I was wondering how, in detail, Alan Dawrst justifies the claim that Vegan Outreach is a good charity to support. If more people go vegan, then fewer animals will live lives on factory farms, but more wild animals will exist. How would one go about deciding whether this is on balance a good thing?

The question is important, especially for prior-existence utilitarians. It seems trivially obvious though that factory farms have to go. And since currently the majority of meat comes from there, veganism is good thing. The optimization might be something like 80% veganism instead of 100% if the numbers regarding wild animal increase are true, but that would still justify supporting Vegan Outreach. Besides, we can deal with that other problem later, i.e. by keeping a few pigs (better than cows for climate reasons) to very good conditions. Or one could just make the habitats inhabitable for wild animal species (which we're already pretty good at!), or sterilize them, or make golf courses out the pastures...

Edit: Additionally, according to a statistic I have seen, it's only cows and pigs that reduce existing 'animal life years'. Chicken farms significantly increase them, and we eat a huge amount of chicken, another reason to support veganism, radical veganism even (because there's a long way to go). http://www.qalys.org/animal-welfare.pdf page 7.

The paradoxical thing here btw is that total utilitarians might come to totally different conclusions...

It's hardly difficult that people want to reduce wild-animal suffering if they don't take animals into account. Vegan Outreach gets that more people animals into account, so it's easier to get more difficult things for the animals in the future.

Anyway, I think Vegan Outreach isn't the ideal animal charity. I prefer charities with a more anti-speciesist message, like Animal Equality: www.animalequality.net

Thanks for the question, Rupert.

Yes, I think about that a lot. My current ideas are summarized in "Vegetarianism and Wild Animals."

ExtendedCircle, I didn't understand the point about 80% vs. 100%. Shouldn't it be either 0% or 100%? Or did you mean "stop eating chickens and eggs but not cows"? And yes, Matheny and Chan's numbers do suggest that chicken farming increases life-years, but the authors made very conservative assumptions about wild populations -- only counting mammals and birds, not reptiles, amphibians, or arthropods.

Still, beef clearly reduces wild populations more than chicken, which is another (less explicit) reason why I suggest that people switch from fish/poultry to beef if they don't want to become completely vegetarian.

Ultimately, though, Dani is right about my position: Even if vegetarianism does create more wild animals, I think Vegan Outreach's work is still extremely beneficial because the organization's contribution toward raising general concern for animal suffering dominates the calculation. That's what I say in "Why I Donate to Vegan Outreach," although I do mention Rupert's concern (and others) toward the bottom of that essay. If I create my own wild-animal research and advocacy organization in 5-15 years, I'll encourage you to donate to that instead.

I'm in the US and can only donate to US 501(c)(3) charities because those are the only ones that my employer matches, but people outside the US might consider alternative charities whose primary goal is to raise concern for animal suffering without necessarily being tied to vegetarianism.

Dani, what do you think about the fact that Animal Equality lobbies on issues that aren't cost-effective, like circuses and zoos? (Indeed, I haven't studied the matter, but it seems plausible that animals in zoos are much better off than in the wild.) It's essential to oppose speciesism, but to some people, opposing speciesism means "leaving animals alone," which includes preserving their habitats in the wild. What is Animal Equality's stance there?

Alan Dawrst wrote:Dani, what do you think about the fact that Animal Equality lobbies on issues that aren't cost-effective, like circuses and zoos? (Indeed, I haven't studied the matter, but it seems plausible that animals in zoos are much better off than in the wild.)

They know that circuses, zoos, bullfighting and so on aren't the most cost-effective issue. Anyway this kind of activism is useful to get donation and activists.

Alan Dawrst wrote:It's essential to oppose speciesism, but to some people, opposing speciesism means "leaving animals alone," which includes preserving their habitats in the wild.

I know, but that risk can be reduced if both anti-speciesism and hedonism are promoted. IMO it would be great if animal rights charities speak a lot about suffering, and avoid rights-centered theories and references to "freedom".

Alan Dawrst wrote:ExtendedCircle, I didn't understand the point about 80% vs. 100%. Shouldn't it be either 0% or 100%? Or did you mean "stop eating chickens and eggs but not cows"? And yes, Matheny and Chan's numbers do suggest that chicken farming increases life-years, but the authors made very conservative assumptions about wild populations -- only counting mammals and birds, not reptiles, amphibians, or arthropods.

I meant that we could abolish factory farms and everything chicken-related, and keep some of the rest well-attended to(!) in order to decrease animal life-years and suffering. Eating meat isn't intrinsically bad from a utilitarian perspective, it matters how it's produced. I'm undecided regarding the choice between cows or pigs, cows do better life-year wise (less life-years!), but they're worse for climate change. On the other hand, if climate change kills lots of animals, it might not even be that bad after all.

I doubt arthropods are sentient, but good point about reptiles and amphibians.

Great essay by the way! Total utilitarians believing that wild animals live lives worth living will disagree though, which, imo, is unfortunate.

Daniel Dorado wrote:I know, but that risk can be reduced if both anti-speciesism and hedonism are promoted. IMO it would be great if animal rights charities speak a lot about suffering, and avoid rights-centered theories and references to "freedom".

I couldn't agree more! The problem is that many vegans are strict deontologists with some weird, anthropomorphized views about animal 'interests'...

Daniel Dorado wrote:Anyway this kind of activism is useful to get donation and activists.

