Yes, that’s absolutely a relevant consideration. I think there are similar considerations regarding the effect of supporting abortion on the permissiveness of bad societal norms:
The dehumanization of those outside one’s moral circle (“it’s just a clump of cells/parasite”, “it’s just a beast”, “they won’t even exist for millions of years”)
The callous treatment of moral patients whose existence is inconvenient (“it’s my body; I’ll do whatever I want with that fetus”, “who cares? meat tastes good”)
The masking of disenfranchisement of unrecognized moral patients as “rights” of recognized moral patients (“reproductive rights”, “the right to eat whatever I want”)
Yes, animal welfare considerations likely weigh in favor of abortion. I’d go even further than your statement and say they plausibly dominate the welfare concerns of both the woman and the fetus. Of course, this consideration plausibly dominates the purpose of many human-centric interventions, and the implications are scary. (That doesn’t mean I won’t think them through, but there’s only so fast I can overturn my worldview!) I know you have strong opinions on this, and would love to get any recommendations on reads you think would be enlightening on the subject.
Yep! That should also weigh in favor of abortion, though I personally think other concerns substantially dominate it.
100%
Yes. I could be persuaded either way on the sign of this consideration, because abortion does increase economic output per capita, but having more people should increase gross economic output on the margin.
On your responses:
Very cool! I wasn’t aware of research on this, and it makes perfect sense, including avoiding “sector risk” (e.g. a portfolio of human-centered interventions could be totally dominated by farmed animal welfare considerations).
I’m still making up my mind on the implications of cluelessness, but I agree that it updates towards not taking much concrete action on abortion as an EA cause area.
I think the human impacts on wild animals are primarily through agricultural land use, fishing and climate change, and most of these are largely affected by human diets (although climate change possibly dominated by fossil fuel use). Maybe also environmental pollutants/contaminants/toxins and forestry (I haven’t really looked into these). I’d guess the effects from the land humans take up in cities, towns, villages, etc., is not significant compared to these, based on Our World in Data.
For moral weights across animals (including humans):
I don’t know if the above covers all the strongest arguments for humans mattering substantially more than nonhuman animals, and I’d guess it doesn’t cover many such arguments in much detail. I don’t know off the top of my head what to recommend.
Hi Michael, great to hear from you!
Yes, that’s absolutely a relevant consideration. I think there are similar considerations regarding the effect of supporting abortion on the permissiveness of bad societal norms:
The dehumanization of those outside one’s moral circle (“it’s just a clump of cells/parasite”, “it’s just a beast”, “they won’t even exist for millions of years”)
The callous treatment of moral patients whose existence is inconvenient (“it’s my body; I’ll do whatever I want with that fetus”, “who cares? meat tastes good”)
The masking of disenfranchisement of unrecognized moral patients as “rights” of recognized moral patients (“reproductive rights”, “the right to eat whatever I want”)
Yes, animal welfare considerations likely weigh in favor of abortion. I’d go even further than your statement and say they plausibly dominate the welfare concerns of both the woman and the fetus. Of course, this consideration plausibly dominates the purpose of many human-centric interventions, and the implications are scary. (That doesn’t mean I won’t think them through, but there’s only so fast I can overturn my worldview!) I know you have strong opinions on this, and would love to get any recommendations on reads you think would be enlightening on the subject.
Yep! That should also weigh in favor of abortion, though I personally think other concerns substantially dominate it.
100%
Yes. I could be persuaded either way on the sign of this consideration, because abortion does increase economic output per capita, but having more people should increase gross economic output on the margin.
On your responses:
Very cool! I wasn’t aware of research on this, and it makes perfect sense, including avoiding “sector risk” (e.g. a portfolio of human-centered interventions could be totally dominated by farmed animal welfare considerations).
I’m still making up my mind on the implications of cluelessness, but I agree that it updates towards not taking much concrete action on abortion as an EA cause area.
On animal effects, I would recommend:
For farmed animal and wild animal effects and population sizes, with some emphasis on those related to human diets:
Many essays in https://reducing-suffering.org/#animals (although note that these are primarily from a suffering-focused and basically negative utilitarian perspective)
Maybe especially https://reducing-suffering.org/#humanitys_impact , https://reducing-suffering.org/vegetarianism-and-wild-animals/, https://reducing-suffering.org/trophic-cascades-caused-fishing/ (and others in https://reducing-suffering.org/#fishing ) and https://reducing-suffering.org/how-many-wild-animals-are-there/
http://reflectivedisequilibrium.blogspot.com/2013/07/vegan-advocacy-and-pessimism-about-wild.html
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wMIa6bAn4rfCAzBAsKlHBH9X3gmo8pjn/edit from https://www.invinciblewellbeing.com/research
Various posts at https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/topics/meat-eater-problem
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/SvbZtETGenTkZni8C/where-does-most-of-the-suffering-from-eating-meat-come-from
I think the human impacts on wild animals are primarily through agricultural land use, fishing and climate change, and most of these are largely affected by human diets (although climate change possibly dominated by fossil fuel use). Maybe also environmental pollutants/contaminants/toxins and forestry (I haven’t really looked into these). I’d guess the effects from the land humans take up in cities, towns, villages, etc., is not significant compared to these, based on Our World in Data.
For moral weights across animals (including humans):
https://reducing-suffering.org/two-envelopes-problem-for-brain-size-and-moral-uncertainty/
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/848SgRAKpjbuBWkW7/why-might-one-value-animals-far-less-than-humans
RP’s moral weight sequence (disclaimer: I work at RP, but am not speaking for them here), some posts are still coming out.
https://reducing-suffering.org/is-brain-size-morally-relevant/
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2jTQTxYNwo6zb3Kyp/preliminary-thoughts-on-moral-weight
I don’t know if the above covers all the strongest arguments for humans mattering substantially more than nonhuman animals, and I’d guess it doesn’t cover many such arguments in much detail. I don’t know off the top of my head what to recommend.