For you this works in favor of global health, for others it may not.
In theory I of course agree this can go either way; the maths doesn’t care which base you use.
In practice, Animal Welfare interventions get evaluated with a Global Health base far more than vice-versa; see the rest of Debate Week. So I expect my primary conclusion/TL;DR[1] to mostly push one way, and didn’t want to pretend that I was being ‘neutral’ here.
For starters I have a feeling that many in the EA community place higher credence on moral theories that would lead to prioritizing animal welfare (most prominent of which is hedonism)...So the “50/50” in the toy example might be a bit misleading, but I would be interested in polling the EA community to understand their moral views.
Ah, interesting that you think many people put >50% on hedonism and similarly-animal-friendly theories. 50% was intended to be generous; the last animal-welfare-friendly person I asked about this was 20-40% IIRC. Pretty sure I am even lower. So yes I’d also be interested in polling here, more of wider groups (population? philosophers?) than of EA but I’d take either.
Copying to save people searching for it: Multiplier Arguments are incredibly biased in favour of switching, and they get more biased the more uncertainty you have. Used naively in cases of high uncertainty, they will overwhelmingly suggest you switch intervention from whatever you use as your base.
Ah, interesting that you think many people put >50% on hedonism and similarly-animal-friendly theories. 50% was intended to be generous; the last animal-welfare-friendly person I asked about this was 20-40% IIRC. Pretty sure I am even lower.
One thing to be careful of re: question framing is to make sure to constrain the set of theories under consideration to altruism-relevant theories. Eg many people will place nontrivial credence in nihilism, egotism, commonsense morality, but most of those theories will not be particularly relevant to the prioritization for altruistic allocation of marginal donations.
I’m not sure what the scope of “similarly-animal-friendly theories” is in your mind. For me I suppose it’s most if not all consequentialist / aggregative theories that aren’t just blatantly speciesist. The key point is that the number of animals suffering (and that we can help) completely dwarfs the number of humans. Also, as MichaelStJules says, I’m pretty sure animals have desires and preferences that are being significantly obstructed by the conditions humans impose on them.
I took the fact that the forum overwhelmingly voted for animal welfare over global health to mean that people generally favor animal-friendly moral theories. You seem to think that it’s because they are making this simple mistake with the multiplier argument, with your evidence being that loads of people are citing the RP moral weights project. I suppose I’m not sure which of us is correct, but I would point out that people may just find the moral weights project important because they have some significant credence in hedonism.
<<I took the fact that the forum overwhelmingly voted for animal welfare over global health to mean that people generally favor animal-friendly moral theories.>>
I think “generally favor” is a touch too strong here—one could discount them quite significantly and still vote for animal welfare on the margin because the funding is so imbalanced and AW is at a point where the funding is much more leveraged than ~paying for bednets.
Yep completely with Jason here. I voted a smidge in favor of giving the 100 million to animal rights orgs yet I’m pretty sure you’d consider me to have very human-friendly moral theories
To push that thinking a bit further compared with the general public, EAs have extremely animal friendly theories. For example I would easily be in the top 1 percent of animal-friendly-moral theory humans (maybe top 0.1 percent) but maybe in the bottom third of EAs?
That is a datapoint as much as many might mostly discount it.
What is your preferred moral theory out of interest?
When you say top 1 percent of animal-friendly-moral theory humans but maybe in the bottom third of EAs, is this just say hedonism but with moral weights that are far less animal-friendly than say RP’s?
Thanks Jack, I don’t have a clear answer to that right now. I have a messy mix of moral theories in which hedonism would contribute.
I’m so uncertain about the moral weights of animals right now (and more so after debate week, but updated a bit in favor of animals) and I value certainty quite a lot. I have quite a low threshold for feeling like Pascal is mugging me ;).
Again I think it depends on what we mean by an animal-friendly moral theory or a pro-global health moral theory. I’d be surprised though if many people hold a pro-global health moral theory but still favor animal welfare over global health. But maybe I’m wrong.
In theory I of course agree this can go either way; the maths doesn’t care which base you use.
In practice, Animal Welfare interventions get evaluated with a Global Health base far more than vice-versa; see the rest of Debate Week. So I expect my primary conclusion/TL;DR[1] to mostly push one way, and didn’t want to pretend that I was being ‘neutral’ here.
Ah, interesting that you think many people put >50% on hedonism and similarly-animal-friendly theories. 50% was intended to be generous; the last animal-welfare-friendly person I asked about this was 20-40% IIRC. Pretty sure I am even lower. So yes I’d also be interested in polling here, more of wider groups (population? philosophers?) than of EA but I’d take either.
Copying to save people searching for it:
Multiplier Arguments are incredibly biased in favour of switching, and they get more biased the more uncertainty you have. Used naively in cases of high uncertainty, they will overwhelmingly suggest you switch intervention from whatever you use as your base.
One thing to be careful of re: question framing is to make sure to constrain the set of theories under consideration to altruism-relevant theories. Eg many people will place nontrivial credence in nihilism, egotism, commonsense morality, but most of those theories will not be particularly relevant to the prioritization for altruistic allocation of marginal donations.
I’m not sure what the scope of “similarly-animal-friendly theories” is in your mind. For me I suppose it’s most if not all consequentialist / aggregative theories that aren’t just blatantly speciesist. The key point is that the number of animals suffering (and that we can help) completely dwarfs the number of humans. Also, as MichaelStJules says, I’m pretty sure animals have desires and preferences that are being significantly obstructed by the conditions humans impose on them.
I took the fact that the forum overwhelmingly voted for animal welfare over global health to mean that people generally favor animal-friendly moral theories. You seem to think that it’s because they are making this simple mistake with the multiplier argument, with your evidence being that loads of people are citing the RP moral weights project. I suppose I’m not sure which of us is correct, but I would point out that people may just find the moral weights project important because they have some significant credence in hedonism.
<<I took the fact that the forum overwhelmingly voted for animal welfare over global health to mean that people generally favor animal-friendly moral theories.>>
I think “generally favor” is a touch too strong here—one could discount them quite significantly and still vote for animal welfare on the margin because the funding is so imbalanced and AW is at a point where the funding is much more leveraged than ~paying for bednets.
Yep completely with Jason here. I voted a smidge in favor of giving the 100 million to animal rights orgs yet I’m pretty sure you’d consider me to have very human-friendly moral theories
To push that thinking a bit further compared with the general public, EAs have extremely animal friendly theories. For example I would easily be in the top 1 percent of animal-friendly-moral theory humans (maybe top 0.1 percent) but maybe in the bottom third of EAs?
That is a datapoint as much as many might mostly discount it.
What is your preferred moral theory out of interest?
When you say top 1 percent of animal-friendly-moral theory humans but maybe in the bottom third of EAs, is this just say hedonism but with moral weights that are far less animal-friendly than say RP’s?
Thanks Jack, I don’t have a clear answer to that right now. I have a messy mix of moral theories in which hedonism would contribute.
I’m so uncertain about the moral weights of animals right now (and more so after debate week, but updated a bit in favor of animals) and I value certainty quite a lot. I have quite a low threshold for feeling like Pascal is mugging me ;).
Again I think it depends on what we mean by an animal-friendly moral theory or a pro-global health moral theory. I’d be surprised though if many people hold a pro-global health moral theory but still favor animal welfare over global health. But maybe I’m wrong.
I’ll leave this thread here, except to clarify that what you say I ‘seem to think’ is a far stronger claim than I intended to make or in fact believe.
Sorry that is fair, I think I assumed too much about your views.