I think it is almost nonsensical to ask, say, whether it would be better for a pig to be a human, or for a human to be a dog
To clarify I’m not asking that question. I class myself as a hedonistic utilitarian which just means that I want to maximise net positive over negative experiences. So I’m not saying that it would be better for a pig to be a human, just that if we were to replace a pig with a human we may increase total welfare (if the human has greater capacity for welfare than the pig). I agree that determining if humans have greater capacity for welfare than pigs isn’t particularly tractable though—I too haven’t really read up much on this.
whether longtermist considerations shouldn’t cause us to worry about orangutan extinction risks, too, given that orangutans are not so dissimilar from what we were some few millions of years ago. So that in a very distant future they might have the potential to be something like human, or more?
That’s an interesting possibility! I don’t know enough biology to comment on the likelihood.
I should mention that I think your argument for species extinction is reasonable & I’m glad there’s someone out there making it
To be honest I’m actually quite unsure if we should be trying to make all non-human animals go extinct. I don’t know how tractable that is or what the indirect effects would be. I’m saying, putting those considerations aside, that it would probably be good from a longtermist point of view.
The exception is of course factory-farmed animals. I do hope they go extinct and I support tangible efforts to achieve this e.g. plant-based and clean meat.
To clarify I’m not asking that question. I class myself as a hedonistic utilitarian which just means that I want to maximise net positive over negative experiences. So I’m not saying that it would be better for a pig to be a human, just that if we were to replace a pig with a human we may increase total welfare (if the human has greater capacity for welfare than the pig). I agree that determining if humans have greater capacity for welfare than pigs isn’t particularly tractable though—I too haven’t really read up much on this.
That’s an interesting possibility! I don’t know enough biology to comment on the likelihood.
To be honest I’m actually quite unsure if we should be trying to make all non-human animals go extinct. I don’t know how tractable that is or what the indirect effects would be. I’m saying, putting those considerations aside, that it would probably be good from a longtermist point of view.
The exception is of course factory-farmed animals. I do hope they go extinct and I support tangible efforts to achieve this e.g. plant-based and clean meat.