These surveys suggest that the average person gives considerably less moral weight to non-human animals than the RP moral weight estimates, although still enough weight that animal welfare interventions look better than GiveWell top charities (and the two surveys differed considerably from each other, with the MTurk survey giving much higher weight to animals across the board).
The difference between the two surveys was inclusion/exclusion of people who refused to equate finitely many animals to a human.
Also, the wording of the questions in the survey isn’t clear about what kinds of tradeoffs it’s supposed to be about:
About how many [X] do you think are equal in moral value to one adult human?
The median responses for chickens were ~500 and ~1000 (when you included infinities and NA as infinities). But does this mean welfare range or capacity for welfare? Like if we had to choose between relieving an hour of moderate intensity pain in 500 chickens vs 1 human, we should be indifferent (welfare range)? Or, is that if we could save the lives of 500 chickens or 1 human, we should be indifferent (capacity for welfare)? Or something else?
If it’s capacity for welfare, then this would be a pretty pro-animal view, because chickens live around 10-15 years on average under good conditions, and under conventional intensive farming conditions, 40-50 days if raised for meat and less than 2 years if raised for eggs. Well, the average person probably doesn’t know how long chickens live, so maybe we shouldn’t interpret it as capacity for welfare. Also, there are 20-30 chickens killed in the US per American per year, so like 2000 per American over their life.
Ah, that’s what I meant to get at by welfare range (life-years) vs capacity for welfare (lives). I assume they’re comparing welfare ranges, but if they’re comparing capacity for welfare/lives and summing moral value, then the median response would be more pro-animal than under the other interpretation, like 50 to 100 chickens per human in life-year or welfare range terms.
Some (small-sample) data on public opinion:
Scott Alexander did a survey on moral weights: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/03/26/cortical-neuron-number-matches-intuitive-perceptions-of-moral-value-across-animals/
SlateStarCodex commenter Tibbar’s Mechanical Turk survey on moral weights: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/05/01/update-to-partial-retraction-of-animal-value-and-neuron-number/
These surveys suggest that the average person gives considerably less moral weight to non-human animals than the RP moral weight estimates, although still enough weight that animal welfare interventions look better than GiveWell top charities (and the two surveys differed considerably from each other, with the MTurk survey giving much higher weight to animals across the board).
The difference between the two surveys was inclusion/exclusion of people who refused to equate finitely many animals to a human.
Also, the wording of the questions in the survey isn’t clear about what kinds of tradeoffs it’s supposed to be about:
The median responses for chickens were ~500 and ~1000 (when you included infinities and NA as infinities). But does this mean welfare range or capacity for welfare? Like if we had to choose between relieving an hour of moderate intensity pain in 500 chickens vs 1 human, we should be indifferent (welfare range)? Or, is that if we could save the lives of 500 chickens or 1 human, we should be indifferent (capacity for welfare)? Or something else?
If it’s capacity for welfare, then this would be a pretty pro-animal view, because chickens live around 10-15 years on average under good conditions, and under conventional intensive farming conditions, 40-50 days if raised for meat and less than 2 years if raised for eggs. Well, the average person probably doesn’t know how long chickens live, so maybe we shouldn’t interpret it as capacity for welfare. Also, there are 20-30 chickens killed in the US per American per year, so like 2000 per American over their life.
Another issue is the difference between comparing life-years and lives, since humans are much longer living than chickens.
Ah, that’s what I meant to get at by welfare range (life-years) vs capacity for welfare (lives). I assume they’re comparing welfare ranges, but if they’re comparing capacity for welfare/lives and summing moral value, then the median response would be more pro-animal than under the other interpretation, like 50 to 100 chickens per human in life-year or welfare range terms.