We [propose to] use the euthanasia guidelines that veterinarians have developed for companion animals to assess whether it would be appropriate to recommend euthanization at various life stages. If so, that suggests that chickens’ lives are no longer worth living at that life stage. And if those life stages make up the bulk of the life, that’s some evidence that their lives are net negative on the whole.
I assume most vets only recommend euthanasia for pets whose future welfare they expect to be negative. I think the owners of pets would likely prefer to keep them alive even if they had slightly negative lives. Likewise, I believe people prefer their family members to remain alive if they have slightly negative lives. So I infer vets recommending euthanasia for pet chickens living in the conditions of farmed chickens would be significant evidence that farmed chickens have negative lives. On the other hand, I would say vets not recommending that would be very little evidence that farmed chickens have positive lives. I wonder whether your project would be very likely to produce inconclusive results due to vets being very unlikely to recommend that.
Have you considered asking random people, or people with chronic pain who regularly experience disabling pain about how they trade-off the Welfare Footprint Institute’s (WFI’s) pain and pleasure categories? Ambitious Impact’s (AIM’s) estimates for suffering-adjusted days (SADs) rely on pain intensities calculated with a weighted geometric mean with weight of 55 % on answers from 77 people. These were surveyed by AIM or @saulius, or shared their pain intensities on EA Forum. You can ask Vicky Cox for the sheet. The respondents are quite connected to the EA community, and I guess only a few (if any) have chronic pain, and regularly experience disabling pain. Your surveys and data analysis team could get a representative sample of the whole population of a given country, or focus on people people with chronic pain who regularly experience disabling pain. The answers would be useful to assess any intervention (regardless of the species), not just whether chickens have positive or negative lives. I expect the answers would vary a lot by person, but I would still be interested to know which fraction of people have pain and pleasure intensities which result in positive or negative lives for chickens (in particular, layers in enriched cages and barns, and broilers of a typical fast and slow growth breed).
Alternatively, you could ask people with chronic pain who regularly experience disabling pain how many hours per day of annoying, hurtful, disabling, and excruciating pain, satisfaction, joy, euphoria, and bliss they experience, and whether they would prefer not having been born neglecting effects on others. The answers could be used to predict which fraction of people prefer not having been born neglecting effects on others based on how many hours per day they experience WFI’s pain and pleasure categories. I believe explicitly asking about when people prefer not having been born neglecting effects on others is a more robust way of assessing whether their lives are positive or negative. In the survey above, this is determined only indirectly via their preferences. On the other hand, the survey above would be useful to assess any intervention in a scope-sensitive way, as it would allow the measurement of welfare in a ratio scale.
I assume most vets only recommend euthanasia for pets whose future welfare they expect to be negative. I think the owners of pets would likely prefer to keep them alive even if they had slightly negative lives. Likewise, I believe people prefer their family members to remain alive if they have slightly negative lives. So I infer vets recommending euthanasia for pet chickens living in the conditions of farmed chickens would be significant evidence that farmed chickens have negative lives. On the other hand, I would say vets not recommending that would be very little evidence that farmed chickens have positive lives. I wonder whether your project would be very likely to produce inconclusive results due to vets being very unlikely to recommend that.
Have you considered asking random people, or people with chronic pain who regularly experience disabling pain about how they trade-off the Welfare Footprint Institute’s (WFI’s) pain and pleasure categories? Ambitious Impact’s (AIM’s) estimates for suffering-adjusted days (SADs) rely on pain intensities calculated with a weighted geometric mean with weight of 55 % on answers from 77 people. These were surveyed by AIM or @saulius, or shared their pain intensities on EA Forum. You can ask Vicky Cox for the sheet. The respondents are quite connected to the EA community, and I guess only a few (if any) have chronic pain, and regularly experience disabling pain. Your surveys and data analysis team could get a representative sample of the whole population of a given country, or focus on people people with chronic pain who regularly experience disabling pain. The answers would be useful to assess any intervention (regardless of the species), not just whether chickens have positive or negative lives. I expect the answers would vary a lot by person, but I would still be interested to know which fraction of people have pain and pleasure intensities which result in positive or negative lives for chickens (in particular, layers in enriched cages and barns, and broilers of a typical fast and slow growth breed).
Alternatively, you could ask people with chronic pain who regularly experience disabling pain how many hours per day of annoying, hurtful, disabling, and excruciating pain, satisfaction, joy, euphoria, and bliss they experience, and whether they would prefer not having been born neglecting effects on others. The answers could be used to predict which fraction of people prefer not having been born neglecting effects on others based on how many hours per day they experience WFI’s pain and pleasure categories. I believe explicitly asking about when people prefer not having been born neglecting effects on others is a more robust way of assessing whether their lives are positive or negative. In the survey above, this is determined only indirectly via their preferences. On the other hand, the survey above would be useful to assess any intervention in a scope-sensitive way, as it would allow the measurement of welfare in a ratio scale.
@Bob Fischer, what do you think about the ideas above in light of Rethink Priorities’ (RP’s) workshop on dimensions of pain?