I do have a strong intuition that humans are simply more capable of having wonderful lives than other species, and this is probably down to higher intelligence. Therefore, given that I see no intrinsic value and little instrumental value in species diversity, if I could play god I would just make loads of humans (assuming total utilitarianism is true). I could possibly be wrong that humans are more capable of wonderful lives though.
I’d be skeptical of that for a few reasons: (1) I think different things are good for different species due to their different natures/capacities (the good here being whatever it is that wonderful lives have a lot of), e.g. contemplation is good for humans but not pigs & rooting around in straw is good for pigs but not humans; (2) I think it doesn’t make sense to compare these goods across species, because it means different species have different standards for goodness; & (3) 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. But I recognise that these arguments aren’t particularly tractable for a utilitarian!
Life is not fair. The simple point is that non-human animals are very prone to exploitation (factory farming is case in point). There are risks of astronomical suffering that could be locked in in the future. I just don’t think it’s worth the risk so, as a utilitarian, it just makes sense to me to have humans over chickens. You could argue getting rid of all humans gets rid of exploitation too, but ultimately I do think maximising welfare just means having loads of humans so I lean towards being averse to human extinction.
That life is not fair in the sense that different people (or animals) are dealt different cards, so to put it, is true—the cosmos is indifferent. But moral agents can be fair (in the sense of just), & in this case it’s not Life making those groups’ existence miserable, it’s moral agents who are doing that.
I think I would agree with you on the prone-to-exploitation argument if I were a utility maximiser, with the possible objection that, if humans reach the level of wisdom & technology needed to humanely euthanise a species in order to reduce suffering, possibly they would also be wise & capable enough to implement safeguards against future exploitation of that species instead. But that is still not a good enough reason if one believes that humans have higher capacity as receptacles of utility, though. If I were a utilitarian who believed that, then I think I would agree with you (without having thought about it too much).
Absolutely I care about orangutans and the death of orangutans that are living good lives is a bad thing. I was just making the point that if one puts their longtermist hat on these deaths are very insignificant compared to other issues (in reality I have some moral uncertainty and so would wear my shortermist cap too, making me want to save an orangutan if it was easy to do so).
Got it. I guess my original uncertainty (& this is not something I thought a lot about at all, so bear with me here) was 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 depends a bit on how rare a thing human evolution was, which I don’t know.
Yes indeed. My utilitarian philosophy doesn’t care that we would have loads of humans and no non-human animals. Again, this is justified due to lower risks of exploitation for humans and (possibly) greater capacities for welfare. I just want to maximise welfare and I don’t care who or what holds that welfare.
By the way, I should mention that I think your argument for species extinction is reasonable & I’m glad there’s someone out there making it (especially given that I expect many people to react negatively towards it, just on an emotional level). If I thought that goodness was not necessarily tethered to beings for whom things can be good or bad, but on the contrary that it was some thing that just resides in sentient beings but can be independently observed, compared & summed up, well, then I might even agree with it.
I’ve only skimmed this thread, but I think you and Jack Malde both might find the following Forum wiki entries and some of the associated tagged posts interesting:
To state my own stance very briefly and with insufficient arguments and caveats:
I think it makes sense to focus on humans for many specific purposes, due to us currently being the only real “actors” or “moral agents” playing
I think it makes sense to think quite seriously about long-term effects on non-humans (including but not limited to nonhuman animals)
I think it might be the case that the best way to optimise those effects is to shepherd humans towards a long reflection
I think Jack is a bit overconfident about (a) the idea that the lives of nonhuman animals are currently net negative and (b) the idea that, if that’s the case or substantially likely to be the case, that would mean the extinction of nonhuman animals would be a good thing
I say more about this in comments on the post of Jack’s that you linked to
But I’m not sure this has major implications, since I think in any case the near-term effects we should care about most probably centre on human actions, human values, etc. (partly in order to have good long-term effects on non-humans)
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.
I’d be skeptical of that for a few reasons: (1) I think different things are good for different species due to their different natures/capacities (the good here being whatever it is that wonderful lives have a lot of), e.g. contemplation is good for humans but not pigs & rooting around in straw is good for pigs but not humans; (2) I think it doesn’t make sense to compare these goods across species, because it means different species have different standards for goodness; & (3) 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. But I recognise that these arguments aren’t particularly tractable for a utilitarian!
That life is not fair in the sense that different people (or animals) are dealt different cards, so to put it, is true—the cosmos is indifferent. But moral agents can be fair (in the sense of just), & in this case it’s not Life making those groups’ existence miserable, it’s moral agents who are doing that.
I think I would agree with you on the prone-to-exploitation argument if I were a utility maximiser, with the possible objection that, if humans reach the level of wisdom & technology needed to humanely euthanise a species in order to reduce suffering, possibly they would also be wise & capable enough to implement safeguards against future exploitation of that species instead. But that is still not a good enough reason if one believes that humans have higher capacity as receptacles of utility, though. If I were a utilitarian who believed that, then I think I would agree with you (without having thought about it too much).
Got it. I guess my original uncertainty (& this is not something I thought a lot about at all, so bear with me here) was 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 depends a bit on how rare a thing human evolution was, which I don’t know.
By the way, I should mention that I think your argument for species extinction is reasonable & I’m glad there’s someone out there making it (especially given that I expect many people to react negatively towards it, just on an emotional level). If I thought that goodness was not necessarily tethered to beings for whom things can be good or bad, but on the contrary that it was some thing that just resides in sentient beings but can be independently observed, compared & summed up, well, then I might even agree with it.
I’ve only skimmed this thread, but I think you and Jack Malde both might find the following Forum wiki entries and some of the associated tagged posts interesting:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/tag/non-humans-and-the-long-term-future
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/tag/moral-weight
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/tag/moral-patienthood
To state my own stance very briefly and with insufficient arguments and caveats:
I think it makes sense to focus on humans for many specific purposes, due to us currently being the only real “actors” or “moral agents” playing
I think it makes sense to think quite seriously about long-term effects on non-humans (including but not limited to nonhuman animals)
I think it might be the case that the best way to optimise those effects is to shepherd humans towards a long reflection
I think Jack is a bit overconfident about (a) the idea that the lives of nonhuman animals are currently net negative and (b) the idea that, if that’s the case or substantially likely to be the case, that would mean the extinction of nonhuman animals would be a good thing
I say more about this in comments on the post of Jack’s that you linked to
But I’m not sure this has major implications, since I think in any case the near-term effects we should care about most probably centre on human actions, human values, etc. (partly in order to have good long-term effects on non-humans)
Thanks Michael!
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.