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this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2024
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Futurology
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What if it requires 1/1000th the number of animals … but each one suffers a hundred times more?
Would it be worth it?
How do you quantify suffering?
If you don’t have a way of quantifying suffering, perhaps all utilitarian calculus is bunk?
Unfortunately, I don't really understand your response.
You talked about one hundred times the suffering. What does that mean? To me, the way animals are held in mass production is completely unethical and there is no way to make it worse... So how do you make the animals suffer even more?
From a utilitarian perspective, you're still reducing overall suffering by an order of magnitude, so your scenario is still a greater good.
This assumes a linear value function of course
stem cells can suffer? this isn't cloning an animal, it's cloning certain tissues.
Hence the word “if” here. A hypothetical scenario.