I would guess that most of the more dedicated EAs believe in something roughly like “equal consideration of interests” (“equal consideration of equal interests” to be more specific), but many might think nonhuman animals’ interests are much less strong/important than humans, on average.
I’m somewhat less optimistic; even if most would say that they endorse this view, I think many “dedicated EAs” are in practice still biased against nonhumans, if only subconsciously. I think we should expect speciesist biases to be pervasive, and they won’t go away entirely just by endorsing an abstract philosophical argument. (And I’m not sure if “most” endorse that argument to begin with.)
Sorry, I’m a bit confused on what you mean here. I meant to be asking about the prevalence of a view giving animals the same moral status as humans. You say that many might think nonhuman animals’ interests are much less strong/important than humans. But I think saying they are less strong is different than saying they are less important, right? How strong they are seems more like an empirical question about capacity for welfare, etc.
I would guess that most of the more dedicated EAs believe in something roughly like “equal consideration of interests” (“equal consideration of equal interests” to be more specific), but many might think nonhuman animals’ interests are much less strong/important than humans, on average.
I’m somewhat less optimistic; even if most would say that they endorse this view, I think many “dedicated EAs” are in practice still biased against nonhumans, if only subconsciously. I think we should expect speciesist biases to be pervasive, and they won’t go away entirely just by endorsing an abstract philosophical argument. (And I’m not sure if “most” endorse that argument to begin with.)
Sorry, I’m a bit confused on what you mean here. I meant to be asking about the prevalence of a view giving animals the same moral status as humans. You say that many might think nonhuman animals’ interests are much less strong/important than humans. But I think saying they are less strong is different than saying they are less important, right? How strong they are seems more like an empirical question about capacity for welfare, etc.
Ya, my point is that I’d guess most dedicated EAs would endorse the principle in the abstract, but they might not think animals matter much in practice. Also, for what it’s worth, about half of EAs who responded to the diet question are at least vegetarian, and still more are reducing meat consumption: