Economics, Philosophy... Cows?

Sorry the post about my meeting with Dr. Arthur Laffer is so late... It's taking me a bit longer than I expected to write it. I did meet him, and the post will be up soon. Further details will have to wait until the actual post.

In the mean time, I read a very interesting post on Marginal Revolution yesterday (link here: Philosophical Cow). Here's an excerpt:

"Suppose that you are a cow philosopher contemplating the welfare of cows.  In the world today there are about 1.3 billion of your compatriots.  It would be a fine thing for cows if all cows were well treated and if none were slaughtered for food.  Nevertheless, being a clever cow, you understand that it's the demand for beef that brings cows to life.  How do you regard such a trade off?

If each cow brought to life adds even some small bit of cow utility to the grand total of cow welfare must not beef eaters be lauded, at least if they are hungry enough?  Or is the pro beef-eater argument simply repugnant?"

The scene is reminiscent of the "push-man-onto-train-tracks-to-save-three-innocent-children" scenario. More precisely, it is the little theoretical concept usually used in Philosophy classes to disprove rational thought. If you have the choice to push a man onto the train tracks to save three innocent children, killing the man in the process, any economist will tell you to push the man off (three lives for one is clearly beneficial for society). However, many people probably couldn't bring themselves to do so given the choice.

I suppose this is why behavioral economics has arisen, taking into account the fact that people don't always think rationally.

Perhaps you couldn't picture yourself as the cow, but faced with one of these situations, what would you do?