Yeah, I think other animal organizations face the same situation. For instance, the Humane Society gets a lot of donations from pet-lovers, even though HSUS employees know that factory farms are a much more pressing issue.

ExtendedCircle wrote:On the other hand, if climate change kills lots of animals, it might not even be that bad after all.

As hinted in the "Vegetarianism and Wild Animals" piece, I place, say, 60% probability on the proposition that climate change is net bad in terms of long-range wild-animal suffering. This is mainly becasue more CO2 and warmer temperatures could, in the long run, increase planetary biomass. However, it's a tough call, because global warming will also, e.g., convert rainforests to desert, acidify the oceans, and so on.

By the way, another US organization that I endorse about equally with Vegan Outreach is Mercy for Animals. They do less leafletting and more investigations/videos/advertisements. It's not obvious which is more cost-effective; many of my utilitarian animal friends like them about the same.

Because the emphasis is slightly more toward exposing cruelty rather than promoting vegetarianism at the outset, you could argue that MFA might be a slightly better choice as far as making people care about animal suffering. However, in practice, I would guess that the messages have roughly the same impact, since MFA does plenty of vegetarian advocacy as well.

Great posts so far.

Just to clarify my unclear posting: I'm in no way arguing to defend eating meat. I still think veganism is the best option, my 80% veganism was referring to society when the all-vegan society is in sight, not to the current utilitarian food choice. There are still way too many cows treated badly. And depending on what else there's done regarding wild animals, an all-vegan society might still be the best option.

Or one could just make the habitats inhabitable for wild animal species (which we're already pretty good at!), or sterilize them, or make golf courses out the pastures...

This is a very important point, as it seems very unlikely that when farmland is removed we're just going to let it go wild again. So encouraging veg*nism/in vitro meat production isn't so bad after all

LadyMorgana:
Seems plausible. Although due to the value of the information it seems to be worth it to elaborate on the reasons and quickly check the empirical details.

Eg, is it because one expects a demand for more land and that it's cheaper to use former farmland than to clear forest? (there's also the risk that some land-uses could allow a lot of wild animals, perhaps growing trees or farming crops) Is this expected globally or just in certain parts of the world? Etc.

Insightful comments, Jesper! Perhaps one way to investigate would be to study this question: When new farms are being planned and built, where are they located? Comprehensive statistics would be nice, but even a few point estimates (e.g., from news articles) could do a lot to diminish my current ignorance on the matter.

All of this analysis is based on the assumption that land devoted to growing crops supports fewer wild animals than grassland/forest. Is that true? I'm not completely sure. Here's from an email I recently wrote to Gaverick (and haven't yet heard a reply):

The analysis in ["Illogic of the Larder"] focused on wild-animal densities on crop land vs. forest/grassland, citing higher densities in the natural habitats. However, it's important to consider not just animal densities on the crop land itself but also the animal populations that are made possible by crop production. In particular, suppose we assume that animal life is roughly proportional to the amount of plant biomass on earth. (This seems plausible for insects, at least.) If agricultural plants convert more sunlight to energy per hectare per year than grassland/forest, then the total amount of biomass produced is greater, even if it's the case that animal (including insect?) densities on the land where the crops are grown are lower. This is because most of the plant energy is transported elsewhere. So could meat cause more crop production, more biomass, and therefore more wild animals?

One catch is that my assumption of "animal life proportional to biomass" is by definition not true in the case of farm animals, because farm animals are on average bigger than the animals that would be eating the grass/forest plants in the wild. It's an interesting question whether, say, cow manure provides a significant boost to small wild animals. (Or might it further decrease wild populations by creating "dead zones" in the ocean?)

To the extent that wildlife is proportional to the rate of biomass production, I would conjecture that grassland is worse than forest (since the rate of plant growth seems higher there). That said, forests are still pretty littered with insects as well.

LadyMorgana wrote:it seems very unlikely that when farmland is removed we're just going to let it go wild again. So encouraging veg*nism/in vitro meat production isn't so bad after all

Just realised - whether people use former farmland instead of clearing forest or clear forest and let the farmland become wild again, less farmland still means more forest.

And which animal lives are proportional to biomass is more important than whether animal lives are proportional to biomass overall, since e.g. insects may not be sentient, worms may be sentient but less so than squirrels, the average life of a turtle may involve far more suffering than the average life of a lion.

worms may be sentient but less so than squirrels

Quick aside: I think when talking about things from a util perspective it's more constructive to get used to using better defined terms if they contain the info we need. So whereas 'sentience' is a difficult concept to pin down, 'more capacity for emotion' seems at probably a better idea, and surely no worse.

Arepo wrote:So whereas 'sentience' is a difficult concept to pin down, 'more capacity for emotion' seems at probably a better idea, and surely no worse.

I like the term "sentience," actually. In my mind, it's associated with the fuzzy concept of what kinds of "emotional" responses in an organism matter ethically. This has something to do with an organism's ability to reflect upon the goodness or badness of its own feelings.

Of course, any term to describe this idea will do. But Peter Singer uses "sentience" in the same way I suggested above.

Hmmm. I like "more capacity for emotion" because personally I think that all kinds of emotion matter, but not all kinds of sentience (or reaction to noxious stimuli). "Sentience" is quicker though so I think I'll stick with that at least on this forum - there seems to be a general understanding in utilitarian discussion that "sentience" refers to "capacity for emotion" and excludes e.g. ability to see.