Essay-Question Poll: Dietary Choices

Alicorn

I have noticed that among philosophers, vegetarianism of one form or another is quite common. In fact, I became a vegetarian (technically a pescetarian) myself partly out of respect for an undergraduate philosophy professor. I am interested in finding out if there is a similar disproportion in the Less Wrong community.

I didn't request that this go into Yvain's survey because I want more information than just what animal products you do or don't eat; I'd also like to see nuances of the reasons behind your diet. There are a lot more shades than carnivore/vegetarian/vegan - if you want to be a vegetarian but are allergic to soy and gluten, that's a compelling reason to diversify protein sources, for instance. I'd also like to hear about if you avoid any plant foods (if you think they're farmed in a way that's environmentally destructive or that hurts people or if you have warm fuzzy feelings for plants, maybe). Here are some questions that come to mind:

What foods, if any, do you normally avoid for reasons other than pure culinary taste, cost, individual health concerns (allergies, diabetes, etc.) or ease of preparation? (Avoiding foods that are considered revolting or just non-food in your culture of origin, like balut or fried locusts, counts as "culinary taste".)
What are your reasons for avoiding those foods?
How strictly do you avoid them? For instance, will you eat them if you are served them while a guest at a meal, or if you are hungry and there is nothing else available? Do you check to see if they're in potentially questionable dishes at restaurants (and if so, do you trust what the server says?)
If you have children or plan to have children, will you expect or encourage them to avoid the same foods?
Do you try to convince your friends and family members to make dietary choices similar to yours? If so, have you ever succeeded?
If you avoid a class of foods with valuable nutritive content (as opposed to Twinkies), what do you replace it with to get complete nutrition?
What are your attitudes to people who are more restrictive in their diets than you are? Less restrictive?
What is the timeline of your dietary restrictions? (Transitions, lapses, increases or decreases in restrictiveness, etc.)
If you have not avoided these foods for your entire life, how much did you enjoy them when you ate them, and do you still sometimes want to eat them?
Is there anything else about your choice of diet that might be relevant or interesting?

What foods, if any, do you normally avoid for reasons other than pure culinary taste, cost, individual health concerns (allergies, diabetes, etc.) or ease of preparation? (Avoiding foods that are considered revolting or just non-food in your culture of origin, like balut or fried locusts, counts as "culinary taste".)
What are your reasons for avoiding those foods?
How strictly do you avoid them? For instance, will you eat them if you are served them while a guest at a meal, or if you are hungry and there is nothing else available? Do you check to see if they're in potentially questionable dishes at restaurants (and if so, do you trust what the server says?)
If you have children or plan to have children, will you expect or encourage them to avoid the same foods?
Do you try to convince your friends and family members to make dietary choices similar to yours? If so, have you ever succeeded?
If you avoid a class of foods with valuable nutritive content (as opposed to Twinkies), what do you replace it with to get complete nutrition?
What are your attitudes to people who are more restrictive in their diets than you are? Less restrictive?
What is the timeline of your dietary restrictions? (Transitions, lapses, increases or decreases in restrictiveness, etc.)
If you have not avoided these foods for your entire life, how much did you enjoy them when you ate them, and do you still sometimes want to eat them?
Is there anything else about your choice of diet that might be relevant or interesting?

I don't interpret "consciousness" as a preference giving some animals more value to me than others. I interpret it as a multiplier that needs to be used in order to even out preferences.

Let's say I want to minimize suffering in a target-independent way, but I need to divide X units of torture between a human and an ant. I would choose to apply all X units to the ant, not just because I like humans more than ants, but because that decision actually minimizes total suffering. My wild guess is that ants can't really suffer all that much; they probably get some vague negative feeling but it's (again, I am guessing wildly) nothing like as strong or as painful as the pain that a human, with their million times more neurons, feels.

In contrast, obviously cuteness has no effect on level of suffering. If I want to divide up X units of torture between two animals, one of which is cuter than the other, from a purely consequentialist position there's no reason to prefer one to the other.

It might help if you think of me as trying to minimize the number of suffering*consciousness units. That's why I wouldn't care about eating TAW's genetically engineered neuronless cow, and it's why I care less about ants than humans.

(or a metaphor: let's say a hospital administrator has to distribute X organs among needy transplant patients. Even if the hospital administrator chooses to be unbiased regarding the patients' social value - ie not prefer a millionaire to a bum - the administrator still has a good case for giving the organ to someone for whom it will bring them 50 more years of life rather than 6 more months. That's a completely different kind of preference than 'I like this guy better'. The administrator is trying to impartially maximize lives saved*years)

Hopefully that makes it clear what the difference between this theory and "preferring" cute animals is.

If I want to divide up X units of torture between two animals, one of which is cuter than the other, from a purely consequentialist position there's no reason to prefer one to the other.

Well, humans seem to be more upset by images of baby seals being clubbed than by the death of less cute but similarly 'conscious' creatures so that might factor into your total suffering calculation but that aside this does seem to follow from your premises.

It might help if you think of me as trying to minimize the number of suffering*consciousness units.

Why is that ... (read more)

17

Essay-Question Poll: Dietary Choices

17

17

17

Essay-Question Poll: Dietary Choices

17

17