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.
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.