Does utilitarianism and veganism conflict with one another?

[NickNack]

I would say I'm a pretty hard core utilitarian. I would say its justified to push a person into a train track if it stopped the train and saved 5 other people and I would likely do it myself If I knew the train would be stopped by the person I pushed, and I'm vegan but I'm now starting to get confused because If I could kill x amount of animals to save more than X amount of animals, then I would be doing the right thing under my moral view, so does anyone know the answer to if grass fed beef kills less animals, or does anyone wanna argue against utilitarianism?

[thebestofenergy]

I would say I'm a pretty hard core utilitarian. I would say its justified to push a person into a train track if it stopped the train and saved 5 other people and I would likely do it myself If I knew the train would be stopped by the person I pushed, and I'm vegan but I'm now starting to get confused because If I could kill x amount of animals to save more than X amount of animals, then I would be doing the right thing under my moral view, so does anyone know the answer to if grass fed beef kills less animals, or does anyone wanna argue against utilitarianism?

There's quite a lot to unpack from what you said.

First of all, utilitarianism/consequentialism doesn't deal with the number of deaths. That's an arbitrary factor by itself.

It deals with creating a net positive outcome (where happiness/satisfaction outweighs suffering, with the former being maximized and the latter being minimized). That doesn't necessarily mean number of deaths.
You could kill two grasshoppers, or one cow. It's pretty clear killing the cow would be magnitudes worse, even if it's only half the amount of deaths.

So, to your question regarding if grass-fed beef is better or worse than eating plants.

The animal killing that happens when you deal with plant foods is mainly harvest-based, and harvest primarily kills insects.
It's also a common misconception that harvest doesn't happen with grass-fed beef, though, as cows still need to eat during winter. Grass is harvested every year for grass-fed beef, and stored to feed cows year-long (on top of that, it's also likely that cows eating the grass and moving around would also kill insects). And, of course, the cows themselves are killed.

So far we have:

Plants:

- crop deaths

Grass-fed beef:

- crop deaths
- cows' deaths

But it doesn't end there, as there is a lot more.

In fact, grass-fed beef happens to be one of the worst (if not the worst) practices for the environment to date.
This is because of the sheer number of space required for the grazing and the feed.

We can use an estimate of 1.8 acres of grazing land per cow (which seems a common rule of thumb).
That's multiplied by 1 billion (which is the number of bovines present at any given moment in the planet).
The result is 1.8 billion acres of land.

That is so much land, that it's more land than the current land usage for total agriculture.
It's estimated that agriculture (including animal agriculture) is currently at 1.5 billion acres.

So, with grass-fed beef, just for the cows, you'd need more space than all of agriculture today. Even if you were to restrict the space for cows, it would still be a ridiculous amount, and then you would have to apply it to all the other farmed animal species as well (to leave them all truly free range).

This shows how environmentally destructive grazing would be on a global scale, and how unfeasible it actually is.

And it shows the amount of wild life suffering it would cause as well.
Imagine razing over 10 digits of acres, and the amount of harm that would cause (to put it into perspective, all of the forested land in the US makes up about 800 million acres).

Not just to the wild life, though. To the environment and climate in general.

And then, as you probably already know, climate change causes exponentially more issues the worse it gets.
Climate, that is also made significantly worse by the cows, because of greenhouse gas emissions.

You get the picture. It's a trickle-down effect.

There's a lot more too, like how the cows aren't simply killed, but are raped (to breed) and have their babies stolen over and over (for dairy) throughout their allowed lifetime.

In the end, what we have is:

Plants:

- crop deaths

Grass-fed beef:

- crop deaths (for a much bigger field per pound of food than plants)
- cows' deaths
- cows' torture (rape and stealing of calves)
- wild animals' deaths from paving over an absurd amount of land
- climate change from deforestation
- climate change from greenhouse gas emissions
- waste of land and resources (water)
- worsening situation for millions in third world countries (poor people are the first affected by climate change)

And all of this, of course, is still leaving out two major points:

1. grass-fed beef costs a lot more than the same nutrition/calories in plant food, and the monetary difference (between buying plants instead of grass-fed beef) could be put to good use instead (like donating it to a charity)
2. plant food is healthier

All the problems listed, would then have to be multiplied times over if you were to replace all (or almost all) your food exclusively with grass-fed beef.

