Hi, I think it's worth pointing out that this post is not really an accurate description of the original article. I don't say that genetically engineering animals that don't feel pain, "may be an acceptable alternative to factory farming." In fact, I'm pretty clear that given all of the problems associated with factory farming, the best solution would be to eliminate it altogether. My point is that *if* it does not seem likely that factory farming will be going away in the near future, then in the meantime we should reduce the amount of suffering it causes.
Also, many of the points people are bringing up are discussed in the original Neuroethics article, which you can find here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/vrv4m6288w702123/fulltext.pdf . The people who are assuming I am making some kind of "stupid" mistake by equating suffering with pain or not being aware of the condition known as congenital insensitivity to pain would be well-served by reading the full article first. Surprisingly enough, the entire content of a 4500 word essay is not represented in this five sentence summary, or even in the two page summary from New Scientist. This is not to say that either summary was unfair, but just that before claiming "the author stupidly didn't think of X", you might want to read what the author actually said.
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Hi, I think it's worth pointing out that this post is not really an accurate description of the original article. I don't say that genetically engineering animals that don't feel pain, "may be an acceptable alternative to factory farming." In fact, I'm pretty clear that given all of the problems associated with factory farming, the best solution would be to eliminate it altogether. My point is that *if* it does not seem likely that factory farming will be going away in the near future, then in the meantime we should reduce the amount of suffering it causes. Also, many of the points people are bringing up are discussed in the original Neuroethics article, which you can find here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/vrv4m6288w702123/fulltext.pdf . The people who are assuming I am making some kind of "stupid" mistake by equating suffering with pain or not being aware of the condition known as congenital insensitivity to pain would be well-served by reading the full article first. Surprisingly enough, the entire content of a 4500 word essay is not represented in this five sentence summary, or even in the two page summary from New Scientist. This is not to say that either summary was unfair, but just that before claiming "the author stupidly didn't think of X", you might want to read what the author actually said.