Stylistically, some commenters don’t seem to understand how this differs from a normal cause prioritisation exercise. Put simply, there’s a difference between choosing to ignore the Drowning Child because there are even more children in the next pond over, and ignoring the drowning children entirely because they might grow up to do bad things. Most cause prioritisation is the former, this post is the latter.
As for why the latter is a problem, I agree with JWS’s observation that this type of ‘For The Greater Good’ reasoning leads to great harm when applied at scale. This is not, or rather should not be, hypothetical for EA at this point. No amount of abstract reasoning for why this approach is ‘better’ is going to outweigh what seems to me to be very clear empirical evidence to the contrary, both within EA and without.
Beyond that issue, it’s pretty easy to identify any person, grant, or policy as plausibly-very-harmful if you focus only on possible negative side effects, so you end up with motivated reasoning driving the answers for what to do.
For example, in this post Vasco recommends:
In addition, I encourage people there to take uncertainty seriously, and, before significant further investigation, only support interventions which are beneficial in the nearterm accounting for effects on farmed animals.
But why stop at farmed animals? What about wild animals, especially insects? What about the long-term future? If taking Expected Total Hedonistic Utilitarianism seriously as Vasco does, I expect these effects to dominate farmed animals. My background understanding is that population increase leads to cultivation of land for farming and reduces wild animal populations and so wild animal suffering quite a bit.. So I could equivalently argue:
In addition, I encourage Vasco to take uncertainty seriously, and, before significant further investigation, only support interventions which are beneficial in the nearterm accounting for effects on wild animals.
These would then tend to be the opposite set of interventions to the prior set. It just goes round and round. I think there are roughly two reasonable approcahes here:
Pick something that seems like a clear good - ‘save lives’, ‘end factory farming’, ‘save the world’ - and try to make it happen without tying yourself into knots about side-effects.
Really just an extension of (1), but if you come across a side effect that worries you, add that goal as a second terminal goal and split your resources between the goals.
By contrast, if your genuine goal is to pick an intervention with no plausible chance of causing significant harm, and you are being honest with yourself about possible backfires, you will do nothing.
there’s a difference between choosing to ignore the Drowning Child because there are even more children in the next pond over, and ignoring the drowning children entirely because they might grow up to do bad things.
This is a fantastic summary of why I feel much more averse to this argument than to statements like “animal welfare is more important than human welfare” (which I am neutral-to-positive on).
Thanks, Karthik. I think not saving distant (not close) drowning children because they may well (not might) do terrible (not bad) things makes much more sense than not saving them because there are more of them. It is quite reasonable to think that not benefiting some people (drowning children) may be for the greater good (if they would cause lots of suffering to farmed animals). In contrast, I do not see how one can justify not decreasing harm just because one could not eliminate all harm.
But why stop at farmed animals? What about wild animals, especially insects? What about the long-term future?
As you said, I strongly endorse expected total hedonistic utilitarianism, so I do think one should consider effects across all time, space and beings. One reason I prefer interventions improving the conditions of farmed animals instead of ones reducing their consumption is that the former have smaller effects on wild animals. Another is that, although I think reducing the consumption of farmed animals is beneficial nearterm (next few years) because farmed animals have negative lives now, it may be harmful longer term (next few decades) if it is sufficiently permanent because farmed animals’ lives may become positive.
It is super unclear whether wild animals have positive or negative lives, which means the expected impact on them is lower than it would otherwise be if one could more confidently say they are positive or negative. I believe it is way clearer, although not totally clear, that farmed chickens and shrimp in standard conditions have negative lives, because there is data on the time they spend in pain (which I used in my post), which is not the case for the lives of wild arthropods (the most relevant group to assess the effects on wild animals). For chickens in improved conditions, I would say there is room for disagreement about whether they have positive or negative lives.
My background understanding is that population increase leads to cultivation of land for farming and reduces wild animal populations and so wild animal suffering quite a bit.
Relatedly, I estimated the effects on wild animals of saving human lives in a random country of the beneficiaries of GiveWell’s top charities are 1.15 k times as large as the effects on humans. I welcome estimates for the effects on wild animals of interventions improving the conditions of farmed animals, and I am open to changing my prioritisation based on the results.
