The evaluations of human welfare interventions neglect the uncertainty of welfare ranges too. By not considering effects on animals, they are implicitly assuming all non-human welfare ranges are equal to 0. For plausible welfare ranges, some grants from GiveWell (GW), and organisations incubated by Ambitious Impact (AIM) may be harmful. Lots of uncertainty about the benefits of helping animals translates into lots of uncertainty about whether saving human lives, which tends to increase the population of animals nearterm, is beneficial or harmful.
I strongly endorse expectationaltotalhedonisticutilitarianism (increasing happiness, and decreasing suffering), but I think the takeaways are basically the same under desire theories, as beings want to be happy, and not suffer. For my conclusions to change significantly, I believe one has to strongly reject impartiality, or consider Rethink Priorities’ median welfare ranges dramatically overestimate animals’ capacity for welfare.
If these animal welfare analyses keep concluding that all human development has been net negative because of our terrible impact on animals, then, reductio ad absurdum, perhaps these analyses aren’t useful.
This reasoning should go in the basket of “hard to say it’s wrong but leads to impractical absurd conclusions” along with Ted Kaczynski’s manifesto and Antinatalism
If these animal welfare analyses keep concluding that all human development has been net negative because of our terrible impact on animals
I said “may be harmful”, but global health and development interventions may also be beneficial. My analysis looks into the nearterm effects, but one should also consider longterm effects, and even the nearterm ones are very uncertain.
Nevertheless, it is unclear to me whether saving human lives in China, India or Nigeria is beneficial or harmful to farmed animals. Even if it is harmful to farmed animals nearterm, it can still be beneficial overall:
I wouldsay at least chickens’ lives can become positive over the next few decades in some animal-friendly countries. Relatedly, I would ideally determine the welfare burden per animal per year by country, although it is unclear to me whether I am over or underestimating it. Furthermore, I guess better worsening conditions now imply a longer time until reaching positive lives, and therefore a longer time until increased consumption of farmed animals being beneficial.
I can see saving human lives being beneficial due to decreasing the number of wild animals with negative lives, although no one really knows whether this is the case or not.
It is unclear to me whether saving lives increases or decreases person-years. It increases these nearterm via increasing population, but may decrease them longterm, as lower child mortality is associated with lower fertility, which can lead to a smaller longterm population. Note human welfare may be decreased in this case.
I assume improved human conditions increase the success of animal welfare interventions, for example, via greater willingness to pay for higher welfare products. In any case, I expect more targeted approaches explicitly optimising for animal welfare to be much more cost-effective.
Hi Henry,
The evaluations of human welfare interventions neglect the uncertainty of welfare ranges too. By not considering effects on animals, they are implicitly assuming all non-human welfare ranges are equal to 0. For plausible welfare ranges, some grants from GiveWell (GW), and organisations incubated by Ambitious Impact (AIM) may be harmful. Lots of uncertainty about the benefits of helping animals translates into lots of uncertainty about whether saving human lives, which tends to increase the population of animals nearterm, is beneficial or harmful.
I strongly endorse expectational total hedonistic utilitarianism (increasing happiness, and decreasing suffering), but I think the takeaways are basically the same under desire theories, as beings want to be happy, and not suffer. For my conclusions to change significantly, I believe one has to strongly reject impartiality, or consider Rethink Priorities’ median welfare ranges dramatically overestimate animals’ capacity for welfare.
If these animal welfare analyses keep concluding that all human development has been net negative because of our terrible impact on animals, then, reductio ad absurdum, perhaps these analyses aren’t useful.
This reasoning should go in the basket of “hard to say it’s wrong but leads to impractical absurd conclusions” along with Ted Kaczynski’s manifesto and Antinatalism
I said “may be harmful”, but global health and development interventions may also be beneficial. My analysis looks into the nearterm effects, but one should also consider longterm effects, and even the nearterm ones are very uncertain.