To weight pain at these different levels, I followed the same approach as the recent Rethink Priorities report “Cost-Effectiveness of Historical Farmed Animal Welfare Ballot Initiatives,” authored by Laura Duffy, which weights an hour of hurtful pain as equivalent to 0.15 hours of disabling pain and an hour of excruciating pain as equivalent to 5 hours of disabling pain.
These ratios seem somewhat conservative to me, i.e. I think we can make a case for disabling pain being much more than 1⁄0.15=~6.67 times worse than hurtful pain, and excruciating pain being much more than 5 times worse than disabling pain. I view this as partly a question of how animals actually respond (e.g. what kinds of tradeoffs they would make, or we would make in their place), and partly a normative/moral question, so subject to normative/moral uncertainty. Ren Springlea underwent some intense pain and estimated how bad the different WFP intensity levels were. Here’s the table reproduced from their post after undergoing these experiences:
Weightings (units of time that would equate with 1 unit time of annoying pain)
Annoying
Hurtful
Disabling
Excruciating
4 Feb 2023 (Evening after getting tattoos)
1
15
1,000
??? Maybe infinite ???
25 Feb 2023 (After doing cold pressor tests)
1
10
490
???
According to Ren’s estimates, disabling pain was around 50x worse than hurtful pain, and excruciating pain was possibly infinitely worse than disabling pain.
Both chicken (hen and broiler) welfare reforms and shrimp stunning reduce excruciating pain in expectation,[1] but I’d expect shrimp stunning to do so more cost-effectively, if as many shrimp experience excruciating pain during slaughter as you assumed (ideally, we could gather more evidence on that, too).
On the other hand, there might be more cost-effective ways to reduce excruciating pain for chickens by focusing on slaughter instead of more general asks, too. Or, we should also look at shrimp stunning as part of the overall portfolio of work to help shrimp, although SWP is seeking separate funding for it.
TL;DR: I think donations to SWP may be in the conversation for the single most cost-effective opportunity available to humanity.
Just saw this comment by chance when doing some of my usual late-night reading about shrimp welfare, and thought I’d reply because somebody mentioned me on the internet!
I’ve thought about this specific question (weightings between the different pain categories) at length, and there’s quite a bit of uncertainty as with any esoteric area of philosophy. I don’t put that much weight on my own experience that Michael described (as these decisions are too important to rely on my own experiences). I know a few people are thinking about this, so I’ve seen what various people have written about this; a small amount of academic research; some informal surveys; and a fair amount of philosophy. I think that any discussion of this topic needs to acknowledge this uncertainty. I think in a couple of years, we’ll be in a much more informed position about the trade-offs between pain categories, perhaps with the exception of excruciating pain.
I’ve also given shrimp welfare and shrimp stunning some detailed thought (and my colleagues will know just how critical and conservative I am when conducting research!).
That said:
I agree that 6.67x (disabling:hurtful) and 5x (excruciating:disabling) are conservative.
In my work, I use many sets of weightings, and I assign a rough probability to each one. The weighted mean is quite close to those above numbers. But averages obscure, which is why I use a set of weightings to arrive at a more informed judgement about any particular decision.
I think there’s a >30% chance that disabling:hurtful is above 15x (rather than 6.67x) and that excruciating:disabling is above 100x (rather than 5x). I also think the idea that excruciating is infinitely worse should be taken seriously.
Overall, given this thinking as well as my own detailed research into various aspects of the animal advocacy movement, I think donations to SWP may be in the conversation for the single most cost-effective opportunity available to humanity today, possibly ever (subject to usual moral uncertainty stuff around the big worldview questions, of course). Some healthy uncertainty around the pain weightings doesn’t change that.
Also, might be worth saying that if anybody strongly disagrees with this claim, I’d be keen to collaborate on a cost-effectiveness analysis of SWP and some other highly cost-effective opportunity (especially outside of the animal space) to see where the cruxes are.
These ratios seem somewhat conservative to me, i.e. I think we can make a case for disabling pain being much more than 1⁄0.15=~6.67 times worse than hurtful pain, and excruciating pain being much more than 5 times worse than disabling pain. I view this as partly a question of how animals actually respond (e.g. what kinds of tradeoffs they would make, or we would make in their place), and partly a normative/moral question, so subject to normative/moral uncertainty. Ren Springlea underwent some intense pain and estimated how bad the different WFP intensity levels were. Here’s the table reproduced from their post after undergoing these experiences:
According to Ren’s estimates, disabling pain was around 50x worse than hurtful pain, and excruciating pain was possibly infinitely worse than disabling pain.
Both chicken (hen and broiler) welfare reforms and shrimp stunning reduce excruciating pain in expectation,[1] but I’d expect shrimp stunning to do so more cost-effectively, if as many shrimp experience excruciating pain during slaughter as you assumed (ideally, we could gather more evidence on that, too).
On the other hand, there might be more cost-effective ways to reduce excruciating pain for chickens by focusing on slaughter instead of more general asks, too. Or, we should also look at shrimp stunning as part of the overall portfolio of work to help shrimp, although SWP is seeking separate funding for it.
According to Welfare Footprint Project for chicken welfare reforms.
TL;DR: I think donations to SWP may be in the conversation for the single most cost-effective opportunity available to humanity.
Just saw this comment by chance when doing some of my usual late-night reading about shrimp welfare, and thought I’d reply because somebody mentioned me on the internet!
I’ve thought about this specific question (weightings between the different pain categories) at length, and there’s quite a bit of uncertainty as with any esoteric area of philosophy. I don’t put that much weight on my own experience that Michael described (as these decisions are too important to rely on my own experiences). I know a few people are thinking about this, so I’ve seen what various people have written about this; a small amount of academic research; some informal surveys; and a fair amount of philosophy. I think that any discussion of this topic needs to acknowledge this uncertainty. I think in a couple of years, we’ll be in a much more informed position about the trade-offs between pain categories, perhaps with the exception of excruciating pain.
I’ve also given shrimp welfare and shrimp stunning some detailed thought (and my colleagues will know just how critical and conservative I am when conducting research!).
That said:
I agree that 6.67x (disabling:hurtful) and 5x (excruciating:disabling) are conservative.
In my work, I use many sets of weightings, and I assign a rough probability to each one. The weighted mean is quite close to those above numbers. But averages obscure, which is why I use a set of weightings to arrive at a more informed judgement about any particular decision.
I think there’s a >30% chance that disabling:hurtful is above 15x (rather than 6.67x) and that excruciating:disabling is above 100x (rather than 5x). I also think the idea that excruciating is infinitely worse should be taken seriously.
Overall, given this thinking as well as my own detailed research into various aspects of the animal advocacy movement, I think donations to SWP may be in the conversation for the single most cost-effective opportunity available to humanity today, possibly ever (subject to usual moral uncertainty stuff around the big worldview questions, of course). Some healthy uncertainty around the pain weightings doesn’t change that.
Also, might be worth saying that if anybody strongly disagrees with this claim, I’d be keen to collaborate on a cost-effectiveness analysis of SWP and some other highly cost-effective opportunity (especially outside of the animal space) to see where the cruxes are.