Regarding the rest of what you wrote I agree to a large extent.
My crux for why I do not adhere to the argument personally:
I appreciated that you made a distinction between strong suffering that one may still accept, and extreme suffering. They also seem very different in my view, and the distinction is often glossed over in critiques on negative utilitarianism. You also say “Most suffering is not in that category.”, and I entirely agree.
However, I’m inclined to believe that most of the beings who life you discuss do contain extreme suffering, even if it’s a minority of the suffering they experience (imo, extreme suffering = mid-high ranges of disabling pain in the Welfare Footprint sense ?). Chronic hunger (more intense than one may think, Ctrl+F chronic hunger here), being eaten alive, being eaten from the inside by parasites, being suffocated to death over the course of half an hour, are all likely cases of extreme suffering to me. So the question is not just about whether there’s a strong positive value to a life containing suffering. but whether it’s such a strong positive value that it “outweighs” the experience of extreme suffering (you may be familiar with the sympathy-based argument against extreme suffering being outweighable).
I think it matters a lot how long does extreme suffering last. People regularly experience some pretty horrible suffering, but still they don’t consider their life not worthy of living.
Take for example childbirth, or kidney colic. Most people go on after such events, without being traumatized for life.
Also, extreme pain might render people unconscious. I don’t know how often it happens, if it happens in animals as well, and how good of a protection against extreme pain and suffering it is. But it might be a thing worthy of research.
Experiences such as being eaten, probably last quite short, and being last experiences in life of animals will likely not traumatize them, as they will be dead.
Close encounters with predators, injuries that animals survive, are more problematic and could lead to lasting trauma.
In general extreme suffering should be minimized as much as possible. But when thinking of extreme suffering I often have certain non-trivial duration in mind as well. If the lion kills its pray relatively quickly, the pain they experience, even if extreme, might not be that important in big scheme of things if it last just a couple of seconds.
I do not deny the existence of extreme suffering in nature, but I think it’s not so common and when it happens it’s often of short duration.
I very well do think that reducing of such extreme suffering should be among the top priorities.
More minor crux: you discuss animals still having a taste of potential positive experiences of life, but I’d be skeptical that we can draw a comparison between humans, even living in difficult conditions (let alone humans living a relatively sheltered life, like me), and hens who spend their entire life in a cage where they can’t spread their wings. I assume, eg, “tasting food” feels very different when you’ve only been able to eat it with a mutilated beak, than for humans who can sometimes eat sufficiently while being relatively untroubled, and thus really enjoy the food. And in the case of wild animals, it seems many die so shortly after birth that they may not even have a single occasion to eat, or appreciate their environment.
Thanks again for this post, and perhaps more importantly, for opening your perspectives and donating outside of your preferred cause area! That’s not so common in EA, and I think this can be valuable for making progress in doing good impartially.
You’re right here. Animals on factory farms probably have capacity to feel pleasure, but it’s severely reduced and undermined by the conditions in which they live. That’s why I think we should eat less meat (at least if we consider direct effects) and donate to charities that help those animals.
If we consider 2nd, 3rd, etc… order effects, I really don’t know. If we’re talking about these animals their lives should be improved. The way to do it is to eat less meat and to donate to those charities.
This will probably help them.
Whether this will also indirectly hurt someone else, and whether this is more important, I’m really not sure.
Regarding the rest of what you wrote I agree to a large extent.
I think it matters a lot how long does extreme suffering last. People regularly experience some pretty horrible suffering, but still they don’t consider their life not worthy of living.
Take for example childbirth, or kidney colic. Most people go on after such events, without being traumatized for life.
Also, extreme pain might render people unconscious. I don’t know how often it happens, if it happens in animals as well, and how good of a protection against extreme pain and suffering it is. But it might be a thing worthy of research.
Experiences such as being eaten, probably last quite short, and being last experiences in life of animals will likely not traumatize them, as they will be dead.
Close encounters with predators, injuries that animals survive, are more problematic and could lead to lasting trauma.
In general extreme suffering should be minimized as much as possible. But when thinking of extreme suffering I often have certain non-trivial duration in mind as well. If the lion kills its pray relatively quickly, the pain they experience, even if extreme, might not be that important in big scheme of things if it last just a couple of seconds.
I do not deny the existence of extreme suffering in nature, but I think it’s not so common and when it happens it’s often of short duration.
I very well do think that reducing of such extreme suffering should be among the top priorities.
You’re right here. Animals on factory farms probably have capacity to feel pleasure, but it’s severely reduced and undermined by the conditions in which they live. That’s why I think we should eat less meat (at least if we consider direct effects) and donate to charities that help those animals.
If we consider 2nd, 3rd, etc… order effects, I really don’t know. If we’re talking about these animals their lives should be improved. The way to do it is to eat less meat and to donate to those charities.
This will probably help them.
Whether this will also indirectly hurt someone else, and whether this is more important, I’m really not sure.