Organisations using Rethink Priorities’ mainline welfare ranges should consider effects on soil nematodes, mites, and springtails.
The only argument I can think of against this would be optics. To be appealing to the public and a broad donor base, orgs might want to get off of the train to crazytown before this stop. (I assume this is why GiveWell ignores animal effects when assessing their interventions’ impact, even though those swamp the effects on humans.) Even then, it would make sense to share these analyses with the community, even if they wouldn’t be included in public-facing materials.
I think most views where nonhumans are moral patients imply these tiny animals could matter. Like most people, I find the implications of this incredibly unintuitive, but I don’t think that’s an actual argument against the view. I think our intuitions about interspecies tradeoffs, like our intuitions about partiality towards friends and family, can be explained by evolutionary pressures on social animals such as ourselves, so we shouldn’t accord them much weight.
The only argument I can think of against this would be optics. To be appealing to the public and a broad donor base, orgs might want to get off of the train to crazytown before this stop. (I assume this is why GiveWell ignores animal effects when assessing their interventions’ impact, even though those swamp the effects on humans.) Even then, it would make sense to share these analyses with the community, even if they wouldn’t be included in public-facing materials.
I think most views where nonhumans are moral patients imply these tiny animals could matter. Like most people, I find the implications of this incredibly unintuitive, but I don’t think that’s an actual argument against the view. I think our intuitions about interspecies tradeoffs, like our intuitions about partiality towards friends and family, can be explained by evolutionary pressures on social animals such as ourselves, so we shouldn’t accord them much weight.
Thanks for the comment, Ariel! That makes sense to me.