> that about 90% of US beef comes from farms that raise 100 or fewer cattle at a time
fyi, this is not accurate, you probably meant to say that 90% of US cattle farms raise 100 or fewer cattle at a time, they account for 46% of all beef cows.
idk the rest, i'm just very interested in the matthew effect (rich get richer) and how things cluster, so that sentence stuck out to me as fascinating if true. (unfortunately it wasn't)
As a woman who comes from a long line of cattle ranchers and currently lives on 550 acres of savannas & grassland in Texas, this deeply resonated with me. My love, respect and appreciation for the cows that shape this beautiful landscape is deep. They're tremendous teachers, and while they're here, they live peaceful lives. And even if I can't be totally certain of the cow's true experience, what I can be certain of is that they bring a tremendous amount of peace and gratitude to my life. I love them and eat beef daily and somehow don't find a contradiction in my behavior.
At the risk of being too long winded, I also want to share a personal anecdote. On an extraordinarily hot summer day (100+), I was noticing the herd sitting together under some trees, and a tremendous swell of grief coursed through my body. I began to weep, fell to my knees, and apologized to the cows for how cruel and thoughtless humans have been. They just benignly looked at me, and I received this response: They told me to get off my knees and to stop apologizing. I heard them communicate: "You humans need to get your shit together to take care of this place so that all creatures can better live. We forgive you. Stop apologizing and get to work in doing your job of using your bodies to support this home we share. We need you. Show up." And sometimes, it's as simple as noticing and appreciating beauty that is the showing up.
Very well researched and thought out. I appreciate all the work that went into to this. Your arguments / persuasion / facts as pertains to context are often overlooked yet crucial to decision making. As were your notes on the (relatively) cushy lives of modern cows. I, too, appreciate them for all they provide us with, including both the delights of seeing them grazing the land and the delicious steaks. Thanks so much for the thoughtful essay as always.
To extend your argument on the positive welfare of farmed cows, the universalization of the vegan position would risk the extinction of many of these species absent a deliberate contraction of human civilization. Which of course gets to the anti-humanist motivations underpinning many of their arguments. That being said I have recently given up pork and chicken (and reduced my egg consumption) for lack of access to farms where these animals have what I estimate to be positive-welfare lives.
Do your animal welfare intuitions change for factory farmed pork or chicken, where it is far more difficult to argue that their day to day experience is positive?
I think its significantly harder to see the average pork or chicken operation as good, though they have gotten a lot better (in America). I recommend buying pork from a farm you trust, like: https://acornblufffarms.com/
In general, finding eggs from good farms is easy, its just costly. That's a cost I can easily digest.
There is a second affordability problem subsequent to this, which relies more on the human health argument I've avoided
I appreciate many of your aesthetic and more intuitive insights, and I do not disagree with roughly half of what you say here, but you are not a very good or precise philosopher.
On this article in particular, it seems like Simon tried to add so many different ways to find nuance that he made it run on quite a bit. I actually don’t mind, and much of his other work more than redeems him.
The desire for self-erasure, hidden in moral language, affects people in ways bigger than veganism. Once you start seeing it, it becomes apparent in many aspects of our politics and our lives. I don't know if I've seen a good inquiry into where it comes from.
This has been one of your weakest posts so far. This is not an attack or I'm not saying this as a criticism of your opinion as everyone is entitled to their own but this post is rooted in a ton of assumptions especially on the morality side. It read like a personal defence for a choice you have made and are now presenting at as universally true.
I see a data presented about farms in the US but the world is much larger than developed countries. Even then, you are looking at meat, dairy purchased and cooked in its raw forms. As a basic example, you will be surprised at how many food items in your supermarket has milk solids. To assume they all source milk from ethical sources and still meet their bottomline is questionable. Let's assume this is true in the US and Europe but most of the urban world is still a price sensitive market and for an economically backward population, the only thing that matters is the price on the label. In some of these countries, the factory farming conditions are truly horrific. I won't go into much detail other than that.
You touched on how difficult it is to avoid animal products in other markets like pharmaceuticals. You are right. It is almost impossible to avoid it but again it is a function of availability and price. After meat is sold off, the rest of the carcass is used as much as possible. The sheer ubiquity of these raw materials is what drives secondary usage. If these were unavailable, won't there be alternatives found and used? Maybe, right? It is not a certainty but there are people willing to not see the needle move in their lifetimes but still have a moral stance. You talked about nutrition so I will give another example. I think it proven without a doubt that meat has more nutritional value and that it can’t exactly be replicated with plant foods. But there are people who avoid eating animal products and live well into their old age so it is not self-harm to avoid animal products. I am not saying they are healthy compared to meat eaters but that maximising personal nutrition/well-being is not a priority over a moral stance they have taken.
