens, and there used to be wild cows.) Block’s argument for (a) is that it is better than (b). But he makes no attempt to show that (a) is the best possible alternative. If there is any option that is better than the horrible option (a), then (a) is clearly impermissible.
Here is the other problem. As mentioned in my book, the lives of factory farm animals appear to be so miserable that it would be much better if no such lives existed. To see my point, imagine that I told you that it was possible to greatly expand the human population of the Earth. We could have ten times as many people! To make this happen, what we have to do is create 70 billion new people who would spend their lives jammed into cages or barns where they could barely move, sitting in their own excrement all day. Most would never see the light of day. Many of these people would be living in buildings where the floor was covered in ammonia, so that they would be breathing ammonia fumes at all times. Once in each person’s life, someone would come by and chop a small body part off the person, without anesthetic. Occasionally, someone would come by and just beat one of the people for 47 the fun of it. The women would be used to breed more people, but the babies would be forcibly separated from their mothers at birth. Finally, after lives of just a few months on average, someone would come and cut these people’s throats or bash in their skulls.
I have it in my power, I tell you, to bring about that world, but I will only do it if you tell me to. What say you?
That is analogous to Block’s idea that we should continue to create billions more animals to live and die in factory farms every year. Everything I stipulated in that scenario is accurate to the conditions in factory farms.3 For my part, I do not find this difficult to evaluate. Obviously, you should say “No, do not create the 70 billion miserable lives.”
Next, Block says
Here is what our world-class vegan has to say about promoting morality [33, p. 33]: V: My view would be that it’s wrong to financially reward extremely immoral businesses, regardless of whether you’re causing them to do it, or if they’ve already done it and you’re paying them after the fact.
M: If it’s not contributing to the amount of immoral behavior, what’s wrong with it?
V: Two things: one, you’re rewarding wrongful behavior, which is unjust. You’re contributing to making it so that immorality pays…
Prostitution, pornography, addictive drugs, gambling, homosexuality, masturbation, fornication, are now, or have long been considered to be, “immoral behavior.”11 The implication is that these acts are unjust and should be prohibited by law. But this is profoundly at odds with the libertarianism that this author has long and valiantly espoused.
For one, one can reasonably dispute that these are immoral. Block gives no argument for why they are immoral. The fact that some people have considered them immoral doesn’t mean that they are, in fact, immoral. Also, one can think something is immoral but should be legal. In fact, for Block’s argument to work, pornography and addictive drugs must be immoral — but Block thinks they should be legal. Similarly, extramarital affairs are clearly immoral; but they should be legal.
Block also ignores Huemer’s more important argument, namely, that there’s very solid evidence that eating meat does increase the amount of factory farming.
In this philosophy, the only crimes are those with (human) victims and these presumably immoral acts all constitute victimless “crimes.”
Block gives no argument for this.
This article is already too long — so I’ll finish responding to Block in part 2. Stay tuned.
"Mommy, I want to be a libertarian when I grow up."
"Well, which is it son? You can't do both."
https://www.mattball.org/2022/11/infinite-capacity-to-rationalize.html