Ethical on what level? Do the end up less dead? As the article implies, pain is necessary for survival as it lets us know what is bad for us. Pain is an effect of something wrong with the body. Not feeling pain doesn't mean there's nothing wrong.
None of this addresses the broader issues with meat. Millions of acres of land is taken up growing grain, not to feed to people, but to feed to animals that yield a lower nutritional value than if we ate the grain ourselves. Any way you look at it, that's a bad investment. You don't have to care about animal welfare to see that our assumptions about food supply are unsustainable.
As the article implies, pain is necessary for survival as it lets us know what is bad for us. Pain is an effect of something wrong with the body. Not feeling pain doesn't mean there's nothing wrong.
None of this addresses the broader issues with meat. Millions of acres of land is taken up growing grain, not to feed to people, but to feed to animals that yield a lower nutritional value than if we ate the grain ourselves. Any way you look at it, that's a bad investment. You don't have to care about animal welfare to see that our assumptions about food supply are unsustainable.