It becomes apparent why grass-fed beef has one of the worst possible outcomes as a food practice, and is actually unfeasible on a global scale.

[NickNack]

I would say I'm a pretty hard core utilitarian. I would say its justified to push a person into a train track if it stopped the train and saved 5 other people and I would likely do it myself If I knew the train would be stopped by the person I pushed, and I'm vegan but I'm now starting to get confused because If I could kill x amount of animals to save more than X amount of animals, then I would be doing the right thing under my moral view, so does anyone know the answer to if grass fed beef kills less animals, or does anyone wanna argue against utilitarianism?

There's quite a lot to unpack from what you said.

First of all, utilitarianism/consequentialism doesn't deal with the number of deaths. That's an arbitrary factor by itself.

It deals with creating a net positive outcome (where happiness/satisfaction outweighs suffering, with the former being maximized and the latter being minimized). That doesn't necessarily mean number of deaths.
You could kill two grasshoppers, or one cow. It's pretty clear killing the cow would be magnitudes worse, even if it's only half the amount of deaths.

So, to your question regarding if grass-fed beef is better or worse than eating plants.

The animal killing that happens when you deal with plant foods is mainly harvest-based, and harvest primarily kills insects.
It's also a common misconception that harvest doesn't happen with grass-fed beef, though, as cows still need to eat during winter. Grass is harvested every year for grass-fed beef, and stored to feed cows year-long (on top of that, it's also likely that cows eating the grass and moving around would also kill insects). And, of course, the cows themselves are killed.

So far we have:

Plants:

- crop deaths

Grass-fed beef:

- crop deaths
- cows' deaths

But it doesn't end there, as there is a lot more.

In fact, grass-fed beef happens to be one of the worst (if not the worst) practices for the environment to date.
This is because of the sheer number of space required for the grazing and the feed.

We can use an estimate of 1.8 acres of grazing land per cow (which seems a common rule of thumb).
That's multiplied by 1 billion (which is the number of bovines present at any given moment in the planet).
The result is 1.8 billion acres of land.

That is so much land, that it's more land than the current land usage for total agriculture.
It's estimated that agriculture (including animal agriculture) is currently at 1.5 billion acres.

So, with grass-fed beef, just for the cows, you'd need more space than all of agriculture today. Even if you were to restrict the space for cows, it would still be a ridiculous amount, and then you would have to apply it to all the other farmed animal species as well (to leave them all truly free range).

This shows how environmentally destructive grazing would be on a global scale, and how unfeasible it actually is.

And it shows the amount of wild life suffering it would cause as well.
Imagine razing over 10 digits of acres, and the amount of harm that would cause (to put it into perspective, all of the forested land in the US makes up about 800 million acres).

Not just to the wild life, though. To the environment and climate in general.

And then, as you probably already know, climate change causes exponentially more issues the worse it gets.
Climate, that is also made significantly worse by the cows, because of greenhouse gas emissions.

You get the picture. It's a trickle-down effect.

There's a lot more too, like how the cows aren't simply killed, but are raped (to breed) and have their babies stolen over and over (for dairy) throughout their allowed lifetime.

In the end, what we have is:

Plants:

- crop deaths

Grass-fed beef:

- crop deaths (for a much bigger field per pound of food than plants)
- cows' deaths
- cows' torture (rape and stealing of calves)
- wild animals' deaths from paving over an absurd amount of land
- climate change from deforestation
- climate change from greenhouse gas emissions
- waste of land and resources (water)
- worsening situation for millions in third world countries (poor people are the first affected by climate change)

And all of this, of course, is still leaving out two major points:

1. grass-fed beef costs a lot more than the same nutrition/calories in plant food, and the monetary difference (between buying plants instead of grass-fed beef) could be put to good use instead (like donating it to a charity)
2. plant food is healthier

All the problems listed, would then have to be multiplied times over if you were to replace all (or almost all) your food exclusively with grass-fed beef.

