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Comment by sverona | Hacker News Reader

Have you ever heard of something called the trolley problem?

Yes, and I think I know what you're trying to say. By choosing to buy your food from someone who disregards animal welfare, you're putting yourself in a position where you have to choose whether to kill more or fewer animals, and you liken your resulting problem to the trolley problem. I, on the other hand, wonder what ethical thinking led you to choose to buy from such a company.

Name one company that meets your theoretically consistent ethical standard of never killing or harming an animal, even incidentally. I don't think there are any.

I don't have that standard. There are perhaps a hundred food retailers in the city where I live that meet my ethical standards, out of perhaps 1000-2000 in total.

My standards for how to treat animals don't depend on whether I eat that animal after it's died. "Can maltreat as long as I don't eat it" is IMO difficult to justify.

Okay. My ethical standard is "to exclude — as far as is possible and practicable — all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose."

You'll note the wiggle room. It's not about being perfect and never contributing to animal harm because that's impossible. It's about doing the best you can in a bad situation.

Makes sense to me. I don't find it at all impracticable to avoid the retailer chains that are callous about exploitation.

Which is all of them.

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