Jiro comments on Why Eat Less Meat? - LessWrong

48 Post author: peter_hurford 23 July 2013 09:30PM

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Comment author: Pablo_Stafforini 25 July 2013 11:17:49PM 3 points [-]

I'm very sure than an 8 year old human counts morally and that a chicken does not,

Consider an experience which, if had by an eight-year-old human, would be morally very bad, such as an experience of intense suffering. Now suppose that a chicken could have an experience that was phenomenally indistinguishable from that of the child. Would you be "very sure" that it would be very bad for this experience to be had by the human child, but not at all bad to be had by the chicken?

Comment author: Jiro 26 July 2013 02:28:28PM *  1 point [-]

I smell a variation of Pascal's Mugging here. In Pascal's Mugging, you are told that you should consider a possibility with a small probability because the large consequence makes up for the fact that the probability is small. Here you are suggesting that someone may not be "very sure" (i.e. that he may have a small degree of uncertainty), but that even a small degree of uncertainty justifies becoming a vegetarian because something about the consequence of being wrong (presumably, multiplying by the high badness, though you don't explicitly say so) makes up for the fact that the degree of uncertainty is small.