It becomes apparent why grass-fed beef has one of the worst possible outcomes as a food practice, and is actually unfeasible on a global scale.

I dont think its ok for someone to gain pleasure off of someoones suffering (if the suffering is severe enough) no matter how good the pleasure is, I don't know what that makes me, I think a negative utilitarian but I'm not 100 percent sure. I know its not only about deaths but I geuss I think of grass fed cows as living good lives but that could just be brainwashing from a young age.

And I'm curious how many crop deaths are involved with grass fed beef versus whole food plant based diet.

Plus, I geuss I would want to tackle the strongest argument for grass fed beef which is that you assume the cows are not rapped and free to do whatever they please but Im not sure if all grass fed beef cows are raped to meet demand, It might be too hard to be ethical when your trying to turn someone into a product.

Also, Im wondering how badly the grass fed beef cows would effect the environement and how many others would be harmed in the process of the bad environmental factors caused from the grass fed beef.

And this may seem like a tiny minute thing but what if someone said that hunting would be more ethical because the animal could last you a year so crop deaths would involve more deaths. Deontologist have no problem refuting this but it becomes abit of a tricky situation for a utilitarian like my self, or at least I think Im some sort of utilitarian.

[thebestofenergy]

You might want to delete the quoted text you don't use, otherwise the conversation gets cluttered with pages of quoted text.

I dont think its ok for someone to gain pleasure off of someoones suffering (if the suffering is severe enough) no matter how good the pleasure is, I don't know what that makes me, I think a negative utilitarian but I'm not 100 percent sure. I know its not only about deaths but I geuss I think of grass fed cows as living good lives but that could just be brainwashing from a young age.

Well, to be a negative utilitarian you would have to put no value on happiness/satisfaction (e.g. positive feelings), and all the value on negative ones (suffering).

You seem to be putting some moral value on positive feelings, seeing from your wording.
But then you contradict that, by stating that you think it's not OK for someone to gain pleasure if someone else is suffering, no matter how good the pleasure is.

Do you see how that's a deontological stance?
If your moral belief includes 'no matter how', it can be easily disproven with a few examples.

For example, what would you think of a human taking a walk?
There's a certain statistical chance that an ant would get squashed by the human walking.

Would the pleasure of the walk justify the suffering?

If not, what if you add another layer.
A human wants to take a walk for the pleasure of walking AND it needs to go buy food from the grocery store on foot while at it, for the pleasure of eating and being full (the human could survive without eating a couple days, therefore skipping a walk to the grocery store).

vs

The statistical chance of an ant being splattered.

You can quickly see that it becomes absurd, as suffering and happiness go hand-in-hand together.

The lack of being able to reach happiness leads to suffering, and the lack of suffering leads to happiness. They're intertwined, two sides of the same coin.

In this case, the pleasure of the walk would be contraposed by the suffering of seclusion and not having the freedom to go on a walk.
And in the second case, the pleasure of the eating an adequate amount of food for a couple days would be contraposed by the suffering of being hungry and possibly feeling weak for a couple days.

And I'm curious how many crop deaths are involved with grass fed beef versus whole food plant based diet.

Let's look at math then.
Take into consideration the 1.8 acre per cow.

On one hand, you have an estimated 450 pounds of beef from 1 average cow, per 1.8 acres.
That's over almost two years to get to a cow to 1000 pounds, though (to where 450-ish pounds could be used). But let's say just 1 year, to be charitable and because the calf wouldn't eat as much.

That means, 1 pound of beef per 0.004 acres.

Let's look at plants now. Take for example soy beans.

