Hi Vasco! I’m reposting my reply to your comment in Lewis’s newsletter here given your (admirable) value of public discussion since this seems like the fitting spot to go back and forth about it:
I value your respect for large numbers and the breadth of your moral circle.
I just weigh the factors differently (putting a large premium on known suffering), and I put the likelihood of a net negative experience for soil animals and many wild animals in undisturbed habitats at 50% or less.
I care very much about the lives of wild animals, but I am skeptical that we know how to measure their subjective experience. For example, maybe nematodes experience pain often but find euphoric pleasure in burrowing through soil all day. Most wild animals experience fear often but maybe they find so much joy in being part of a family that the fear pales in comparison.
I come from a long line of humans whose amount of suffering was quantitatively much higher than their amount of pleasure, but the things that did bring pleasure (e.g., pursuit of meaning) made life feel worth living. A researcher wouldn’t know this through observation, especially because smiling and physical contact aren’t common in my culture (#soviets)
I’m not suggesting we can’t ever learn about the subjective experience of another species. Anyone who lives with chickens will easily identify chicken happiness. But we can only do this because we have lots of data (alongside some helpful similarities in the communication of our species).*
I do believe we’ll learn much more about wild animals through research. And even if we find out soil animals or others suffer constantly, I would likely still advocate for life improving** rather than life ending measures.
In part because I believe in the inherent dignity of any life and in part because we living beings are so deeply interconnected that it would be impossible to predict the unintended consequences of mercy killing large numbers of animals.
While I disagree with your conclusion, your approach has sparked lots of introspection for me, and I am eager to learn more about soil animals and our relationship to them, so thank you!
changes from my comment in the newsletter: *I clarified my perspective on measuring subjective experience, and **I changed the world “welfare” to “improving” since it seems your definition of welfare encompasses ending life, so my goal is to clarify the distinction I’m making. I also fixed a typo :) Otherwise the wording is the same.
Thanks for reposting the comment, and welcome to the EA Forum, Tania! For readers’ reference, here is the thread in Lewis Bollard’s newsletter. I have updated my last reply in the thread to include the below. The 1st paragraph is very similar to the initial version of my reply. The 2nd paragraph is new.
If soil animals had positive lives, instead of negative lives as I guess they do, I would want to decrease agricultural land to increase soil-animal-years, and therefore would tend to support increasing the consumption of plant-based foods, which tend to require less agricultural-land-years per food-kg than animal-based foods. However, in this case, I would become pessimistic about improving the conditions of farmed animals because this tends to increase agricultural land. Changing the sign of the welfare of soil animals from negative to positive in my cost-effectiveness analysis of cage-free and broiler welfare corporate campaigns, I would estimate these increase the net suffering of soil animals 1.15 k and 18.0 k times as much as they decrease the net suffering of chickens, thus being very harmful.
Hereis some context about the capacity for welfare, and suffering experienced by soil nematodes, which are the main driver of my estimated effects on soil animals.
Hi Vasco! I’m reposting my reply to your comment in Lewis’s newsletter here given your (admirable) value of public discussion since this seems like the fitting spot to go back and forth about it:
I value your respect for large numbers and the breadth of your moral circle.
I just weigh the factors differently (putting a large premium on known suffering), and I put the likelihood of a net negative experience for soil animals and many wild animals in undisturbed habitats at 50% or less.
I care very much about the lives of wild animals, but I am skeptical that we know how to measure their subjective experience. For example, maybe nematodes experience pain often but find euphoric pleasure in burrowing through soil all day. Most wild animals experience fear often but maybe they find so much joy in being part of a family that the fear pales in comparison.
I come from a long line of humans whose amount of suffering was quantitatively much higher than their amount of pleasure, but the things that did bring pleasure (e.g., pursuit of meaning) made life feel worth living. A researcher wouldn’t know this through observation, especially because smiling and physical contact aren’t common in my culture (#soviets)
I’m not suggesting we can’t ever learn about the subjective experience of another species. Anyone who lives with chickens will easily identify chicken happiness. But we can only do this because we have lots of data (alongside some helpful similarities in the communication of our species).*
I do believe we’ll learn much more about wild animals through research. And even if we find out soil animals or others suffer constantly, I would likely still advocate for life improving** rather than life ending measures.
In part because I believe in the inherent dignity of any life and in part because we living beings are so deeply interconnected that it would be impossible to predict the unintended consequences of mercy killing large numbers of animals.
While I disagree with your conclusion, your approach has sparked lots of introspection for me, and I am eager to learn more about soil animals and our relationship to them, so thank you!
changes from my comment in the newsletter:
*I clarified my perspective on measuring subjective experience, and **I changed the world “welfare” to “improving” since it seems your definition of welfare encompasses ending life, so my goal is to clarify the distinction I’m making. I also fixed a typo :) Otherwise the wording is the same.
Thanks for reposting the comment, and welcome to the EA Forum, Tania! For readers’ reference, here is the thread in Lewis Bollard’s newsletter. I have updated my last reply in the thread to include the below. The 1st paragraph is very similar to the initial version of my reply. The 2nd paragraph is new.
If soil animals had positive lives, instead of negative lives as I guess they do, I would want to decrease agricultural land to increase soil-animal-years, and therefore would tend to support increasing the consumption of plant-based foods, which tend to require less agricultural-land-years per food-kg than animal-based foods. However, in this case, I would become pessimistic about improving the conditions of farmed animals because this tends to increase agricultural land. Changing the sign of the welfare of soil animals from negative to positive in my cost-effectiveness analysis of cage-free and broiler welfare corporate campaigns, I would estimate these increase the net suffering of soil animals 1.15 k and 18.0 k times as much as they decrease the net suffering of chickens, thus being very harmful.
Here is some context about the capacity for welfare, and suffering experienced by soil nematodes, which are the main driver of my estimated effects on soil animals.