ok. Well I don’t actually care about how much I think I matter (obviously the answer is “an enormous amount”), what I really care about is how much you think I matter, or how much the median EA thinks I matter. How many of these four assumptions you listed do you actually believe? If you do believe some of them, then presumably in your eyes I am worth some relatively low number of chickens, right? What happens if my neck is on the block and you have the choice between sacrificing me or wringing the necks of 100 chickens? That’s the really important key question here.
Hi Sabs. We can discuss this a bit in a comment thread, but the issues here are complicated. If you’d like to have a conversation, I’m happy to chat. Please DM me for a link to my calendar.
Brief replies to your questions:
I think you matter an enormous amount too. I am not saying this facetiously. It’s probably the thing I believe most deeply.
I don’t know how much the median EA thinks you matter.
I’m unsure about all four assumptions. However, I’m also unsure about their practical importance. You might not be comfortable with the results of any cross-species cost-effectiveness analysis.
If it’s you or a hundred chickens, I’d save you. I’d also save my children over a hundred (human) strangers. I don’t think this means that my children realize more welfare than those strangers. Likewise, I don’t think you realize 100x more welfare than a chicken can.
I think it’s also helpful to empathise the other way around too when working on these thought-experiments. Species-membership is merely a shortcut for speaking about typical cognitive and hedonic capacities in this report, species itself is irrelevant. You might be thinking that prioritising the torture of 1000 chickens over the life of one human being doesn’t make you feel valued as much as you should be.
But it could be the other way around in the real life as well. An illness could befall on us or our loved ones. It could very much be the case that my sister had cognitive/hedonic capacities comparable to a pig. I wouldn’t feel very much valued if my sister being tortured for a year was considered to be less of a deal compared to averting the 10 minutes long headache of a typical human being in this case.
ok. Well I don’t actually care about how much I think I matter (obviously the answer is “an enormous amount”), what I really care about is how much you think I matter, or how much the median EA thinks I matter. How many of these four assumptions you listed do you actually believe? If you do believe some of them, then presumably in your eyes I am worth some relatively low number of chickens, right? What happens if my neck is on the block and you have the choice between sacrificing me or wringing the necks of 100 chickens? That’s the really important key question here.
Hi Sabs. We can discuss this a bit in a comment thread, but the issues here are complicated. If you’d like to have a conversation, I’m happy to chat. Please DM me for a link to my calendar.
Brief replies to your questions:
I think you matter an enormous amount too. I am not saying this facetiously. It’s probably the thing I believe most deeply.
I don’t know how much the median EA thinks you matter.
I’m unsure about all four assumptions. However, I’m also unsure about their practical importance. You might not be comfortable with the results of any cross-species cost-effectiveness analysis.
If it’s you or a hundred chickens, I’d save you. I’d also save my children over a hundred (human) strangers. I don’t think this means that my children realize more welfare than those strangers. Likewise, I don’t think you realize 100x more welfare than a chicken can.
I think it’s also helpful to empathise the other way around too when working on these thought-experiments. Species-membership is merely a shortcut for speaking about typical cognitive and hedonic capacities in this report, species itself is irrelevant. You might be thinking that prioritising the torture of 1000 chickens over the life of one human being doesn’t make you feel valued as much as you should be.
But it could be the other way around in the real life as well. An illness could befall on us or our loved ones. It could very much be the case that my sister had cognitive/hedonic capacities comparable to a pig. I wouldn’t feel very much valued if my sister being tortured for a year was considered to be less of a deal compared to averting the 10 minutes long headache of a typical human being in this case.