There seems to be this belief that arthopod welfare is some ridiculous idea only justified by extreme utilitarian calculations, and that loads of EA animal welfare money goes to it at the expensive of many other things, and this just seems really wrong to me.
Firstly, arthropods hardly get any money at all, they are possibly the most neglected, and certainly amongst the most neglected, areas of animal welfare.
Secondly, the argument for arthropod welfare is essentially exactly the same as your classic antispeciesist arguments; there aren’t morally relevant differences between arthropods and other animals that justifies not equally considering their interests (or if you want to be non-utilitarian, equally considering them). Insects can feel pain (or certainly, the evidence is probably strong enough that they would probably pass the bar of sentience under UK law), and have other sentient experiences, so why would we not care about their welfare? Indeed, non-utilitarian philosophers also take this idea seriously: Christine Korsgaard, one of the most prominent Kantian philosophers today, sees insects as part of the circle of animals that are under moral consideration, and Nussbaum’s capabilities approach is restricted to sentient animals, and I think we have good reason to think insects are sentient as well.
Many insects seem to have potentially rich inner lives, and have things that go well and badly for them, things they strive to do, feelings of pain etc. What principled reason could we give for their exclusion, that wouldn’t be objectionably speciesist.
Also, all arthropod welfare work at present is about farmed animals; those farmed animals just happen to be arthropods!
Insect welfare (unlike woke identitarian proliferation) is not a priori wrong. Consciouness is noumenal and consenquently you cannot rule it out from insects. But it looks obvious that conscienciousness is related to nervous system complexity, which depends on brain size.
And complexity grows far more than linearly with “interactions” among parts of a system. I would say that my iphone is as likely to be consciouss as a fly. A fruit fly has 150,000 neurons, a human 16,340,000,000.
“Secondly, the argument for arthropod welfare is essentially exactly the same as your classic antispeciesist arguments”
That are right, but exagerated. I mean:
Fruit fly: 150,000
Dog: 885,460,000
Human: 16,340,000,000
Torturing animals that have a neuron count around 2-3% of yours is something to be concerned about. But the ratio Human-fruit fly is 0.0009%. And mathematical theories of consciousness suggest strong supperaditivity of conscience, so the ratios probably understate the moral weight difference.
There seems to be this belief that arthopod welfare is some ridiculous idea only justified by extreme utilitarian calculations, and that loads of EA animal welfare money goes to it at the expensive of many other things, and this just seems really wrong to me. Firstly, arthropods hardly get any money at all, they are possibly the most neglected, and certainly amongst the most neglected, areas of animal welfare. Secondly, the argument for arthropod welfare is essentially exactly the same as your classic antispeciesist arguments; there aren’t morally relevant differences between arthropods and other animals that justifies not equally considering their interests (or if you want to be non-utilitarian, equally considering them). Insects can feel pain (or certainly, the evidence is probably strong enough that they would probably pass the bar of sentience under UK law), and have other sentient experiences, so why would we not care about their welfare? Indeed, non-utilitarian philosophers also take this idea seriously: Christine Korsgaard, one of the most prominent Kantian philosophers today, sees insects as part of the circle of animals that are under moral consideration, and Nussbaum’s capabilities approach is restricted to sentient animals, and I think we have good reason to think insects are sentient as well. Many insects seem to have potentially rich inner lives, and have things that go well and badly for them, things they strive to do, feelings of pain etc. What principled reason could we give for their exclusion, that wouldn’t be objectionably speciesist. Also, all arthropod welfare work at present is about farmed animals; those farmed animals just happen to be arthropods!
Insect welfare (unlike woke identitarian proliferation) is not a priori wrong. Consciouness is noumenal and consenquently you cannot rule it out from insects. But it looks obvious that conscienciousness is related to nervous system complexity, which depends on brain size.
And complexity grows far more than linearly with “interactions” among parts of a system. I would say that my iphone is as likely to be consciouss as a fly. A fruit fly has 150,000 neurons, a human 16,340,000,000.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_neurons
“Secondly, the argument for arthropod welfare is essentially exactly the same as your classic antispeciesist arguments”
That are right, but exagerated. I mean:
Fruit fly: 150,000
Dog: 885,460,000
Human: 16,340,000,000
Torturing animals that have a neuron count around 2-3% of yours is something to be concerned about. But the ratio Human-fruit fly is 0.0009%. And mathematical theories of consciousness suggest strong supperaditivity of conscience, so the ratios probably understate the moral weight difference.
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/FjiND3qJCvC6CtmxG/super-additivity-of-consciousness