Home / K. Effectiveness and individual responsibility / Part IND
"I'll wait for cultivated meat."
the argument postpones the obligation until it's painless. Cultivated meat may one day help a great deal, but it still faces major challenges of cost and scale: a 2021 analysis concluded that, under the conditions studied, it would be hard to make it affordable as food, and other analyses are more optimistic. Meanwhile, billions of animals keep being killed. Waiting for a future solution doesn't justify causing harm in the present, when alternatives already exist.
Short answer
Cultivated meat could help a lot in the future, but it still faces major challenges of cost and scale, and no one knows when it will be widely available. Meanwhile, billions of animals keep being killed. Waiting for a future solution doesn't justify causing harm in the present, when alternatives exist today: beans, lentils, tofu and many other foods.
For children
Some people are trying to make meat in a lab, without needing to kill animals. That could be really good in the future. But it will still take a while, and meanwhile many animals keep suffering. Today there are already lots of tasty foods that don't need animals.
"If cultivated meat takes 20 years, how many animals will have died while you waited?"
Como pode aparecer
"In ten years technology will fix it."
"When it's cheap, I'll switch."
"I'll wait for lab-grown meat."
"Cultivated meat will make veganism obsolete."
"Technological innovation is the most effective path to reducing animal consumption."
"Lab-grown meat isn't natural and is still of animal origin."
"A vegan world is utopian." (which is J15)
The strongest version
"In ten years technology will fix it. When it's cheap, I'll switch."
Strongest version (steelman):
- P1Cultivated meat can offer meat without raising and killing animals.
- P2When it's available and cheap, many people will switch effortlessly.
- P3It's more effective to wait for a technological solution than to demand individual sacrifices.
- CSo I can keep eating meat until then.
P1 is true in principle. P2 is plausible. The problem lies in the conclusion: the date is uncertain, and the harm continues while we wait.
The argument is valid if waiting had no cost. Its soundness fails because the cost is the lives of the animals killed in the meantime.
Full answer
- a
Reconstruction and diagnosis
The argument postpones change to an uncertain future:
Moment Situation Today Cheap plant alternatives are available Uncertain future Cultivated meat may become affordable Meanwhile Animals keep being raised and killed - b
Where the argument breaks
1. The date is uncertain.
Cultivated meat was approved for sale in Singapore in 2020 and in the United States in 2023, but it's still produced on a small scale, and there's serious debate about when, or whether, it will be cheap.
2. There are challenges of cost and scale.
A 2021 techno-economic analysis by David Humbird concluded that production costs, under the conditions studied, would hardly allow an affordable food. Other analyses, from the industry itself, are more optimistic.
3. The harm continues while we wait.
Each year of waiting means billions of animals killed.
4. Alternatives already exist.
No waiting is needed to stop eating animals.
5. It postpones the obligation until it's painless.
If causing the harm is wrong, future convenience doesn't make it acceptable in the present.
6. "It isn't natural" isn't a moral objection.
Being natural doesn't tell us whether something is good (C1). What matters is whether cultivated meat harms animals. The real problems, such as the use of fetal bovine serum in early processes, are technical and are being replaced by animal-free growth media. Whether cultivated meat is vegan is an open debate; see The definition of veganism, debated.
- c
Data and sources
Source What it says Note Humbird, 2021, *Biotechnology and Bioengineering* Cost analyses of production facilities indicate economics that would probably preclude an affordable food product An analysis disputed by industry reports Vegconomist, approvals and bans of cultivated meat Singapore approved it in 2020, and the United States in 2023; some US states have banned it An overview of regulation Questão de Ética, vol. VIII, ch. 12 Discusses objections to cultivated meat, including that it isn't natural The basis for the last point - d
The strongest counter-reply: technology is what changes the world
The most serious version says mass change rarely comes from individual moral choices, but from technologies that make the alternative cheaper and more convenient.
- e
Why the counter-reply doesn't reach the conclusion
That may be true at the level of society.
But it doesn't excuse the individual who can already change.
Demand for alternatives speeds up the technology.
Those who change today help create tomorrow's market.
The duty doesn't wait.
The animal who dies today doesn't benefit from future technology.
- f
Back to the moral question
The argument admits that killing animals is a problem, since it waits for a solution. If it's a problem, the question is why keep causing it while the alternatives already exist.
Reasoning errors
Logical
Is the form valid?
Indefinite postponement
Epistemological
Does the evidence support it?
Technological optimism
Moral
Is the criterion coherent?
Convenience as a condition
Biases
Present bias
The cost of changing today weighs more than the future benefit
General literature on temporal discounting
Optimism bias
The technological solution seems near and certain
General literature on optimism bias
Extrapolations
The principle being tested is: "I can keep causing a harm until a technology makes the alternative painless".
If it applied to…PollutionTap to see
I can pollute until technology fixes it
No one accepts this
If it applied to…Slave laborTap to see
I can buy its products until automation fixes it
No one accepts this
If it applied to…MeatTap to see
I can eat it until cultivated meat arrives
The same error
Contradictions
By waiting for a solution.
And doesn't use them.
If they were serious for them.
What the argument gets right
What is true
Cultivated meat and other technologies could profoundly transform food production, and it's reasonable to bet on them. For many people, change will be easier when there are identical, cheap alternatives.
But
But future technology doesn't change what happens today. Until it arrives, plant alternatives already exist, and every animal spared now matters.
Connections
Usually comes before
Usually comes after
Go deeper in Questão de Ética
Chapters from the open-access collection A Journey Through Animal Ethics that discuss this argument in more detail:
- The Debate on Cultivated Meat Vol. VIII, ch. 12