Alternatively, you might assume you actually already are a human, alien or chicken, have (and remember) experience with suffering as one of them, but are uncertain about which you in fact are. For illustration, letâs suppose human or alien. Because youâre uncertain about whether youâre an alien or human, your concept of suffering points to one that will turn out to be human suffering with some probability, p, and alien suffering with the rest of the probability, 1-p. You ground value relative to your own concept of suffering, which could turn out to be (or revised to) the human concept or the alien concept with respective probabilities.
Let H_H be the moral weight of human suffering according to a human concept of suffering, directly valued, and A_H be the moral weight of alien suffering according to a human concept of suffering, indirectly valued. Similarly, let A_A and H_A be the moral weights of alien suffering and human suffering according to the alien concept of suffering. A human would fix H_H, build a probability distribution for A_H relative to H_H and evaluate A_H in terms of it. An alien would fix A_A, build a probability distribution for H_A relative to A_A and evaluate H_A in terms of it.
Youâre uncertain about whether youâre an alien or human. Still, you directly value your direct experiences. Assume A_A and H_H specifically represent the moral value of an experience of suffering youâve actually had,[1] e.g. the moral value of a toe stub, and youâre doing ethics relative to your toe stubs as the reference point. You therefore set A_A = H_H. You can think of this as a unit conversion, e.g. 1 unit of alien toe stub-relative suffering = 10 units of human toe stub-relative suffering.
This solves the two envelopes problem. You can either use A_A or H_H to set your common scale, and the answer will be the same either way, because youâve fixed the ratio between them. The moral value of a human toe stub, H, will be H_H with probability p, and H_A with probability 1-p. The moral weight of an alien toe stub, A, will be A_H with probability p and A_A with probability 1-p. You can just take expected values in either the alien or human units and compare.
We could also allow you to have some probability of being a chicken under this thought experiment. Then you could set A_A = H_H = C_C, with C_C representing the value of a chicken toe stub to a chicken, and C_A, C_H, A_C and H_C defined like above.
But if youâre actually a chicken, then youâre valuing human and alien welfare as a chicken, which is presumably not much, since chickens are very partial (unless you idealize). Also, if youâre a human, itâs hard to imagine being uncertain about whether youâre a chicken. Thereâs way too much information you need to screen off from consideration, like your capacities for reasoning and language and everything that follows from these. And if youâre a chicken, you couldnât imagine yourself as a human or being impartial at all.
So, maybe this doesnât make sense, or we have to imagine some hypothetically cognitively enhanced chicken or an intelligent being who suffers like a chicken. You could also idealize chickens to be impartial and actually care about humans, but then youâre definitely forcing them into a different normative stance than the ones chickens actually take (if any).
It would have to be something âcommonâ to the beings under consideration, or youâd have to screen off information about who does and doesnât have access to it or use of that information, because otherwise youâd be able to rule out some possibilities for what kind of being you are. This will look less reasonable with more types of beings under consideration, in case thereâs nothing âcommonâ to all of them. For example, not all moral patients have toes to stub.
Alternatively, you might assume you actually already are a human, alien or chicken, have (and remember) experience with suffering as one of them, but are uncertain about which you in fact are. For illustration, letâs suppose human or alien. Because youâre uncertain about whether youâre an alien or human, your concept of suffering points to one that will turn out to be human suffering with some probability, p, and alien suffering with the rest of the probability, 1-p. You ground value relative to your own concept of suffering, which could turn out to be (or revised to) the human concept or the alien concept with respective probabilities.
Let H_H be the moral weight of human suffering according to a human concept of suffering, directly valued, and A_H be the moral weight of alien suffering according to a human concept of suffering, indirectly valued. Similarly, let A_A and H_A be the moral weights of alien suffering and human suffering according to the alien concept of suffering. A human would fix H_H, build a probability distribution for A_H relative to H_H and evaluate A_H in terms of it. An alien would fix A_A, build a probability distribution for H_A relative to A_A and evaluate H_A in terms of it.
Youâre uncertain about whether youâre an alien or human. Still, you directly value your direct experiences. Assume A_A and H_H specifically represent the moral value of an experience of suffering youâve actually had,[1] e.g. the moral value of a toe stub, and youâre doing ethics relative to your toe stubs as the reference point. You therefore set A_A = H_H. You can think of this as a unit conversion, e.g. 1 unit of alien toe stub-relative suffering = 10 units of human toe stub-relative suffering.
This solves the two envelopes problem. You can either use A_A or H_H to set your common scale, and the answer will be the same either way, because youâve fixed the ratio between them. The moral value of a human toe stub, H, will be H_H with probability p, and H_A with probability 1-p. The moral weight of an alien toe stub, A, will be A_H with probability p and A_A with probability 1-p. You can just take expected values in either the alien or human units and compare.
We could also allow you to have some probability of being a chicken under this thought experiment. Then you could set A_A = H_H = C_C, with C_C representing the value of a chicken toe stub to a chicken, and C_A, C_H, A_C and H_C defined like above.
But if youâre actually a chicken, then youâre valuing human and alien welfare as a chicken, which is presumably not much, since chickens are very partial (unless you idealize). Also, if youâre a human, itâs hard to imagine being uncertain about whether youâre a chicken. Thereâs way too much information you need to screen off from consideration, like your capacities for reasoning and language and everything that follows from these. And if youâre a chicken, you couldnât imagine yourself as a human or being impartial at all.
So, maybe this doesnât make sense, or we have to imagine some hypothetically cognitively enhanced chicken or an intelligent being who suffers like a chicken. You could also idealize chickens to be impartial and actually care about humans, but then youâre definitely forcing them into a different normative stance than the ones chickens actually take (if any).
It would have to be something âcommonâ to the beings under consideration, or youâd have to screen off information about who does and doesnât have access to it or use of that information, because otherwise youâd be able to rule out some possibilities for what kind of being you are. This will look less reasonable with more types of beings under consideration, in case thereâs nothing âcommonâ to all of them. For example, not all moral patients have toes to stub.