Thanks @David_Moss I might be barking up the wrong tree here, but I think I’m talking about a different perhaps more basic point? I agree there’s the ethical commensurability factor, but I’m not talking about moral intuintions, or domain specific knowledge, but about concrete reality—even if that reality is unknown. I’m saying that cross-cause comparison increases objective (not subjective) uncertainty by orders of magnitude.
Let me try again and lets see whether I’m bringing something new or not
Lets say (for arguments sake) we are 90% sure that a chicken’s moral weight is between 0.01 and 0.9 that of a human’s. When comparing chicken welfare interventions this uncertainty becomes irrelevent or cancels out as we will be comparing like with like—whether the moral weight is 0.01 or 0.9 doesn’t matter as we compare as this remains constant betewen both interventions, even as we don’t know what it is.
Again if we compare human interventions that save kids lives, while comparing the exact DALY value of saving a life (whether 20 or 80) doesn’t matter, because this will remain constant between interventions.
But when we try to compare a chicken welfare to a human intervention, the uncertainties of both interventions compound in the comparison. The 4x uncertainty in the human interventino and 100x uncertainty in the animal welfare intervention compound.
To put it another way, in many cases moral weight doesn’t matter for within cause comparison, but it becomes critically imporant between causes.
Of course I’m. not saying we shouldn’t do cross-cause comparison, but I think this huge objective increase in uncertainty here is an important if fairly basic point to recognise.
I agree there’s the ethical commensurability factor, but I’m not talking about moral intuintions, or domain specific knowledge, but about concrete reality—even if that reality is unknown. I’m saying that cross-cause comparison increases objective (not subjective) uncertainty by orders of magnitude.
I think my remarks above apply across different kinds of uncertainty (we discuss ethical, empirical and other kinds of uncertainty above). That said, I’m not sure I follow your intended point about objective uncertainty (your example given seems to be about subjective uncertainty about moral weight), but it seems to me my remarks would apply exactly the same to objective uncertainty.
To put it another way, in many cases moral weight doesn’t matter for within cause comparison, but it becomes critically imporant between causes… this huge objective increase in uncertainty here is an important if fairly basic point to recognise.
We make the point (using the same examples) that comparisons across causes introduce many huge uncertainties, that do not apply within-causes, at multiple points in the passages quoted above and elsewhere. So I fear we may be talking past each other if you see this point as missing from the article.
Thanks for the reply—I was just trying to make a small point, which I still think is missing from your analysis about a large objective uncertainty difference when comparing between causes rather than within. I might be missing it in your text but I can’t see it mentioned at all, maybe you considered it but didn’t write about it explicitly?
Thanks @David_Moss I might be barking up the wrong tree here, but I think I’m talking about a different perhaps more basic point? I agree there’s the ethical commensurability factor, but I’m not talking about moral intuintions, or domain specific knowledge, but about concrete reality—even if that reality is unknown. I’m saying that cross-cause comparison increases objective (not subjective) uncertainty by orders of magnitude.
Let me try again and lets see whether I’m bringing something new or not
Lets say (for arguments sake) we are 90% sure that a chicken’s moral weight is between 0.01 and 0.9 that of a human’s. When comparing chicken welfare interventions this uncertainty becomes irrelevent or cancels out as we will be comparing like with like—whether the moral weight is 0.01 or 0.9 doesn’t matter as we compare as this remains constant betewen both interventions, even as we don’t know what it is.
Again if we compare human interventions that save kids lives, while comparing the exact DALY value of saving a life (whether 20 or 80) doesn’t matter, because this will remain constant between interventions.
But when we try to compare a chicken welfare to a human intervention, the uncertainties of both interventions compound in the comparison. The 4x uncertainty in the human interventino and 100x uncertainty in the animal welfare intervention compound.
To put it another way, in many cases moral weight doesn’t matter for within cause comparison, but it becomes critically imporant between causes.
Of course I’m. not saying we shouldn’t do cross-cause comparison, but I think this huge objective increase in uncertainty here is an important if fairly basic point to recognise.
Thank you for the reply Nick.
I think my remarks above apply across different kinds of uncertainty (we discuss ethical, empirical and other kinds of uncertainty above). That said, I’m not sure I follow your intended point about objective uncertainty (your example given seems to be about subjective uncertainty about moral weight), but it seems to me my remarks would apply exactly the same to objective uncertainty.
We make the point (using the same examples) that comparisons across causes introduce many huge uncertainties, that do not apply within-causes, at multiple points in the passages quoted above and elsewhere. So I fear we may be talking past each other if you see this point as missing from the article.
Thanks for the reply—I was just trying to make a small point, which I still think is missing from your analysis about a large objective uncertainty difference when comparing between causes rather than within. I might be missing it in your text but I can’t see it mentioned at all, maybe you considered it but didn’t write about it explicitly?
All good either way its not the biggest deal!