I’m curating the post. I should note that I think I agree with a big chunk of Joel’s comment.
I notice I’m quite confused about the symmetry assumption. For example: suppose we have two animals — M and N — and they’re both at the worst end of their welfare ranges (~0th percentile) and have equal lifespans (and there are no indirect effects). M has double the welfare range of N. If we assume that their welfare ranges are symmetric around the neutral point, then replacing one M with one N is similar to moving M from the 0th percentile of its welfare range to the 25th. If, however, their welfare ranges aren’t symmetric — say M’s is skewed very positive and N’s is skewed very negative — then we could actually be making the situation worse. In the BOTEC spreadsheet you linked, you seem to resolve this by requiring people to state the specific endpoints of the welfare ranges relative to the neutral point. If that’s the main solution, it seems very important to be clear about where the neutral point is for different animals, and that seems really hard — I’m curious if you have thoughts on how to approach that. (Maybe you assume that welfare ranges are generally close to symmetric, or asymmetric in similar ways? If so, I would like to understand why you think that.) It’s also very possible that I misunderstood something; I was reading things fast and haven’t read all the linked posts and documents.
To make sure that I understand (the broad strokes of the rest of the framework) correctly; suppose I want to use this framework and these welfare range estimates to help me decide between two (completely hypothetical, unrealistic) options — assuming that every animal’s welfare range is symmetric around the neutral point: (A) getting someone to buy the equivalent of a cage-free chicken instead of a caged chicken vs (B) getting someone to buy a farmed salmon instead of a farmed carp. Is it right that I’d now need to incorporate (estimates for) the following additional information?
To understand the welfare impact on the animals in question
Where exactly on their respective welfare ranges they are, on average (in the situations I’m considering)[2]
The other stuff
Indirect effects
E.g. how (many) other animals are affected by the farming processes — feed (insects/fish), how many die in the farming process, etc.
Costs of the interventions
(In particular, I worry a bit that people might not be tracking 1a and 1b — you seem to worry about this, too, given the sections on things like “so you’re saying that one person =~ three chickens?” — and I’d like to make sure that I actually understand correctly (and that others do, too).)
Broiler chickens live for 5-7 weeks, apparently. Farmed carp apparently live for around a year, and farmed salmon live for around 1-3 years. (These numbers are from quick Google searches —definitely don’t trust them.)
A highly technical diagram is below. Note that the diagram represents the ranges as if they’re all symmetric — as if each animal can experience as much bad as good — whereas that isn’t necessarily true. The welfare impact of choice (A) and (B) is the highlighted interval (assuming completely made-up numbers), multiplying by the lifespans of the animals, and adjusting for indirect effects.
Given the lifespans of the animals in question, switching to salmon seems harmful ((even) without accounting for indirect effects or costs).
Fantastic questions, Lizka! And these images are great. I need to get much better at (literally) illustrating my thinking. I very much appreciate your taking the time!
Here are some replies:
Replacing an M with an N. This is a great observation. Of course, there may not be many real-life cases with the structure you’re describing. However, one possibility is in animal research. Many people think that you ought to use “simpler” animals over “more complex” animals for research purposes—e.g., you ought to experiment on fruit flies over pigs. Suppose that fruit flies have smaller welfare ranges than pigs and that both have symmetrical welfare ranges. Then, if you’re going to do awful things to one or the other, such that each would be at the bottom of their respective welfare range, then it would follow that it’s better to experiment on fruit flies.
Assessing the neutral point. You’re right that this is important. It’s also really hard. However, we’re trying to tackle this problem now. Our strategy is multi-pronged, identifying various lines of evidence that might be relevant. For instance, we’re looking at the Welfare Footprint Data and trying to figure out what it might imply about whether layer hens have net negative lives. We’re looking at when vets recommend euthanasia for dogs and cats and applying those standards to farmed animals. We’re looking at tradeoff thought experiments and some of the survey data they’ve generated. And so on. Early days, but we hope to have something on the Forum about this over the summer.
Symmetry vs. asymmetry. This is another hard problem. In brief, though, we take symmetry to be the default simply because of our uncertainty. Ultimately, it’s a really hard empirical question that requires time we didn’t have. (Anyone want to fund more work on this!?) As we say in the post, though, it’s a relatively minor issue compared to lots of others. Some people probably think that we’re orders of magnitude off in our estimates, whereas symmetry vs. asymmetry will make, at most, a 2x difference to the amount of welfare at stake. That isn’t nothing, but it probably won’t swing the analysis.
The “caged vs. cage-free chicken / carp vs. salmon” examples. This is a great question. We’ve done a lot on this, though none of it’s publicly available yet. Basically, though, you’re correct about the information you’d want. Of course, as your note indicates, we don’t care about natural lifespan; we care about time to slaughter. And while it’s very difficult to know where an animal is in its welfare range, we don’t think it’s in principle inestimable. Basically, if you think that caged hens are living about the worst life a chicken can live, you say that they’re at the bottom end of their welfare range. And if you think cage-free hens have net negative lives, but they’re only about half as badly off as they could be, then can infer that you’re getting a 50% gain relative to chickens’ negative welfare range in the switch from caged to cage-free. And so on. This is all imperfect, but at least it provides a coherent methodology for making these assessments. Moreover, it’s a methodology that forces us to be explicit about disagreements re: the neutral point and the relative welfare levels of animals in different systems, which I regard as a good thing.
