EDIT: Rereading, I’m not really disagreeing with you. I definitely agree with the sentiment here:
And so when I see comments saying things like “I would axiomatically reject any moral weight on animals that implied saving kids from dying was net negative”, I’m like… really? There’s no empirical facts that could possibly cause the trade-off to go the other way?
(Edited) So, rather than just the possibility that all tradeoffs between humans and chickens should favour humans, I take issue with >99% confidence in that position or otherwise treating it like it’s true.
Whatever someone thinks makes humans infinitely more important than chickens[1] could actually be present in chickens in some similarly important form with non-tiny or even modest probability (examples here), or not actually be what makes humans important at all (more general related discussion, although that piece defends a disputed position). In my view, this should in principle warrant some tradeoffs favouring chickens.
Or, if they don’t think there’s anything at all, say except the mere fact of species membership, then this is just pure speciesism and seems arbitrary.
EDIT: Rereading, I’m not really disagreeing with you. I definitely agree with the sentiment here:
(Edited) So, rather than just the possibility that all tradeoffs between humans and chickens should favour humans, I take issue with >99% confidence in that position or otherwise treating it like it’s true.
Whatever someone thinks makes humans infinitely more important than chickens[1] could actually be present in chickens in some similarly important form with non-tiny or even modest probability (examples here), or not actually be what makes humans important at all (more general related discussion, although that piece defends a disputed position). In my view, this should in principle warrant some tradeoffs favouring chickens.
Or, if they don’t think there’s anything at all, say except the mere fact of species membership, then this is just pure speciesism and seems arbitrary.
Or makes humans matter at all, but chickens lack, so chickens don’t matter at all.