In the most convenient world, form all the creatures on planet Earth only humans are sentient and have ethical worth. I really hope that we live in it, it would mean that there are so much less sufferings to alleviate but it's quite unlikely. There are no reasons why the universe would be so convenient. Most likely there are other sentient creatures that we are torturing with our actions to feed ourselves. And, therefore, veganism is most likely morally correct. But there are obviously less and more evil stances in between. So the idea of estimating "moral worth" of a creature based on the probability that it's sentient makes a lot of sense.
However, these numbers look crazy. In a space of all possible minds sentience may be orthogonal to intelligence, but among the kind of minds that are produced by evolution through natural selection these qualities seem to be highly correlated. And when a report estimating moral weight claims that highly intelligent octopuses, capable of solving complex puzzles, are *less* significant than chickens with tiny brains - this is a clear signal that the methodology is ridiculously off.
The fact that a chicken can in principle live longer doesn't make it more morally valuable while evaluating the evils of factory farming chickens compared to octopuses. If two creature have a life full of torture for half a year and then killed, what matters is how sentient these creatures were during this time, not how long they could have lived counter-factually. If anything, shorter life cycle of octopuses should mean that they are more likely to be sentient from earlier age, while chicken have more probability not to be conscious at the time of the slaughter.
Likewise, Tomasik calculator default values gives a chicken half the moral weight of a pig, which is bizarre if we take into account the difference in the brain size. We also need to take into account that suffering doesn't add up linearly. And the huge second order effect of climate change, towards which beef/milk industry contributes much much then poultry/eggs one.
So in the end, I don't think that the title of the post is correct. I suspect that it's quite likely that eating chicken is, in fact, more ethical than eating beef. On the other hand, turkeys seem to be about as likely to be sentient as chickens but produce more meet per death. So eating them instead of chickens seems a much safer bet.
This is ridiculous. The space of conscious suffering is vastly multidimensional. There are no 'equivalences', especially not between the gathering of a gallon of milk and 70 minutes of baby torture.
For one thing, once an animal is broken, their suffering is much lighter. It's the transition from freedom to captivity that really hurts. The process of breaking a horse is essentially torture-- that's why you hire someone else to do it. After that, the horse is willing to let you ride it for the rest of its life.
I won't contest your essentially random sentience and suffering multipliers. Still, there's a part of the calculation you must add: the difference between confinement and wild life. Wild creatures do not live idyllic lives. They spend half of their time hungry and terrified. Don't measure the difference between life as a confined animal and life as a modern human. Measure the difference between life as a confined animal and life as a wild animal.
In some cases, you will find that the confined animal lives better.
I was very rude in this comment. Feel free to be rude in return. I like a good argument.
What’s your opinion on Wild Caught Fish? The chart has farmed fish, and I know a few pescatarians that maintain that wild caught fish is better than beef.
Free range chickens decimate local insect populations. They use their talons to shred apart the fecal matter where flies and beetles house their offspring and devour the defenseless baby insects. The only humane thing for us to do is to eat more chicken in defense of the insect nurseries!
I believe that evolution (both natural selection and cultural evolution) have given us a Circle of Empathy. Our empathy is not binary (we either have it or we don't) but it does drop off quite rapidly once you get outside the circle. Call this speciesism if you like — in which case, OK. I am speciesist. I think the circle is getting bigger as the generations go by but it's not big enough yet to exclude cows, pigs and chickens! Maybe one day. EXCEPT!…
Industrial farming changes my thinking a lot. In the USA, cows are raised in an absolutely horrific environment. Chickens even worse. It's different in more empathetic countries and I think that changes the calculation. If they figure out how to industrially farm octopuses (for example), I would stop eating them. I'm OK with eating the wild ones.
I think it's more complex with pigs and chickens, but it's an easy choice for cows, IMO. I eat them very rarely as a special treat and I make an effort to eat cows that have been humanely raised.
If I were the Head of the Union of Cows and humans offered me the option of a life of relative luxury (compared to living in the wild with the wolves and the leopards) but at the end of my life, they get to eat me, I would take that deal. I think if we stop eating cows, that will be the end of cows. They'll be extinct in a couple of generations. I'd rather cows stick around, even if they ultimately get eaten.
Related question: should we ban leopards from eating antelopes to save the antelopes from a horrible death. If not, why not?
I was under the impression that it's easier to find satisfactorily ethical eggs in a grocery store (https://vitalfarms.com/organic-pasture-raised-eggs/) vs. dairy. Vital farms AFAIK doesn't kill male chicks and actually lets the hens live in decent conditions.
I will look more into this because I may flip to lacto-vegetarian.
Question: how can you on the one hand claim “speciesism is wholly indefensible” but then on the other have a sentience multiplier per species? Is the latter based solely on average “natural” lifespan?
I no doubt have other issues with - and disagree with - your assertion that “speciesism is wholly indefensible”, but just starting by explaining the apparent contradiction would be helpful.
One must also consider elasticities of supply and demand curves: if you give up a gallon of milk, the price will in expectation drop a little, thus making other people consume more milk, though less than a gallon: roughly 0.44 of one. So buying milk is actually roughly half as bad as you claim. Here you can find estimates for those elasticities: https://reducing-suffering.org/comments-on-compassion-by-the-pound/#Elasticities.
I was thinking about this topic earlier today. What a remarkable coincidence! As always, this is an excellent article.
