Hi Vasco—this is something I’ve thought a lot about! My rough answer is that, having done some BOTECs myself, I do think that saving lives is net positive. Note that you can’t just take the RP figures and use them like this (i.e. comparing moral weight of humans x no. of humans, vs moral weight of chickens vs no. of chickens), since the RP weights only look at peak intensity, and doesn’t factor in the degree to which that peak is reached, or for how long—nor does it take into account non-experiential goods (e.g. life per se, or liberty, or achievement, or love etc). If you factor all this in, (probably) saving lives isn’t net negative—but it’s very subjective, since obviously we can’t really measure the qualitative experience of animals and have to extrapolate/guess.
Nice, I think it would maybe be worth including in the post something about that, as it could change the results significantly.
since the RP weights only look at peak intensity, and doesn’t factor in the degree to which that peak is reached, or for how long—nor does it take into account non-experiential goods (e.g. life per se, or liberty, or achievement, or love etc).
Thanks for clarifying. Intuitively, factory-farmed animals have more intense experiences (relative to their moral weight / peak welfare capacity), so I think accounting for intensity would make saving lives even more negative than my BOTEC suggested. Moreover, in general, I would claim non-experiential goods tend to be correlated with experiential ones, so I do not think accounting for them would favour saving human lives (also, factory-farmed animals have little liberty and achievement, and die more often). In any case, all goods are experiential in the sense words like “life per se, or liberty, or achievement, or love etc” refer to subsets of experiences.
If you factor all this in, (probably) saving lives isn’t net negative—but it’s very subjective, since obviously we can’t really measure the qualitative experience of animals and have to extrapolate/guess.
Have you considered the effects on wild (terresthrial and marine) arthropods and nematodes (due to deforestation, fishing, and global warming)? Accounting for these, I think the sign of the expected value will be quite uncertain… We may conclude that our best guess for it is negative/positive, but that would not offer a strong basis for action. If there is lots of uncertainty, I think it makes more sense to say that we do not know, and carry out more research to increase the resilience of our estimates.
Hi Vasco—this is something I’ve thought a lot about! My rough answer is that, having done some BOTECs myself, I do think that saving lives is net positive. Note that you can’t just take the RP figures and use them like this (i.e. comparing moral weight of humans x no. of humans, vs moral weight of chickens vs no. of chickens), since the RP weights only look at peak intensity, and doesn’t factor in the degree to which that peak is reached, or for how long—nor does it take into account non-experiential goods (e.g. life per se, or liberty, or achievement, or love etc). If you factor all this in, (probably) saving lives isn’t net negative—but it’s very subjective, since obviously we can’t really measure the qualitative experience of animals and have to extrapolate/guess.
Thanks for the reply!
Nice, I think it would maybe be worth including in the post something about that, as it could change the results significantly.
Thanks for clarifying. Intuitively, factory-farmed animals have more intense experiences (relative to their moral weight / peak welfare capacity), so I think accounting for intensity would make saving lives even more negative than my BOTEC suggested. Moreover, in general, I would claim non-experiential goods tend to be correlated with experiential ones, so I do not think accounting for them would favour saving human lives (also, factory-farmed animals have little liberty and achievement, and die more often). In any case, all goods are experiential in the sense words like “life per se, or liberty, or achievement, or love etc” refer to subsets of experiences.
Have you considered the effects on wild (terresthrial and marine) arthropods and nematodes (due to deforestation, fishing, and global warming)? Accounting for these, I think the sign of the expected value will be quite uncertain… We may conclude that our best guess for it is negative/positive, but that would not offer a strong basis for action. If there is lots of uncertainty, I think it makes more sense to say that we do not know, and carry out more research to increase the resilience of our estimates.