Factory slaughtering living things that grew up in what’s effectively a prison is not lessening harm.
you can’t know that. consequentialist ethics run into this all the time: you can’t actually know what the future holds, and it may be that without the current agricultural system, even more harm would have been done.
I see your argument that thinking how a pig in a meat factory feels is just speculation, but there is a point where we have to think about the future and speculate what could be and how possible it is.
If we have better options now, and, maybe not as a single human, but collectively can act to stop this harm with a great possibility, I think it’s worth it to speculate.
I don’t no where you draw this line, but it is beyond mine, so I am willing to speculate that this is the better way.
thinking how a pig in a meat factory feels is just speculation
that’s not what i’m saying here. i’m saying that they could be experiencing an immense amount of suffering, but we can’t know if that is saving the world from an even greater suffering sometime in the future.
you can’t know that. consequentialist ethics run into this all the time: you can’t actually know what the future holds, and it may be that without the current agricultural system, even more harm would have been done.
I see your argument that thinking how a pig in a meat factory feels is just speculation, but there is a point where we have to think about the future and speculate what could be and how possible it is. If we have better options now, and, maybe not as a single human, but collectively can act to stop this harm with a great possibility, I think it’s worth it to speculate. I don’t no where you draw this line, but it is beyond mine, so I am willing to speculate that this is the better way.
that’s not what i’m saying here. i’m saying that they could be experiencing an immense amount of suffering, but we can’t know if that is saving the world from an even greater suffering sometime in the future.
And I would say that I am ready to speculate, that stopping this suffering does not conclude to more.
you can’t really know, though. the model you presented for right behavior precludes you from ever knowing if you’re doing the right thing.