By contrast, if your genuine goal is to pick an intervention with no plausible chance of causing significant harm, and you are being honest with yourself about possible backfires, you will do nothing.
I think acting with the goal of trying to decrease the chance of harm reduces this in expectation relative to the counterfactual of doing nothing.
Stylistically, some commenters don’t seem to understand how this differs from a normal cause prioritisation exercise. Put simply, there’s a difference between choosing to ignore the Drowning Child because there are even more children in the next pond over, and ignoring the drowning children entirely because they might grow up to do bad things. Most cause prioritisation is the former, this post is the latter.
As for why the latter is a problem, I agree with JWS’s observation that this type of ‘For The Greater Good’ reasoning leads to great harm when applied at scale. This is not, or rather should not be, hypothetical for EA at this point. No amount of abstract reasoning for why this approach is ‘better’ is going to outweigh what seems to me to be very clear empirical evidence to the contrary, both within EA and without.
Beyond that issue, it’s pretty easy to identify any person, grant, or policy as plausibly-very-harmful if you focus only on possible negative side effects, so you end up with motivated reasoning driving the answers for what to do.
For example, in this post Vasco recommends:
But why stop at farmed animals? What about wild animals, especially insects? What about the long-term future? If taking Expected Total Hedonistic Utilitarianism seriously as Vasco does, I expect these effects to dominate farmed animals. My background understanding is that population increase leads to cultivation of land for farming and reduces wild animal populations and so wild animal suffering quite a bit.. So I could equivalently argue:
These would then tend to be the opposite set of interventions to the prior set. It just goes round and round. I think there are roughly two reasonable approcahes here:
Pick something that seems like a clear good - ‘save lives’, ‘end factory farming’, ‘save the world’ - and try to make it happen without tying yourself into knots about side-effects.
Really just an extension of (1), but if you come across a side effect that worries you, add that goal as a second terminal goal and split your resources between the goals.
By contrast, if your genuine goal is to pick an intervention with no plausible chance of causing significant harm, and you are being honest with yourself about possible backfires, you will do nothing.
This is a fantastic summary of why I feel much more averse to this argument than to statements like “animal welfare is more important than human welfare” (which I am neutral-to-positive on).
Thanks, Karthik. I think not saving distant (not close) drowning children because they may well (not might) do terrible (not bad) things makes much more sense than not saving them because there are more of them. It is quite reasonable to think that not benefiting some people (drowning children) may be for the greater good (if they would cause lots of suffering to farmed animals). In contrast, I do not see how one can justify not decreasing harm just because one could not eliminate all harm.
Thanks, Alex.
As you said, I strongly endorse expected total hedonistic utilitarianism, so I do think one should consider effects across all time, space and beings. One reason I prefer interventions improving the conditions of farmed animals instead of ones reducing their consumption is that the former have smaller effects on wild animals. Another is that, although I think reducing the consumption of farmed animals is beneficial nearterm (next few years) because farmed animals have negative lives now, it may be harmful longer term (next few decades) if it is sufficiently permanent because farmed animals’ lives may become positive.
It is super unclear whether wild animals have positive or negative lives, which means the expected impact on them is lower than it would otherwise be if one could more confidently say they are positive or negative. I believe it is way clearer, although not totally clear, that farmed chickens and shrimp in standard conditions have negative lives, because there is data on the time they spend in pain (which I used in my post), which is not the case for the lives of wild arthropods (the most relevant group to assess the effects on wild animals). For chickens in improved conditions, I would say there is room for disagreement about whether they have positive or negative lives.
Relatedly, I estimated the effects on wild animals of saving human lives in a random country of the beneficiaries of GiveWell’s top charities are 1.15 k times as large as the effects on humans. I welcome estimates for the effects on wild animals of interventions improving the conditions of farmed animals, and I am open to changing my prioritisation based on the results.
I think acting with the goal of trying to decrease the chance of harm reduces this in expectation relative to the counterfactual of doing nothing.