In the most convenient world, form all the creatures on planet Earth only humans are sentient and have ethical worth. I really hope that we live in it, it would mean that there are so much less sufferings to alleviate but it's quite unlikely. There are no reasons why the universe would be so convenient. Most likely there are other sentient creatures that we are torturing with our actions to feed ourselves. And, therefore, veganism is most likely morally correct. But there are obviously less and more evil stances in between. So the idea of estimating "moral worth" of a creature based on the probability that it's sentient makes a lot of sense.
However, these numbers look crazy. In a space of all possible minds sentience may be orthogonal to intelligence, but among the kind of minds that are produced by evolution through natural selection these qualities seem to be highly correlated. And when a report estimating moral weight claims that highly intelligent octopuses, capable of solving complex puzzles, are *less* significant than chickens with tiny brains - this is a clear signal that the methodology is ridiculously off.
The fact that a chicken can in principle live longer doesn't make it more morally valuable while evaluating the evils of factory farming chickens compared to octopuses. If two creature have a life full of torture for half a year and then killed, what matters is how sentient these creatures were during this time, not how long they could have lived counter-factually. If anything, shorter life cycle of octopuses should mean that they are more likely to be sentient from earlier age, while chicken have more probability not to be conscious at the time of the slaughter.
Likewise, Tomasik calculator default values gives a chicken half the moral weight of a pig, which is bizarre if we take into account the difference in the brain size. We also need to take into account that suffering doesn't add up linearly. And the huge second order effect of climate change, towards which beef/milk industry contributes much much then poultry/eggs one.
So in the end, I don't think that the title of the post is correct. I suspect that it's quite likely that eating chicken is, in fact, more ethical than eating beef. On the other hand, turkeys seem to be about as likely to be sentient as chickens but produce more meet per death. So eating them instead of chickens seems a much safer bet.
I'm not convinced we shouldn't eat animals (if they have a better than nothing life seems fine to me) but I'm only here to ask a practical question:
How do you find humanely raised beef/dairy without paying extra for all sorts of bullshit about GMO free/no corn feed/organic?
This is ridiculous. The space of conscious suffering is vastly multidimensional. There are no 'equivalences', especially not between the gathering of a gallon of milk and 70 minutes of baby torture.
For one thing, once an animal is broken, their suffering is much lighter. It's the transition from freedom to captivity that really hurts. The process of breaking a horse is essentially torture-- that's why you hire someone else to do it. After that, the horse is willing to let you ride it for the rest of its life.
I won't contest your essentially random sentience and suffering multipliers. Still, there's a part of the calculation you must add: the difference between confinement and wild life. Wild creatures do not live idyllic lives. They spend half of their time hungry and terrified. Don't measure the difference between life as a confined animal and life as a modern human. Measure the difference between life as a confined animal and life as a wild animal.
In some cases, you will find that the confined animal lives better.
I was very rude in this comment. Feel free to be rude in return. I like a good argument.
Too bad that the healthiest sources of protein are the least utility-maximizing!
What about pasture-raised eggs?
What’s your opinion on Wild Caught Fish? The chart has farmed fish, and I know a few pescatarians that maintain that wild caught fish is better than beef.
Free range chickens decimate local insect populations. They use their talons to shred apart the fecal matter where flies and beetles house their offspring and devour the defenseless baby insects. The only humane thing for us to do is to eat more chicken in defense of the insect nurseries!
I believe that evolution (both natural selection and cultural evolution) have given us a Circle of Empathy. Our empathy is not binary (we either have it or we don't) but it does drop off quite rapidly once you get outside the circle. Call this speciesism if you like — in which case, OK. I am speciesist. I think the circle is getting bigger as the generations go by but it's not big enough yet to exclude cows, pigs and chickens! Maybe one day. EXCEPT!…
Industrial farming changes my thinking a lot. In the USA, cows are raised in an absolutely horrific environment. Chickens even worse. It's different in more empathetic countries and I think that changes the calculation. If they figure out how to industrially farm octopuses (for example), I would stop eating them. I'm OK with eating the wild ones.
I think it's more complex with pigs and chickens, but it's an easy choice for cows, IMO. I eat them very rarely as a special treat and I make an effort to eat cows that have been humanely raised.
If I were the Head of the Union of Cows and humans offered me the option of a life of relative luxury (compared to living in the wild with the wolves and the leopards) but at the end of my life, they get to eat me, I would take that deal. I think if we stop eating cows, that will be the end of cows. They'll be extinct in a couple of generations. I'd rather cows stick around, even if they ultimately get eaten.
Related question: should we ban leopards from eating antelopes to save the antelopes from a horrible death. If not, why not?
Chickens don't lay eggs under stress.
I was under the impression that it's easier to find satisfactorily ethical eggs in a grocery store (https://vitalfarms.com/organic-pasture-raised-eggs/) vs. dairy. Vital farms AFAIK doesn't kill male chicks and actually lets the hens live in decent conditions.
I will look more into this because I may flip to lacto-vegetarian.
Question: how can you on the one hand claim “speciesism is wholly indefensible” but then on the other have a sentience multiplier per species? Is the latter based solely on average “natural” lifespan?
I no doubt have other issues with - and disagree with - your assertion that “speciesism is wholly indefensible”, but just starting by explaining the apparent contradiction would be helpful.
One must also consider elasticities of supply and demand curves: if you give up a gallon of milk, the price will in expectation drop a little, thus making other people consume more milk, though less than a gallon: roughly 0.44 of one. So buying milk is actually roughly half as bad as you claim. Here you can find estimates for those elasticities: https://reducing-suffering.org/comments-on-compassion-by-the-pound/#Elasticities.
Moo.
Thanks for the article, you bring forth a very good point, this is worth keeping in mind