Eating big animals to reduce farm animal suffering

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Eating big animals to reduce farm animal suffering

Postby Humphrey Schneider on 2013-02-11T13:06:00

People care about the wellfare of farm animals differently.

Consequent animal rights activists refuse any instrumentalisation of animals. And therefore they become vegans. A growing, but still a small number.

Moderate mainstream animal welfare activists find it okay to use them for food production but they buy only animalproducts produced in so called species-appropriate husbandry. Moderate animal welfare activists do also promote the reduction of meat consumption for that less animals need to be slaughtered. Because they are less radical, these ideas are more likely to become the standard in the near future compared to veganism.
Although moderate animal welfare is still speciecist, it has nevertheless a high potential considering the reduction of farm animal suffering.
I think moderate animal welfare activist shouldn't only demand the end of factory farming and the reduction of meat consumption but also eating big animals like cattle or pigs instead of little animals like poultry or farmed fish.
I think this is the best tool for a omnivore to reduce animal suffering. I wonder why most animal welfare activists never think of this.

Brian Tomasik also wrote an essay about the estimated per-day suffering caused by the consumption of a Kilogram different animal products.

As an extreme case, creating demand for a kg of farmed catfish meat is expected to cause 20,000 times as much suffering as creating demand for a kg of milk.


The expected suffering of a kg of milk is 0,07, beef is 1,2, pork is 3,7, chicken is 46 and farmed catfish is 1388.

There are millions of people in the world who care about animal welfare but who are not willing to renounce animal products and I think most haven't thought about eating bigger animals to save more individuals yet!
"The idea of a necessary evil is necessarily the root of all evil"

Humphrey Schneider
 
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Re: Eating big animals to reduce farm animal suffering

Postby DanielLC on 2013-02-12T00:37:00

I think moderate animal welfare activist shouldn't only demand the end of factory farming and the reduction of meat consumption but also eating big animals like cattle or pigs instead of little animals like poultry or farmed fish.


The problem is, that only works well if you assume that all animals are equally sentient. If you assume that sentience increases with brain size, then you should do the opposite.

Perhaps we should just agree to stick with mid-sized animals.
Consequentialism: The belief that doing the right thing makes the world a better place.

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Re: Eating big animals to reduce farm animal suffering

Postby Humphrey Schneider on 2013-02-12T08:35:00

The problem is, that only works well if you assume that all animals are equally sentient. If you assume that sentience increases with brain size, then you should do the opposite.

Perhaps we should just agree to stick with mid-sized animals.


That's a good dissent. In the essay linked, Brian Tomasik also took into consideration the probability of sentience and the expected suffering per day of life. The suffering of layer hens is assumed to be the worst (3,5) compared to beef-cows (1) or farmed catfish (0,9) whose suffering is estimated as low because of the conservative assumption that fish are only 50% sure to be able of experience negative qualia. May be we should also regard that different brain-size may cause different intensities of suffering.

But:
On the other hand it is possible that small animals with rather low life expectency theoretically have rather high neuronal firing rates what could make them experience time longer than we do what increases their per-day suffering. There's a speculative felicifia thread on this.
"The idea of a necessary evil is necessarily the root of all evil"

Humphrey Schneider
 
Posts: 36
Joined: Wed Jan 02, 2013 7:04 pm


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