The average soy bean production on an acre of land is 3'000 pounds. Which is 5'400 pounds over 1.8 acres.

That means, 1 pound of soy beans per 0.00033 acres (there's one more zero after the comma there).

So, with soy beans, less than a tenth of the land is required for the same weight.
That's more than 10 times more land for the cows. Let's just say 10 times more, to be extra charitable.

Considering that the grass will have to be harvested for winter, that animals roam more densely in tall grass, and that cows graze and go around, it wouldn't be surprising if it caused more than 10 times the amount of suffering from crop deaths in the case of cows.

But weight is not everything, let's look at what people like to compare.

Calories:

- 450 pounds of grass-fed beef: a bit over 400'000 kcal
- 5'400 pounds of soy beans (canned, drained): over 4'200'000 kcal

What about protein?

- 450 pounds of grass-fed beef: almost 40 kg of protein
- 5'400 pounds of soy beans (canned, drained): almost 450 kg of protein

It's very clear how inefficient grass-fed beef is, and how much land and harvest (and therefore deaths) would have to be required for the same amount of weight/calories/nutritional value.

Plus, I geuss I would want to tackle the strongest argument for grass fed beef which is that you assume the cows are not rapped and free to do whatever they please but Im not sure if all grass fed beef cows are raped to meet demand, It might be too hard to be ethical when your trying to turn someone into a product.

Cows are forcefully impregnated to breed. How else would they give birth to new calves and meet the demand?
It's standard practice.

Also, Im wondering how badly the grass fed beef cows would effect the environement and how many others would be harmed in the process of the bad environmental factors caused from the grass fed beef.

I explained it briefly in the post above.
It takes a long time to go over every factor, so it would be easier to start if you picked one, and then you can get some kind of ideas for how it works for other factors too.

And this may seem like a tiny minute thing but what if someone said that hunting would be more ethical because the animal could last you a year so crop deaths would involve more deaths. Deontologist have no problem refuting this but it becomes abit of a tricky situation for a utilitarian like my self, or at least I think Im some sort of utilitarian.

Sometimes it's useful to try and dismantle things yourself even if the arguments aren't necessarily coming to mind easily.

What would you say when it comes to hunting, yourself? How could it be bad, and worse than plants, and why? Do you think it would offset crop deaths?

Sometimes it's required a bit of struggle to find arguments in favor and against a practice, and some basic math to get an idea of how things would work out.

[NickNack]

@thebestofenergy
I dont see an argument against hunting so I geuss I would have to be ok with it as long as it causes less negative utility (not just purly deaths) then eating plants unless someone gives me an argument otherwise. I'm trying to get more of a vegan perspective on these things because Ive allready been conditioned my whole life to be speciesist so I'm just trying to counter balance that.

And Im not saying no pleasure is allowed to come from any amount of suffering. Im saying once suffering becomes intense enough, its not ok to gain any pleasure off of that suffering if its not used to prevent your own severe suffering (I would say theres a difference between causing less suffering and causing more pleasure, suffering is negative, pleasure is positive). Let me give examples. If The entire world could be cured of starvation by me being pinched, then I would have a moral obligation to be pinched. But if everyone in hell could be released from hell by me going to hell for all eternity, I wouldn't be required to go to hell on their behalf If I was in control of the situation, but if someone else was in control of the situation, then they would pretty much be morally obligated to send me to hell in everyone elses place, so things change due to weather or not the persons in power wellbeing is in danger.

But you're right about calling me out for being lazy when dealing with stats and math, I need to do my own research. How did you learn to enjoy doing research (if you did learn to enjoy it).

[thebestofenergy]

I dont see an argument against hunting so I geuss I would have to be ok with it as long as it causes less negative utility (not just purly deaths) then eating plants unless someone gives me an argument otherwise. I'm trying to get more of a vegan perspective on these things because Ive allready been conditioned my whole life to be speciesist so I'm just trying to counter balance that.

Hunting animals is bad for multiple reasons.