You also spoke about how ruthless nature is and that in comparison we give animals a great life and a great death. Firstly, you don't have to do much to be better than nature so it's a bad comparison. Secondly, the animals not knowing their own death and how it came is not a good defence for the act that is being committed. Especially when something like a cow never existed in nature. They have been domesticated to the point where they have lost all ability to self sustain. By human selection, we have taken away autonomy which nature at least provided. We kill them but all creatures must die unfortunately does not hold up as a great argument against humans. You can't enslave a human their entire lives and give a good life as a good defence for enslaving it or killing it (It was done in society and is now largely considered immoral).
Nature is immensely malleable as well. I hear people arguing it is natural for humans to eat meat. That does not make it the right thing to do. Dogs evolved from pure carnivores to omnivores. Humans evolved to process cooked food after fire was discovered. We evolved to better process grains. Which is more natural and hence more correct is an incorrect premise. We have the gift of cognisance, we can decide what is correct.
I do have a lot more to say but let me wrap this up. It is completely respectable to have a position that maximising human/personal nutrition, well-being and comforts is your priority. You are comfortable with a moral stand in which you avoid all harm until it does not adversely affect humans/self. That is entirely reasonable but it has to be explicitly stated and understood. It is not a debate that cruelty against animals purely to fulfil human needs is happening at an egregious scale.
Again, veganism is also a stance just like that. Why stop at animals? Plants have a life too, why are they secondary to human or animal life? A lot of vegans I've spoken to understand this fact but some still argue.
These moral positions are a line in the sand. You draw it where you are comfortable and try to adhere to it. The whole tone of the post was that one is more right than the other which I think is wrong :))
In case anyone is wondering, I am not vegan myself. I say things on similar lines to vegans who come out and argue their position is the right one. All this is personal morality space, you ultimately do what you are comfortable with but everyone must understand that just because you think it is more correct, it is not.
Personally, I both believe in the utilitarian animal-welfare arguments but also in the corresponding utilitarian solution: I donate to animal welfare charities every January, where a pretty small amount more than offsets eating anything I want for the rest of the year
Fun read. I think you’ve put forward the strongest forms of the arguments against veganism that I’m aware of. Thanks for writing
> that about 90% of US beef comes from farms that raise 100 or fewer cattle at a time
fyi, this is not accurate, you probably meant to say that 90% of US cattle farms raise 100 or fewer cattle at a time, they account for 46% of all beef cows.
idk the rest, i'm just very interested in the matthew effect (rich get richer) and how things cluster, so that sentence stuck out to me as fascinating if true. (unfortunately it wasn't)
source: https://www.aphis.usda.gov/sites/default/files/small_scale_beef.pdf page 3
Shoot thank you, I must have read beef operations as beef. I'll fix that.
As a woman who comes from a long line of cattle ranchers and currently lives on 550 acres of savannas & grassland in Texas, this deeply resonated with me. My love, respect and appreciation for the cows that shape this beautiful landscape is deep. They're tremendous teachers, and while they're here, they live peaceful lives. And even if I can't be totally certain of the cow's true experience, what I can be certain of is that they bring a tremendous amount of peace and gratitude to my life. I love them and eat beef daily and somehow don't find a contradiction in my behavior.
At the risk of being too long winded, I also want to share a personal anecdote. On an extraordinarily hot summer day (100+), I was noticing the herd sitting together under some trees, and a tremendous swell of grief coursed through my body. I began to weep, fell to my knees, and apologized to the cows for how cruel and thoughtless humans have been. They just benignly looked at me, and I received this response: They told me to get off my knees and to stop apologizing. I heard them communicate: "You humans need to get your shit together to take care of this place so that all creatures can better live. We forgive you. Stop apologizing and get to work in doing your job of using your bodies to support this home we share. We need you. Show up." And sometimes, it's as simple as noticing and appreciating beauty that is the showing up.
Very well researched and thought out. I appreciate all the work that went into to this. Your arguments / persuasion / facts as pertains to context are often overlooked yet crucial to decision making. As were your notes on the (relatively) cushy lives of modern cows. I, too, appreciate them for all they provide us with, including both the delights of seeing them grazing the land and the delicious steaks. Thanks so much for the thoughtful essay as always.
To extend your argument on the positive welfare of farmed cows, the universalization of the vegan position would risk the extinction of many of these species absent a deliberate contraction of human civilization. Which of course gets to the anti-humanist motivations underpinning many of their arguments. That being said I have recently given up pork and chicken (and reduced my egg consumption) for lack of access to farms where these animals have what I estimate to be positive-welfare lives.
