I’ve been working on a comparative analysis of the knock-on effects of bivalve aquaculture versus crop cultivation, to try to provide a more definitive answer to how eating oysters/​mussels compares morally to eating plants. I was hoping I could describe how I’d currently apply the RP team’s welfare range estimates, and would welcome your feedback and/​or suggestions. Our dialogue could prove useful for others seeking to incorporate these estimates into their own projects.
For bivalve aquaculture, the knock-on moral patients include (but are not limited to) zooplankton, crustaceans, and fish. Crop cultivation affects some small mammals, birds, and amphibians, though its effect on insect suffering is likely to dominate.
RP’s invertebrate sentience estimates give a <1% probability of zooplankton or plant sentience, so we can ignore them for simplicity (with apologies to Brian Tomasik). The sea hare is the organism most similar to the bivalve for which sentience estimates are given, and it is estimated that a sea hare is less likely to be sentient than an individual insect. Although the sign of crop cultivation’s impact on insect suffering is unclear, the magnitude seems likely to dominate the effect of bivalve aquaculture on the bivalves themselves, so we can ignore them too for simplicity.
The next steps might be:
Calculate welfare ranges:
For bivalve aquaculture, use carp, salmon, crayfish, shrimp, and crabs to calculate a welfare range for the effect of bivalve aquaculture on marine populations.
Use chickens as a model species to calculate a welfare range for the effect of crop cultivation on vertebrate populations.
For the effect of crop cultivation on insect suffering, I might just toss this problem on to future researchers. I’m only doing this as a side project, and given the sheer complexity of the considerations at play, I’m worried I might publish something which inadvertently increases insect suffering instead of decreasing it.
For several moral views (negative utilitarianism, symmetric utilitarianism) and several perspectives of the value of a typical wild animal’s life (net negative, net neutral, net positive), extract relevant conclusions. (e.g. if bivalve aquaculture is robustly shown to increase marine populations, given Brian’s arguments that crop cultivation likely reduces vertebrate populations, a negative utilitarian who views wild animal lives as net negative may want to oppose bivalve consumption.)
(Of course, I’d have to mention longtermist considerations. The effect of norms surrounding animal consumption on moral circle expansion could be crucial. So could the effect of these consumption practices on climate change or on food security.)
Thanks for your comment, Ariel, and sorry for the slow reply! What you’ve described sounds great as far as it goes. However, my basic view here—which I offer with sincere appreciation for the project you’re describing and a genuine desire to see it completed—is that the uncertainties are so far-reaching that, while we can get clearer about the conditions under which, say, a negative utilitarian will condemn bivalve consumption, we basically have no idea which condition we’re in. So, I think that the most valuable thing right now would be to write up specific empirical research questions and value-aligned ways of operationalizing the key concepts. Then, we should be hunting for graduate students and early-career researchers who might be willing to do the empirical work in exchange for relatively small amounts of funding. (Many academics are cheap dates.) From my perspective, EA has gone just about as far as it can already on these kinds of questions without more substantive collaborations with entomologists, aquatic biologists, ecologists, and so on.
All that said, I’ll stress that I completely agree with you about the importance of getting answers here! I just think we’re at the point where we can’t make much more progress toward them from the armchair.
Hi Bob and RP team,
I’ve been working on a comparative analysis of the knock-on effects of bivalve aquaculture versus crop cultivation, to try to provide a more definitive answer to how eating oysters/​mussels compares morally to eating plants. I was hoping I could describe how I’d currently apply the RP team’s welfare range estimates, and would welcome your feedback and/​or suggestions. Our dialogue could prove useful for others seeking to incorporate these estimates into their own projects.
For bivalve aquaculture, the knock-on moral patients include (but are not limited to) zooplankton, crustaceans, and fish. Crop cultivation affects some small mammals, birds, and amphibians, though its effect on insect suffering is likely to dominate.
RP’s invertebrate sentience estimates give a <1% probability of zooplankton or plant sentience, so we can ignore them for simplicity (with apologies to Brian Tomasik). The sea hare is the organism most similar to the bivalve for which sentience estimates are given, and it is estimated that a sea hare is less likely to be sentient than an individual insect. Although the sign of crop cultivation’s impact on insect suffering is unclear, the magnitude seems likely to dominate the effect of bivalve aquaculture on the bivalves themselves, so we can ignore them too for simplicity.
The next steps might be:
Calculate welfare ranges:
For bivalve aquaculture, use carp, salmon, crayfish, shrimp, and crabs to calculate a welfare range for the effect of bivalve aquaculture on marine populations.
Use chickens as a model species to calculate a welfare range for the effect of crop cultivation on vertebrate populations.
For the effect of crop cultivation on insect suffering, I might just toss this problem on to future researchers. I’m only doing this as a side project, and given the sheer complexity of the considerations at play, I’m worried I might publish something which inadvertently increases insect suffering instead of decreasing it.
For several moral views (negative utilitarianism, symmetric utilitarianism) and several perspectives of the value of a typical wild animal’s life (net negative, net neutral, net positive), extract relevant conclusions. (e.g. if bivalve aquaculture is robustly shown to increase marine populations, given Brian’s arguments that crop cultivation likely reduces vertebrate populations, a negative utilitarian who views wild animal lives as net negative may want to oppose bivalve consumption.)
(Of course, I’d have to mention longtermist considerations. The effect of norms surrounding animal consumption on moral circle expansion could be crucial. So could the effect of these consumption practices on climate change or on food security.)
Thanks for your comment, Ariel, and sorry for the slow reply! What you’ve described sounds great as far as it goes. However, my basic view here—which I offer with sincere appreciation for the project you’re describing and a genuine desire to see it completed—is that the uncertainties are so far-reaching that, while we can get clearer about the conditions under which, say, a negative utilitarian will condemn bivalve consumption, we basically have no idea which condition we’re in. So, I think that the most valuable thing right now would be to write up specific empirical research questions and value-aligned ways of operationalizing the key concepts. Then, we should be hunting for graduate students and early-career researchers who might be willing to do the empirical work in exchange for relatively small amounts of funding. (Many academics are cheap dates.) From my perspective, EA has gone just about as far as it can already on these kinds of questions without more substantive collaborations with entomologists, aquatic biologists, ecologists, and so on.
All that said, I’ll stress that I completely agree with you about the importance of getting answers here! I just think we’re at the point where we can’t make much more progress toward them from the armchair.