1. The animals hunted are of much higher sentience than insects (which is the vast majority of crop deaths).

You'll get a better understanding of how this matters with the other discussion thread we're having:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=7345

2. Wild animals are often chased for hours, in a state of panic and terror. It's in no way a quick and painless death.
3. They're often injured before being killed, causing a great deal of pain. Very rarely are hunted animals killed in one shot to the brain. They sometimes even bleed to death.
4. Hunting doesn't make distinction for which animals are killed, and it's just as likely that an animal's baby gets killed like the mother gets killed.
In case of the baby, the mother will suffer a lot - there is even certain instances where the mother will let herself die once she finds her dead baby/ies/can't find her babies, becoming depressed and refusing to eat.
In the case of the mother being killed, the babies will likely starve to death - really not a nice way to go.

It's magnitudes worse to eat a pound of hunted deer than a pound of soybeans.

Im saying once suffering becomes intense enough, its not ok to gain any pleasure off of that suffering if its not used to prevent your own severe suffering (I would say theres a difference between causing less suffering and causing more pleasure, suffering is negative, pleasure is positive).

Where do you draw the line of severe suffering?
Suffering is a spectrum. It doesn't suddenly go from non-severe to severe.

Let me give examples. If The entire world could be cured of starvation by me being pinched, then I would have a moral obligation to be pinched.

Yes, of course. The outcome would be hugely net positive.

But if everyone in hell could be released from hell by me going to hell for all eternity, I wouldn't be required to go to hell on their behalf If I was in control of the situation, but if someone else was in control of the situation, then they would pretty much be morally obligated to send me to hell in everyone elses place, so things change due to weather or not the persons in power wellbeing is in danger.

You're never required to do anything. Why are you using that as a reason?
You're not required to pinch yourself to solve world hunger either.

As I've said before, you're taking a deontological stance when it comes to morality. You're using utilitarianism, but only as long as it doesn't go against what you would want emotionally. After a certain point, you give up utilitarianism/consequentialism and make a deontological stance like the stance that 'gaining pleasure, no matter how much, is never OK if the suffering is severe'.
I think your morality would be more in line with altruistic utilitarianism (weighing positive and negative consequences of your actions against one another, including interests, and being charitable to give something up to benefit someone else when you're willing to, just like you would want others to do with you).

Decision-making can change with whoever has the power to make the decision. You're conflating decisions with what's morally right.

You can also decide to eat meat. Does that make buying meat morally right?
You can decide to rape a child. Does that make it OK?

Morality exists as objective regardless of who's making the decisions. Morality doesn't shift accordingly to what the acting agents decides to do.

You can choose to leave everybody in hell and not save them going there yourself, and you would be morally wrong in doing so. Failure in following through with the morally right thing to do is common, but doesn't change what the morally right thing to do it.

[NickNack]

@thebestofenergy
I don't think morality is objective. I think as long as a moral system is consistent, you cant do anything to attack it besides saying you don't personally like that moral system. What makes you think morality is objective? How do you define morality? I think morality just means to do that which is good, and avoid that which is bad, but then you need to define good and bad. What do you think the good is? What do you think the bad is? I think good and bad don't really have objective definitions and it just depends on the persons preference on what good and bad is means to them. What do you think?

[brimstoneSalad]

This comes back to judging people's character vs. judging actions.

It might be the right thing to do to sacrifice yourself for eternal torment to save a million people from the same fate, but we could also understand somebody being unwilling to do that and not being evil in the same way as somebody unwilling to suffer a small pinch.

[NickNack]

@brimstoneSalad
The only way to judge someones character is by their actions, but I geuss if they took a bullet for their friend in the past but were not willing to go to hell for others, you could maybe say you have someone who has good character even if they couldnt bring themsleves to have the courage to go to hell.

[NickNack]

Side note: Dont feel bad is you dont think your not willing to sacrifice yourself but also dont feel courages if you feel like you could, you can only know what you would do if the situation actually occurred.