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jkaufman comments on Link: Rob Bensinger on Less Wrong and vegetarianism - Less Wrong Discussion

11 Post author: Sysice 13 November 2014 05:09PM

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Comment author: jkaufman 17 November 2014 07:45:29PM 2 points [-]

People who approach veganism from utilitarian ideas would group this question in with a bunch of others under wild animal suffering. The general idea is that suffering is just as bad whether human caused or natural, though it's often hard to figure out what actions most reduce suffering (for example, if we killed all the predators there would be lots more prey animals, but if they tend to have lives that are on average worse than not living at all then this would be a bad thing.)

Comment author: Lumifer 17 November 2014 07:50:20PM 1 point [-]

(for example, if we killed all the predators there would be lots more prey animals, but if they tend to have lives that are on average worse than not living at all then this would be a bad thing.)

Wouldn't that logic lead you to killing all predators or all prey depending on the answer to the question of whether the prey has lives not worth living? If "no", kill prey, if "yes", kill predators. In any case you're committed to a lot of killing.