At 01:14 PM 1/11/99 -0800, Robin Hanson wrote:
>So unless you do something else in switching from meat to veggies, like
>donating money to charities that raise cows which are never killed, the
>direct effect of switching is to reduce the number of cows who ever live.
>In order to eliminate that bad end-of-cow-life experience, you elimate
>the entire cow life experience. If that whole cow life is "worth living"
>in some sense, this wasn't necessarily a kind thing to do. (Unless you
>think those veggie lives are more worth living, even though they get
>killed in the end.)
IAN: Is a couple unkind to all the babies they never conceived? Is the condom a cruel preventer of life? No, since a being that never existed is not harmed by nonexistence since they don't exist! I do not think there'd be cow spirits upset that vegetarianism reduced the number of cow births.
REV. ROGER WILLIAMS -> http://www.erols.com/igoddard/roger.htm