I agree with the claim ‘my gut reaction is that factory-farmed pigs suffer a lot’. I disagree with the claim ‘my gut reaction is that factory-farmed pigs would be better off not existing’. I think that’s a super different claim, and builds in a lot more theory and deliberative reasoning (though it may feel obvious once it’s been cached long enough).
I avoid factory farmed pork because their existence seems net negative to me, but don’t do this for chickens. This is largely because I believe pigs have qualia similar enough to me that I don’t need to worry about the animal cognition part of c/a/m (I do want to note that you seem to be arguing from a perspective wherein pro-existence is the null, and so you need to reason yourself out of it to be anti-natalist for the animals). I find chickens difficult to model using the machinery I use for humans, but that machinery works okay on pigs (although this is largely through seeing videos of them instead of in person interaction, so it’s absolutely possible I’m mistaken).
I’m not sure how to handle the “consciousness” part, since they cannot advocate for themselves or express preferences for or against existence in ways that are legible to me.
I avoid factory farmed pork because their existence seems net negative to me, but don’t do this for chickens. This is largely because I believe pigs have qualia similar enough to me that I don’t need to worry about the animal cognition part of c/a/m (I do want to note that you seem to be arguing from a perspective wherein pro-existence is the null, and so you need to reason yourself out of it to be anti-natalist for the animals). I find chickens difficult to model using the machinery I use for humans, but that machinery works okay on pigs (although this is largely through seeing videos of them instead of in person interaction, so it’s absolutely possible I’m mistaken).
I’m not sure how to handle the “consciousness” part, since they cannot advocate for themselves or express preferences for or against existence in ways that are legible to me.