I’m not familiar on the tradeoffs between farmed animals/mammals vs wild/invertebrates; I think arguments like yours are plausible but also brittle
My question is, “given that humans care so much about human welfare, why isn’t there already a human welfare market? The lack of such a market may be evidence that animal welfare markets will be unpopular”
I think you’re taking the ballparks a bit too literally—though I also invite you to put down your own best guess about how much eg US consumers would be willing to pay for welfare, I probably believe in higher numbers than you
I’ve come around to believing that narrowly focusing on cost effectiveness is the wrong approach for me, for moral parliament and learning reasons
I agree the absence of a market for human welfare is evidence against the feasibility of one for animal welfare. Maybe it is not strong evidence considering human welfare is more seen as sacred, and therefore not subject to being traded in markets, whereas animal welfare may be seen more as a commodity (although not by random vegetarians, who I assume also see animal welfare more as sacred).
The value of learning can be (formally or informally) considered in the benefits of cost-effectiveness analyses. However, I am not sure what you would learn by offsetting your GHG emissions instead of donating to the charity you consider the most cost-effective (accounting for the value of learning).
Quick responses:
I’m not familiar on the tradeoffs between farmed animals/mammals vs wild/invertebrates; I think arguments like yours are plausible but also brittle
My question is, “given that humans care so much about human welfare, why isn’t there already a human welfare market? The lack of such a market may be evidence that animal welfare markets will be unpopular”
I think you’re taking the ballparks a bit too literally—though I also invite you to put down your own best guess about how much eg US consumers would be willing to pay for welfare, I probably believe in higher numbers than you
I’ve come around to believing that narrowly focusing on cost effectiveness is the wrong approach for me, for moral parliament and learning reasons
Thanks, Austin.
I agree the absence of a market for human welfare is evidence against the feasibility of one for animal welfare. Maybe it is not strong evidence considering human welfare is more seen as sacred, and therefore not subject to being traded in markets, whereas animal welfare may be seen more as a commodity (although not by random vegetarians, who I assume also see animal welfare more as sacred).
The value of learning can be (formally or informally) considered in the benefits of cost-effectiveness analyses. However, I am not sure what you would learn by offsetting your GHG emissions instead of donating to the charity you consider the most cost-effective (accounting for the value of learning).