Executive summary: Diversity-oriented theories of moral value, which place intrinsic value on the diversity of experiences, have significant implications for the effectiveness of interventions aimed at improving shrimp welfare in factory farming.
Key points:
Computational theories of mind and identity suggest that the moral value of an individual depends on the uniqueness of their mental experiences.
Shrimp likely have a limited number of meaningfully distinct mental experiences due to their small brain size.
Interventions that improve the quality of life for a subset of farmed shrimp may have little moral value if the same negative experiences are still instantiated in other farms.
Global interventions and those focused on wild shrimp may be more impactful due to affecting a greater diversity of experiences.
Standardizing shrimp farming conditions could potentially reduce the number of distinct negative experiences, even if the average quality of life worsens.
Further philosophical and empirical research is needed to assess the validity and implications of these theories for shrimp welfare and other factory farmed animals.
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I would add to #2 that the number of shrimp being farmed is equally if not more relevant than brain size. The total number of experiences is surely still quite large in normal human terms, but could be small relative to the massive numbers of shrimp in existence.
Executive summary: Diversity-oriented theories of moral value, which place intrinsic value on the diversity of experiences, have significant implications for the effectiveness of interventions aimed at improving shrimp welfare in factory farming.
Key points:
Computational theories of mind and identity suggest that the moral value of an individual depends on the uniqueness of their mental experiences.
Shrimp likely have a limited number of meaningfully distinct mental experiences due to their small brain size.
Interventions that improve the quality of life for a subset of farmed shrimp may have little moral value if the same negative experiences are still instantiated in other farms.
Global interventions and those focused on wild shrimp may be more impactful due to affecting a greater diversity of experiences.
Standardizing shrimp farming conditions could potentially reduce the number of distinct negative experiences, even if the average quality of life worsens.
Further philosophical and empirical research is needed to assess the validity and implications of these theories for shrimp welfare and other factory farmed animals.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.
I would add to #2 that the number of shrimp being farmed is equally if not more relevant than brain size. The total number of experiences is surely still quite large in normal human terms, but could be small relative to the massive numbers of shrimp in existence.