You might be interested in Rethink Priorities’ recent reports about comparing capacity for welfare and moral status across species (part 1 here, part 2 here). Some people (myself included) think capacity for welfare, which roughly is how good or bad an animal’s life can go, differs significantly across species. The extent and degree of this sort of difference depends on the correct theory of welfare. Even if a purely hedonic theory is correct, it’s plausible that differences in affective complexity and cognitive sophistication affect the phenomenal intensity of experience and that some neurological differences affect the subjective experience of time (i.e., the phenomenal duration of experience).
However, it’s unclear which way these differences cut. Advanced social, emotional, and intellectual complexity may open up new dimensions of pleasure and suffering that widen the intensity range of experience (e.g., combining physical with emotional intimacy plausibly opens up the possibility of greater overall pleasure than mere physical intimacy). On the other hand, these same faculties may actually suppress the intensity range of experience (e.g., without the ability to conceptualize, rationalize, or time the experience, even modest pain may induce rather extreme suffering).
Comparing the intrinsic moral worth of different animals (including humans) is extraordinarily difficult, and there is tremendous uncertainty, both normative and empirical. Given this large uncertainty, it seems that, all other things equal, it would be better if near-termist EA funding didn’t skew quite so heavily towards humans, and for the funding that is directed at nonhuman animals, it would be better if it didn’t skew quite so heavily towards terrestrial vertebrates.
You might be interested in Rethink Priorities’ recent reports about comparing capacity for welfare and moral status across species (part 1 here, part 2 here). Some people (myself included) think capacity for welfare, which roughly is how good or bad an animal’s life can go, differs significantly across species. The extent and degree of this sort of difference depends on the correct theory of welfare. Even if a purely hedonic theory is correct, it’s plausible that differences in affective complexity and cognitive sophistication affect the phenomenal intensity of experience and that some neurological differences affect the subjective experience of time (i.e., the phenomenal duration of experience).
However, it’s unclear which way these differences cut. Advanced social, emotional, and intellectual complexity may open up new dimensions of pleasure and suffering that widen the intensity range of experience (e.g., combining physical with emotional intimacy plausibly opens up the possibility of greater overall pleasure than mere physical intimacy). On the other hand, these same faculties may actually suppress the intensity range of experience (e.g., without the ability to conceptualize, rationalize, or time the experience, even modest pain may induce rather extreme suffering).
Comparing the intrinsic moral worth of different animals (including humans) is extraordinarily difficult, and there is tremendous uncertainty, both normative and empirical. Given this large uncertainty, it seems that, all other things equal, it would be better if near-termist EA funding didn’t skew quite so heavily towards humans, and for the funding that is directed at nonhuman animals, it would be better if it didn’t skew quite so heavily towards terrestrial vertebrates.