In the US, the number of days per week that people in the under $25,000 income bracket (2012 data) consume meat is approximately the same as in higher income brackets. It seems very plausible to think that what makes this equality in the consumption of meat possible is the affordability of meat resulting from factory farming.
Suppose this is so and factory farming were eliminated. Then, there might be little change in the consumption of meat by people at the top of the income scale, as they could afford meat from small and expensive operations, but we would expect a significant decrease in the consumption of meat at the lower end of the income scale. Since people’s feelings of happiness and misery are largely tied to comparative evaluations, this inequality would be likely to lead to increased misery in those at the lower levels of the income scale who are already living lives of quiet desperation.
Moreover, observe that the impact that a pleasure has on a life intuitively depends on what other pleasures are available in life. Suppose I ceased to eat meat. But my own life is really great, and opportunities for pleasure abound. I have a wonderful family, a really fun job, access to Baylor’s incredible recreational facilities, books, video games, microcontrollers from Aliexpress, and enough leisure to enjoy all these. Losing regular access to the gustatory pleasures of meat would make only a small dent in my subjective wellbeing. (It would mostly be a nuisance: I would have to think harder how to fulfill my high caloric needs.)
But imagine that I am really poor. I am trying to support my family by holding down multiple low-paying jobs. There are few pleasures I have time for in my life and much stress. In that context, losing regular access to meat would take away one of the few pleasures in life—the pleasure of eating meat with a regularity that in the past mainly the rich could afford. Moreover, the pleasures of eating are often not just solitary pleasures but communal: I would lose sharing this pleasure with other family members living difficult lives.
In other words, the elimination of factory farming would have a highly unequal effect: the rich could still have their meat, and meat plausibly makes for a much smaller contribution to the well-being of the rich given all the other opportunities for pleasure available to them; but the poor would lose much of their access to one of the much smaller number of pleasures in their life, which would be a much greater loss.
Now, of course, an argument like this won’t justify every inhumane farming method in the name of making meat available to the poor. But it seems to me to be a serious argument in favor of some factory farming practices. Moreover, there is here a positive, albeit weak, argument in favor of even those of us who could afford meat farmed more humanely to eat factory farmed meat: in doing so, we contribute to the economies of scale that make meat affordable to those in lower income brackets to a historically unprecedented degree.
9 comments:
Part 1:
These are interesting thoughts, but I'm not sure they work.
You say, "Since people’s feelings of happiness and misery are largely tied to comparative evaluations, this inequality would be likely to lead to increased misery in those at the lower levels of the income scale who are already living lives of quiet desperation."
Response: First, let me acknowledge that I might not be situated to make reliable pronouncements on this since I am not impoverished, but it's not clear to me that feelings of happiness/misery are largely tied to comparative evaluations, at least not in the long run. Humans have a tendency to adapt to their present circumstances, regardless of how well others appear to be doing. At the very least, the effect of comparative evaluations on feelings of happiness/misery diminishes significantly over time. Perhaps upon realizing that there are wealthier humans who enjoy fine dining, expensive wine, and lavish vacations, an impoverished person might feel high levels of misery, but I suspect (for many at least) these feelings diminish over time, especially if the individual is still able to find pleasure in other areas of life. And I think it's very likely that such individuals would be able to find other pleasures (in food and other domains) even if meat was unavailable. As a (majority-of-the-time) vegetarian, I can verify that there are wide varieties of very pleasurable vegetarian food options. Admittedly, adjusting to a no meat diet is difficult at first, but it becomes much easier and more pleasurable after a few months.
You say, "the impact that a pleasure has on a life intuitively depends on what other pleasures are available in life."
Response: Perhaps this is right, but the impact of a pleasure also plausibly depends on the amount/intensity of the pleasure, and the amount/intensity of the pleasure one gets from something depends on many variable factors, such as one's habits and one's status quo. For example, when I regularly consumed meat, I got a lot of pleasure from it and much less pleasure from other foods like vegetables. But now that I rarely eat meat, I get much more pleasure from other foods like vegetables, and generally much less from eating meat, especially since I am now aware that when I eat (factory farmed) meat, I am contributing to a system that regularly causes immense pain and suffering to animals.
Part 2:
Regarding your example of an impoverished person, you say, "In that context, losing regular access to meat would take away one of the few pleasures in life—the pleasure of eating meat with a regularity that in the past mainly the rich could afford. Moreover, the pleasures of eating are often not just solitary pleasures but communal: I would lose sharing this pleasure with other family members living difficult lives."
Response: Again, this person might lose the gustatory pleasure for a few months, but this would likely be regained through a vegetarian diet. Furthermore, even if this person could not afford meat regularly, they would still likely be able to occasionally afford the slightly more expensive meat. A portion of the money used to frequently buy cheaper factory farmed meat could be saved and used to buy expensive humane meat less frequently. And they might even get more pleasure from this meat since they don't get to eat it as frequently, which might make up some for the loss of pleasure from not having meat regularly. Regarding the loss of communal pleasures, they would eventually be able to share in just as much communal pleasure while eating a vegetarian diet. Additionally, they might be able to pool their resources and purchase the more expensive, but humane, meat for special occasions.
So it's not clear to me that "the elimination of factory farming would... be a much greater loss [for the poor]," at least not after a few months. In fact, it could even be a benefit for the poor if they ate healthy vegetarian diets since their diets would include less fat, cholesterol, and sodium, and thereby promote their health.
Thanks for your thoughts.
My feeling -- perhaps mistaken -- is that it is rather more time-consuming to prepare a satisfying and pleasurable vegetarian meal. And the poor have less leisure, I assume.
I get rather more satisfaction from a sausage dumped in the microwave than from any vegetarian meal that I can think of that could be prepared in a minute. Tastes differ, of course.
On the other hand, there are issues of economies of scale. If a large enough number of people were vegetarian, I suppose the economies of scale on delicious microwaveable vegetarian meals might be quite good.
By the way, I think that recent research has backtracked on the old consensus that fat and sodium are bad.
The way meat consumption rises sharply as a country's GDP increases from zero to $10K ( https://na.unep.net/geas/getUNEPPageWithArticleIDScript.php?article_id=92 ) would be very well explained by the hypothesis that people tend to find meat more satisfying than vegetarian options.
I regularly consumed meat for most of my life, and my close relatives still regularly consume meat. After eating mostly vegetarian for about 5 years now, I can assure you that preparing satisfying and pleasurable vegetarian dishes is no more time-consuming than preparing meat dishes. And there are a lot of helpful online resources for recipes. Here's a link to some fast recipes. Here's a website with many delicious recipes.
Perhaps you're aware of more recent research regarding recommended saturated/trans fat and sodium consumption, but the 2015-2020 Health Department Dietary Guidelines recommend diminishing consumption because of correlations with adverse health effects. Here's a link to the guidelines. (relevant parts are near the bottom of the page)
I don't deny the majority of humans tend to find meat more satisfying than vegetarian meals, especially if they consume it regularly. That's why I said, "adjusting to a no meat diet is difficult at first, but it becomes much easier and more pleasurable after a few months." But I'm not sure how helpful the data you reference is anyways because the available vegetarian options in countries with lower GDPs might be pretty terrible, which would explain an increase in meat consumption as more resources become available. It's also possible that increased GDP correlates with increased population, which would explain increased total meat consumption. But these are just conjectures.
At least one of the research articles I came across was from 2017 and explicitly said that its conclusions are at odds with the guidelines.
If it's easily accessible, would you mind sharing it? I would be interested to see it. No worries if not.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170425124909.htm
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