I’m curating the post. I should note that I think I agree with a big chunk of Joel’s comment.
I notice I’m quite confused about the symmetry assumption. For example: suppose we have two animals — M and N — and they’re both at the worst end of their welfare ranges (~0th percentile) and have equal lifespans (and there are no indirect effects). M has double the welfare range of N. If we assume that their welfare ranges are symmetric around the neutral point, then replacing one M with one N is similar to moving M from the 0th percentile of its welfare range to the 25th. If, however, their welfare ranges aren’t symmetric — say M’s is skewed very positive and N’s is skewed very negative — then we could actually be making the situation worse. In the BOTEC spreadsheet you linked, you seem to resolve this by requiring people to state the specific endpoints of the welfare ranges relative to the neutral point. If that’s the main solution, it seems very important to be clear about where the neutral point is for different animals, and that seems really hard — I’m curious if you have thoughts on how to approach that. (Maybe you assume that welfare ranges are generally close to symmetric, or asymmetric in similar ways? If so, I would like to understand why you think that.) It’s also very possible that I misunderstood something; I was reading things fast and haven’t read all the linked posts and documents.
To make sure that I understand (the broad strokes of the rest of the framework) correctly; suppose I want to use this framework and these welfare range estimates to help me decide between two (completely hypothetical, unrealistic) options — assuming that every animal’s welfare range is symmetric around the neutral point: (A) getting someone to buy the equivalent of a cage-free chicken instead of a caged chicken vs (B) getting someone to buy a farmed salmon instead of a farmed carp. Is it right that I’d now need to incorporate (estimates for) the following additional information?
To understand the welfare impact on the animals in question
Lifespans of the animals[1]
Where exactly on their respective welfare ranges they are, on average (in the situations I’m considering)[2]
The other stuff
Indirect effects
E.g. how (many) other animals are affected by the farming processes — feed (insects/fish), how many die in the farming process, etc.
Costs of the interventions
(In particular, I worry a bit that people might not be tracking 1a and 1b — you seem to worry about this, too, given the sections on things like “so you’re saying that one person =~ three chickens?” — and I’d like to make sure that I actually understand correctly (and that others do, too).)
Broiler chickens live for 5-7 weeks, apparently. Farmed carp apparently live for around a year, and farmed salmon live for around 1-3 years. (These numbers are from quick Google searches —definitely don’t trust them.)
A highly technical diagram is below. Note that the diagram represents the ranges as if they’re all symmetric — as if each animal can experience as much bad as good — whereas that isn’t necessarily true. The welfare impact of choice (A) and (B) is the highlighted interval (assuming completely made-up numbers), multiplying by the lifespans of the animals, and adjusting for indirect effects.
Given the lifespans of the animals in question, switching to salmon seems harmful ((even) without accounting for indirect effects or costs).
Fantastic questions, Lizka! And these images are great. I need to get much better at (literally) illustrating my thinking. I very much appreciate your taking the time!
Here are some replies:
Replacing an M with an N. This is a great observation. Of course, there may not be many real-life cases with the structure you’re describing. However, one possibility is in animal research. Many people think that you ought to use “simpler” animals over “more complex” animals for research purposes—e.g., you ought to experiment on fruit flies over pigs. Suppose that fruit flies have smaller welfare ranges than pigs and that both have symmetrical welfare ranges. Then, if you’re going to do awful things to one or the other, such that each would be at the bottom of their respective welfare range, then it would follow that it’s better to experiment on fruit flies.
Assessing the neutral point. You’re right that this is important. It’s also really hard. However, we’re trying to tackle this problem now. Our strategy is multi-pronged, identifying various lines of evidence that might be relevant. For instance, we’re looking at the Welfare Footprint Data and trying to figure out what it might imply about whether layer hens have net negative lives. We’re looking at when vets recommend euthanasia for dogs and cats and applying those standards to farmed animals. We’re looking at tradeoff thought experiments and some of the survey data they’ve generated. And so on. Early days, but we hope to have something on the Forum about this over the summer.
Symmetry vs. asymmetry. This is another hard problem. In brief, though, we take symmetry to be the default simply because of our uncertainty. Ultimately, it’s a really hard empirical question that requires time we didn’t have. (Anyone want to fund more work on this!?) As we say in the post, though, it’s a relatively minor issue compared to lots of others. Some people probably think that we’re orders of magnitude off in our estimates, whereas symmetry vs. asymmetry will make, at most, a 2x difference to the amount of welfare at stake. That isn’t nothing, but it probably won’t swing the analysis.
The “caged vs. cage-free chicken / carp vs. salmon” examples. This is a great question. We’ve done a lot on this, though none of it’s publicly available yet. Basically, though, you’re correct about the information you’d want. Of course, as your note indicates, we don’t care about natural lifespan; we care about time to slaughter. And while it’s very difficult to know where an animal is in its welfare range, we don’t think it’s in principle inestimable. Basically, if you think that caged hens are living about the worst life a chicken can live, you say that they’re at the bottom end of their welfare range. And if you think cage-free hens have net negative lives, but they’re only about half as badly off as they could be, then can infer that you’re getting a 50% gain relative to chickens’ negative welfare range in the switch from caged to cage-free. And so on. This is all imperfect, but at least it provides a coherent methodology for making these assessments. Moreover, it’s a methodology that forces us to be explicit about disagreements re: the neutral point and the relative welfare levels of animals in different systems, which I regard as a good thing.