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This is an interesting thought experiment, though I generally come to opposite conclusions. I personally think that hunting a wild animal situates the hunter in

This is an interesting thought experiment, though I generally come to opposite conclusions. I personally think that hunting a wild animal situates the hunter in the broader context of the natural world, in which organisms live by their wits and try to outrun others doing the same. Conversely, farmed animals owe their existence as you say to our cultivating them. But where you see a moral release in that connection, I see a corruption of life into industrial inputs. A hunted animal many times will catch scent or sound and take flight, winning their life for another day. Livestock can't change their destiny by wit or will. Their entire existence is within the technological apparatus of our species. The corruption becomes evident in evolution cleaved from the organism's interest and placed in service of our appetites. In turkeys with breasts too large to be able to balance standing up, let alone walk. Such animals can only reproduce by artificial insemination and only eat when food is placed directly in front of them. Power dynamics such as these tempt us to tell just-so stories about lives well lived. Can we say for them that their lives are preferable to not existing at all? We're surely not neutral.

ninalanyon 23d ago
> hunting a wild animal situates the hunter in the broader context of the natural world, in which organisms live by their wits and try to outrun others doing the same. It's not exactly a fair fight though. In modern hunting the hunter might not always win, but he never loses. > Can we say for them that their lives are preferable to not existing at all? I doubt it. But we don't have to breed animals for maximum meat production at lowest cost in the shortest time. For instance the largest chicken producer in Norway [1] has declared that in future it will only produce slow growing chicken. [1] https://www.nortura.no/b%C3%A6rekraft-i-nortura/omsorg-for-mennesker-og-dyr/dyrevelferd/dyrevelferd-p%C3%A5-g%C3%A5rden/nortura-legger-om-til-sakterevoksende-kylling https://www.nortura.no/b%C3%A6rekraft-i-nortura/omsorg-for-m...
- 47635274172635 23d ago
  I am fine with more expensive but higher quality life experience for farmed animals.
47635274172635 23d ago
Hunting a wild animal is not necessary in most cases. Especially if we have farming. You had no say in the existence of that wild animal, you have no claim on it unless you need it to survive. Say you get lost in the woods and need sustenance to survive, that is excusable sure. Farmed animals exist purely because of their use to us. We enable their lived experience. Without us they wouldn't exist, they wouldn't experience sitting in the grass looking at a sunset, running around in the field or whatever. And I did mention it depends on their lived experience. I was not talking about the bleak industrial warehouses animals that never see the light of day and sit in bleak conditions. They don't get much out of it. I am sure we can figure out a fair exchange without getting locked in philosophical conundrums about it.

ninalanyon 23d ago

> hunting a wild animal situates the hunter in the broader context of the natural world, in which organisms live by their wits and try to outrun others doing the same. It's not exactly a fair fight though. In modern hunting the hunter might not always win, but he never loses. > Can we say for them that their lives are preferable to not existing at all? I doubt it. But we don't have to breed animals for maximum meat production at lowest cost in the shortest time. For instance the largest chicken producer in Norway [1] has declared that in future it will only produce slow growing chicken. [1] https://www.nortura.no/b%C3%A6rekraft-i-nortura/omsorg-for-mennesker-og-dyr/dyrevelferd/dyrevelferd-p%C3%A5-g%C3%A5rden/nortura-legger-om-til-sakterevoksende-kylling https://www.nortura.no/b%C3%A6rekraft-i-nortura/omsorg-for-m...

47635274172635 23d ago
I am fine with more expensive but higher quality life experience for farmed animals.

47635274172635 23d ago

Hunting a wild animal is not necessary in most cases. Especially if we have farming. You had no say in the existence of that wild animal, you have no claim on it unless you need it to survive. Say you get lost in the woods and need sustenance to survive, that is excusable sure. Farmed animals exist purely because of their use to us. We enable their lived experience. Without us they wouldn't exist, they wouldn't experience sitting in the grass looking at a sunset, running around in the field or whatever. And I did mention it depends on their lived experience. I was not talking about the bleak industrial warehouses animals that never see the light of day and sit in bleak conditions. They don't get much out of it. I am sure we can figure out a fair exchange without getting locked in philosophical conundrums about it.