It’s true that it doesn’t follow from the individuals of some class having moral weight that the overall weight of the class of individuals is going to be any particular size. The examples in the reflective equilibrium section should be read as illustrative, not as exemplifying any particular position. (I see, though, how those examples could be misinterpreted.) The basic idea is: IF your view leads you to believe that, say, plant-suffering is super important, you might want to compare your final theoretical judgments with the intuitions that got the project started. One way to avoid the result that plant suffering is super important is to adjust your moral weighting judgments. I intend the piece to be neutral with respect to views on moral weighting.
The word “pain” appears far more than “pleasure” in the piece, but this was a choice of convenience, not theory. (Again, though, I understand how this choice could be reasonably misconceived.) I intend the piece to be neutral with respect to first-order normative theory, including the question of classical vs negative utilitarianism. I don’t intend anything I’ve written to commit me to a value-asymmetry between invertebrate pain and pleasure. Perhaps, though, framing is as important as strict implicature. If that’s the case, I ought to write “pain and pleasure” instead of the shorter “pain.”
As for second-order theories, it seems to me I’m implicitly assuming at least a high credence in moral realism rather than anti-realism. It’s not really clear to me where I’ve assumed otherwise (though of course it’s possible and I welcome examples from the piece). (Also, your comment doesn’t commit you to my piece perpetuating this particular meme; just pieces of this general sort doing so, so maybe your comment was more general than I am taking it.)
Finally, I think it’s true that there are some background assumptions about the relevant importance of wild-animal suffering at work in the piece. In (far) future posts, I hope to examine these assumptions more critically.
I was not careful enough in articulating my worries, sorry—the comment was more general.
I agree that what you wrote is often not literally affected by my concerns. What I’m worried about is this: given the nebulousness of the domain and, often, lack of hard evidence, it seems inevitable people are affected by intuitions, informal models,etc. - at least in the “hypothesis generation phase” and “taste what to research”. I would expect these to be significantly guided by illustrative examples, seemingly irrelevant word choices, explicitly “toy” models or implicit clues about what is worth to emphasize.
So, for example, while I agree you did not commit to some suffering-focused theory, and neither do many others writing about the topic, I would be really surprised if the “gut feeling” prior of anyone actually working on wild animal suffering agenda was that animals on average experience more pleasure than pain, or, that wild nature is overall positive.
Similarly, while I’d assume nobody commits to the fallacy “if insects have moral weight, their overall weight will be huge” explicitly, I’m afraid something vaguely like that actually is guiding peoples intuitions.
Ah, I see the worry more clearly now. I agree that, as best we can, we ought to examine not only the strict implicatures of what people write but also the background assumptions that motivate their reasoning. And I agree that at this stage of research, people’s reasoning is going to be motivated less by hard evidence and more by pre-theoretic beliefs, although I don’t really see a way to avoid this stage and jump straight into a more mature field.
For what it’s worth, I personally think there’s a significant chance that wild nature is overall positive and that invertebrates have negligible moral standing. But I also think there are plausible arguments on the other side, and if those plausible arguments turn out to be sound arguments, then the issue of invertebrate suffering (or wild animal suffering more generally) could be huge. The only way to get a better handle on the issue is to do more careful research.
It’s true that it doesn’t follow from the individuals of some class having moral weight that the overall weight of the class of individuals is going to be any particular size. The examples in the reflective equilibrium section should be read as illustrative, not as exemplifying any particular position. (I see, though, how those examples could be misinterpreted.) The basic idea is: IF your view leads you to believe that, say, plant-suffering is super important, you might want to compare your final theoretical judgments with the intuitions that got the project started. One way to avoid the result that plant suffering is super important is to adjust your moral weighting judgments. I intend the piece to be neutral with respect to views on moral weighting.
The word “pain” appears far more than “pleasure” in the piece, but this was a choice of convenience, not theory. (Again, though, I understand how this choice could be reasonably misconceived.) I intend the piece to be neutral with respect to first-order normative theory, including the question of classical vs negative utilitarianism. I don’t intend anything I’ve written to commit me to a value-asymmetry between invertebrate pain and pleasure. Perhaps, though, framing is as important as strict implicature. If that’s the case, I ought to write “pain and pleasure” instead of the shorter “pain.”
As for second-order theories, it seems to me I’m implicitly assuming at least a high credence in moral realism rather than anti-realism. It’s not really clear to me where I’ve assumed otherwise (though of course it’s possible and I welcome examples from the piece). (Also, your comment doesn’t commit you to my piece perpetuating this particular meme; just pieces of this general sort doing so, so maybe your comment was more general than I am taking it.)
Finally, I think it’s true that there are some background assumptions about the relevant importance of wild-animal suffering at work in the piece. In (far) future posts, I hope to examine these assumptions more critically.
I was not careful enough in articulating my worries, sorry—the comment was more general.
I agree that what you wrote is often not literally affected by my concerns. What I’m worried about is this: given the nebulousness of the domain and, often, lack of hard evidence, it seems inevitable people are affected by intuitions, informal models,etc. - at least in the “hypothesis generation phase” and “taste what to research”. I would expect these to be significantly guided by illustrative examples, seemingly irrelevant word choices, explicitly “toy” models or implicit clues about what is worth to emphasize.
So, for example, while I agree you did not commit to some suffering-focused theory, and neither do many others writing about the topic, I would be really surprised if the “gut feeling” prior of anyone actually working on wild animal suffering agenda was that animals on average experience more pleasure than pain, or, that wild nature is overall positive.
Similarly, while I’d assume nobody commits to the fallacy “if insects have moral weight, their overall weight will be huge” explicitly, I’m afraid something vaguely like that actually is guiding peoples intuitions.
Ah, I see the worry more clearly now. I agree that, as best we can, we ought to examine not only the strict implicatures of what people write but also the background assumptions that motivate their reasoning. And I agree that at this stage of research, people’s reasoning is going to be motivated less by hard evidence and more by pre-theoretic beliefs, although I don’t really see a way to avoid this stage and jump straight into a more mature field.
For what it’s worth, I personally think there’s a significant chance that wild nature is overall positive and that invertebrates have negligible moral standing. But I also think there are plausible arguments on the other side, and if those plausible arguments turn out to be sound arguments, then the issue of invertebrate suffering (or wild animal suffering more generally) could be huge. The only way to get a better handle on the issue is to do more careful research.