Top products from r/debatemeateaters

Sources on agroecology redux

> But on page 10 you'll see why involving animals within economic units is important: Particularly with regards to diversity (which I spoke a little about in my other comment), synergies, efficiency, recycling, resilience, culture and food traditions, and circular and solidarity economy.

I did read those documents, apologies for not commenting on them; my reply was already getting too long.

Again, the question is not whether there are ways in which we can use animals that are good for the environment. The primary question is (1) whether using animals is necessary for sustainably feeding the human population and (2) if it is not necessary, but still less costly, whether the additional costs of not using animals in agriculture are outweighed by the interests of animals.

The primers you linked to, like the other sources you shared, didn't really put us into a position to evaluate either of those claims. The primers in particular weren't really empirical reports, but more of a framework for thinking about agricultural systems.

(Aside, which you need not reply to: I did not intend to impugn FAO as an organization. I merely meant to point out that, if we are trying to answer (1) and (2) in particular, then it is likely not going to be helpful to consult an organization whose stated purpose already assumes an answer to those questions.)

Veganism and first-world ideology

>It begs the question though, why should there be twenty-first-century citizens of developed nations in the first place? I don't see Korsgaard questioning our way of life and admitting the possibility that living simpler lifestyles where we needed to hunt were better than the alternative in which there isn't a need to hunt in the first place.

First, a point of agreement: I do not think enough ethicists, Korsgaard included, are willing to think about the political and economic systems in which their questions are raised. This isn't an original point; Brian Leiter accuses academic moralizing of basically being a bourgeoisie extravagance because it focuses almost entirely on ethical dilemmas that individuals face under capitalism instead of thinking about systems. I don't think your view is quite as strong as that, but I understand where the criticism is coming from.

That said, I think Leiter's position is extreme. We can think about what the right answer is to the question of what a denizen of the developed world should buy from a grocery store. Of course, that question takes for granted the political and economic systems that make a trip to the grocery store possible. That doesn't make it a meaningless question. And we can also ask about whether those political and economic conditions themselves ought to be changed, as you do here.

Nothing in our discussions has suggested to me that the question of whether I should buy meat from a grocery store is anything but 'no'.

With respect to the broader question: I think the burden is on you to establish that the only sustainable future for humanity involved returning to, essentially, a hybrid pastoral/hunting culture. That is an extremely radical position that I don't know any major environmental organization to endorse.

To avoid catastrophic climate change, we need to bring per-capita carbon emissions to 3 tons per year. The average in the United States is 17.5. But it is just that, an average. My personal estimated emissions, the last time I calculated it, were 2.8T. The real number might very well be higher than that, but it's in the ballpark. We still would need drastic changes to our infrastructure and lifestyle more generally to bring everyone's numbers down to the target level, but it doesn't seem obvious to me that doing so requires reverting to a pastoral/hunting society.

There are, of course, plenty of other environmental problems besides climate change, some of which we have already discussed, others not. There's the issue of microplastics, for one. The amount of plastic that gets into the ocean from tire abrasion is staggering, and it doesn't matter whether our cars have internal combusion engines in them or not. But again, I don't see why solutions to these kinds of problems necessitate animal exploitation.

Do I think the developed world needs to give up on lots of things it takes for granted? Yes. I am largely in agreement with you on restaurants/food waste & transportation. But nothing you have so far argued has suggested to me that the solutions those problems require harming animals. They seem neither here nor there when it comes to (1) and (2).

And if it is fair to think about these larger-scale questions, I cannot help but mention other features of human life that we have been so far taking for granted: the current (a) size and (b) geographic distribution of the human population. Making the planet sustainable would be much easier if there were fewer of us, packed more densely. It is not clear to me why it is any more appropriate to take these things as fixed and argue for the necessity of pastoral animal agriculture than it is to imagine a world with fewer human being gathered densely in areas with arable land and ask whether we would need to exploit animals in such a system.

In summary: debates about the structure of human society are important, but they don't bear on the first-personal question of whether I or people in situations like mine should be vegan. And nothing so far has convinced me that the answer to that question is 'no'.