Do your animal welfare intuitions change for factory farmed pork or chicken, where it is far more difficult to argue that their day to day experience is positive?
I think its significantly harder to see the average pork or chicken operation as good, though they have gotten a lot better (in America). I recommend buying pork from a farm you trust, like: https://acornblufffarms.com/
In general, finding eggs from good farms is easy, its just costly. That's a cost I can easily digest.
There is a second affordability problem subsequent to this, which relies more on the human health argument I've avoided
I appreciate many of your aesthetic and more intuitive insights, and I do not disagree with roughly half of what you say here, but you are not a very good or precise philosopher.
On this article in particular, it seems like Simon tried to add so many different ways to find nuance that he made it run on quite a bit. I actually don’t mind, and much of his other work more than redeems him.
The desire for self-erasure, hidden in moral language, affects people in ways bigger than veganism. Once you start seeing it, it becomes apparent in many aspects of our politics and our lives. I don't know if I've seen a good inquiry into where it comes from.
This has been one of your weakest posts so far. This is not an attack or I'm not saying this as a criticism of your opinion as everyone is entitled to their own but this post is rooted in a ton of assumptions especially on the morality side. It read like a personal defence for a choice you have made and are now presenting at as universally true.
I see a data presented about farms in the US but the world is much larger than developed countries. Even then, you are looking at meat, dairy purchased and cooked in its raw forms. As a basic example, you will be surprised at how many food items in your supermarket has milk solids. To assume they all source milk from ethical sources and still meet their bottomline is questionable. Let's assume this is true in the US and Europe but most of the urban world is still a price sensitive market and for an economically backward population, the only thing that matters is the price on the label. In some of these countries, the factory farming conditions are truly horrific. I won't go into much detail other than that.
You touched on how difficult it is to avoid animal products in other markets like pharmaceuticals. You are right. It is almost impossible to avoid it but again it is a function of availability and price. After meat is sold off, the rest of the carcass is used as much as possible. The sheer ubiquity of these raw materials is what drives secondary usage. If these were unavailable, won't there be alternatives found and used? Maybe, right? It is not a certainty but there are people willing to not see the needle move in their lifetimes but still have a moral stance. You talked about nutrition so I will give another example. I think it proven without a doubt that meat has more nutritional value and that it can’t exactly be replicated with plant foods. But there are people who avoid eating animal products and live well into their old age so it is not self-harm to avoid animal products. I am not saying they are healthy compared to meat eaters but that maximising personal nutrition/well-being is not a priority over a moral stance they have taken.
You also spoke about how ruthless nature is and that in comparison we give animals a great life and a great death. Firstly, you don't have to do much to be better than nature so it's a bad comparison. Secondly, the animals not knowing their own death and how it came is not a good defence for the act that is being committed. Especially when something like a cow never existed in nature. They have been domesticated to the point where they have lost all ability to self sustain. By human selection, we have taken away autonomy which nature at least provided. We kill them but all creatures must die unfortunately does not hold up as a great argument against humans. You can't enslave a human their entire lives and give a good life as a good defence for enslaving it or killing it (It was done in society and is now largely considered immoral).
Nature is immensely malleable as well. I hear people arguing it is natural for humans to eat meat. That does not make it the right thing to do. Dogs evolved from pure carnivores to omnivores. Humans evolved to process cooked food after fire was discovered. We evolved to better process grains. Which is more natural and hence more correct is an incorrect premise. We have the gift of cognisance, we can decide what is correct.
I do have a lot more to say but let me wrap this up. It is completely respectable to have a position that maximising human/personal nutrition, well-being and comforts is your priority. You are comfortable with a moral stand in which you avoid all harm until it does not adversely affect humans/self. That is entirely reasonable but it has to be explicitly stated and understood. It is not a debate that cruelty against animals purely to fulfil human needs is happening at an egregious scale.
Again, veganism is also a stance just like that. Why stop at animals? Plants have a life too, why are they secondary to human or animal life? A lot of vegans I've spoken to understand this fact but some still argue.
These moral positions are a line in the sand. You draw it where you are comfortable and try to adhere to it. The whole tone of the post was that one is more right than the other which I think is wrong :))
In case anyone is wondering, I am not vegan myself. I say things on similar lines to vegans who come out and argue their position is the right one. All this is personal morality space, you ultimately do what you are comfortable with but everyone must understand that just because you think it is more correct, it is not.
Personally, I both believe in the utilitarian animal-welfare arguments but also in the corresponding utilitarian solution: I donate to animal welfare charities every January, where a pretty small amount more than offsets eating anything I want for the rest of the year