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Matt_Simpson comments on An argument that animals don't really suffer - Less Wrong Discussion
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Let's take his argument in the quote true as given (I don't know the relevant neuroscience here either). So we'll assume that all non-human animals only have level 1 or 2 awareness of pain. Now you need to figure out which sort of pain it is that you value preventing - level 1, 2, or 3 (presumably if you value preventing 1, you value preventing 2 and 3 as well). If you only value preventing level 3 pain, then eat away. If level 2, then don't eat vertebrates. If level 1, don't eat any organism that reacts to negative stimuli (all organisms?). This is ultimately a values question.
Note that if preventing animals from feeling some sort of pain is the only reason you're a vegetarian, then consider whether you would eat animals who were killed in a non-pain inducing way (in any/all of the three senses). If you don't think eating the animals is ok in that situation, then think about what your true rejection of eating animals is.
I would eat animals if they were killed in a non-pain inducing way, in so far as they don't have the same kind of interests in "continuing to live" as (nearly all) humans do. Unfortunately, animals are most definitely not kept or killed in non-pain inducing ways.
Optimal response to that (barring behavioral consistency) is to eat the best-treated meat, not no meat.
Why is that the optimal response?
Stronger incentive to treat animals better, by moving money along that gradient instead of just removing it from all companies.
Unless even the best treated meat is treated too badly according to peter_hurford's values.
No! (And given we all live on Earth in 2012 it's pretty obvious that it is and I knew that.) It gives companies an incentive to treat meat marginally better, instead of creating an impossible step between current and acceptable policies. It also gives the company you like most additional money to crush its competitors with, rather than giving a smaller relative contribution to all soy farmers against the meat industry.
Yes, it changes incentives in the meat industry, but giving money to soy farmers shrinks the meat industry. But which of these is better depends on a) your preferences and b) the economics of these industries. The short term cost of contributing to the suffering of animals my not be worth the tiny marginal improvement in the amount of suffering animals.
I don't know the economics of it, but based on my current knowledge, I think the safest bet is refraining from consuming animal products as much as possible, and then buying the most humane products when necessary.
On the other hand, some people are making arguments that the production of plant based foods actually harms more animals than the production of, say, beef. I just stumbled across this
Hmmm. I'm vegetarian for other reasons than just the animals feeling pain: I've also got environmental concerns, and after being vegetarian for so long, the thought of eating meat squicks me. So it's not my true rejection, but it is a component of it.