Very good points made! One objection I think you didn’t mention that might be on OP’s mind in neartermist allocations has to do with population ethics. One reason many people are near termist is because they subscribe to a person-affecting view whereby the welfare of “merely potential” beings does not matter. Since basically all animal welfare interventions either 1. Cause fewer animals to exist, or 2. Change welfare conditions for entire populations of animals, it seems extremely unlikely the animals who would otherwise have lived the higher suffering lives will have the same identity (eg same genes) as the higher welfare ones. To a person affecting view, this implies animal welfare interventions like corporate campaigns or alt protein investment merely change who or how many animals there are but don’t benefit any animal in particular and thus have no impact on this moral view. I personally don’t subscribe to this view, and I am not sure if most people at OP with a person affecting view have taken this idea seriously although it does seem like the right conclusion from this view.
Generally, people with person-affecting views still want it to be the case that we shouldn’t create individuals with awful lives, and probably also that we should prefer the creation of someone with a life that is net-negative by less over someone with a life that is net-negative by more. (This relates to the supposed procreation asymmetry, where, allegedly, that a kid would be really happy is not a reason to have them, but that a kid would be in constant agony is a reason not to have them.) One way to justify this would be the thought that, if you don’t create a happy person, no one has a complaint, but if you do create a miserable person, someone does have a complaint (i.e., that person).
Where factory-farmed animals have net-negative lives, I’m not sure person-affecting views would justify neglecting animal welfare, then. (Similarly, re: longtermism, they might justify neglecting long-term x-risks, but not s-risks.)
I agree many people believe in the asymmetry, and that is likely one reason people care about animal welfare but not longtermism. However, I think you’re conflating a person-affecting view with the asymmetry, which are separate views. I hate to argue semantics here, but the person-affecting view only is concerned only with the welfare of existing beings, not with the creation of negative lives no matter how bad they are. Again, neither of these are my view, but they likely belong to some people.
They are separate views, but related: people with person-affecting views usually endorse the asymmetry, people without person-affecting views usually don’t endorse the asymmetry, and person-affecting views are often taken to (somehow or other) provide a kind of justification for the asymmetry. The upshot here is that it wouldn’t be enough for people at OP to endorse person-affecting views: they’d have to endorse a version of a person-affecting view that is rejected even by most people with person-affecting views, and that independently seems gonzo—one according to which, say, I have no reason at all not to push a button that creates a trillion people who are gratuitously tortured in hell forever.
Very roughly, how this works: person-affecting views say that a situation can’t be better or worse than another unless it benefits or harms someone. (Note that the usual assumption here is that, to be harmed or benefited, the individual doesn’t have to exist now, but they have to exist at some point.) This is completely compatible with thinking it’s worse to create the trillion people who suffer forever: it might be that their existing is worse for them than not existing, or harms them in some non-comparative way. So it can be worse to create them, since it’s worse for them. And that should also be enough to get the view that, e.g., you shouldn’t create animals with awful lives on factory farms.
Of course, usually people with person-affecting views want it to be neutral to create happy people, and then there is a problem about how to maintain that while accepting the above view about not creating people in hell. So somehow or other they’ll need to justify the asymmetry. One way to try this might be via the kind of asymmetrical complaint-based model I mentioned above: if you create the people in hell, there are actual individuals you harm (the people in hell), but if you don’t create people in heaven, there is no actual individual you fail to benefit (since the potential beneficiaries never exist). In this way, you might try to fit the views together. Then you would have the view that it’s neutral to ensure the awesome existence of future people who populate the cosmos, but still important to avoid creating animals with net-negative lives, or future people who get tortured by AM or whatever.
Now, it is true that people with person-affecting views could instead say that there is nothing good or bad about creating individuals either way—maybe because they think there’s just no way to compare existence and non-existence, and they think this means there’s no way to say that causing someone to exist benefits or harms them. But this is a fringe view, because, e.g., it leads to gonzo conclusions like thinking there’s no reason not to push the hell button.
I think all this is basically in line with how these views are understood in the academic literature, cf., e.g., here.
There are multiple views considered “person-affecting views”, and I think the asymmetry (or specific asymmetric views) is often considered one of them. What you’re describing is a specific narrow/strict person-affecting restriction, also called presentism. I think it has been called the person-affecting view or the person-affecting restriction, which is of course confusing if there are multiple views people consider person-affecting. The use of “person-affecting” may have expanded over time.
It really is a nice point, Gage! Like Ariel, I also guess it is not driving OP’s neartermist prioritisation, as OP has funded lots of longtermist work, and this is also significantly less valuable under person-affecting views (unless OP thinks most of the benefits of longtermist interventions respect reducing deaths of people currently alive).
Very good points made! One objection I think you didn’t mention that might be on OP’s mind in neartermist allocations has to do with population ethics. One reason many people are near termist is because they subscribe to a person-affecting view whereby the welfare of “merely potential” beings does not matter. Since basically all animal welfare interventions either 1. Cause fewer animals to exist, or 2. Change welfare conditions for entire populations of animals, it seems extremely unlikely the animals who would otherwise have lived the higher suffering lives will have the same identity (eg same genes) as the higher welfare ones. To a person affecting view, this implies animal welfare interventions like corporate campaigns or alt protein investment merely change who or how many animals there are but don’t benefit any animal in particular and thus have no impact on this moral view. I personally don’t subscribe to this view, and I am not sure if most people at OP with a person affecting view have taken this idea seriously although it does seem like the right conclusion from this view.
Generally, people with person-affecting views still want it to be the case that we shouldn’t create individuals with awful lives, and probably also that we should prefer the creation of someone with a life that is net-negative by less over someone with a life that is net-negative by more. (This relates to the supposed procreation asymmetry, where, allegedly, that a kid would be really happy is not a reason to have them, but that a kid would be in constant agony is a reason not to have them.) One way to justify this would be the thought that, if you don’t create a happy person, no one has a complaint, but if you do create a miserable person, someone does have a complaint (i.e., that person).
Where factory-farmed animals have net-negative lives, I’m not sure person-affecting views would justify neglecting animal welfare, then. (Similarly, re: longtermism, they might justify neglecting long-term x-risks, but not s-risks.)
I agree many people believe in the asymmetry, and that is likely one reason people care about animal welfare but not longtermism. However, I think you’re conflating a person-affecting view with the asymmetry, which are separate views. I hate to argue semantics here, but the person-affecting view only is concerned only with the welfare of existing beings, not with the creation of negative lives no matter how bad they are. Again, neither of these are my view, but they likely belong to some people.
They are separate views, but related: people with person-affecting views usually endorse the asymmetry, people without person-affecting views usually don’t endorse the asymmetry, and person-affecting views are often taken to (somehow or other) provide a kind of justification for the asymmetry. The upshot here is that it wouldn’t be enough for people at OP to endorse person-affecting views: they’d have to endorse a version of a person-affecting view that is rejected even by most people with person-affecting views, and that independently seems gonzo—one according to which, say, I have no reason at all not to push a button that creates a trillion people who are gratuitously tortured in hell forever.
Very roughly, how this works: person-affecting views say that a situation can’t be better or worse than another unless it benefits or harms someone. (Note that the usual assumption here is that, to be harmed or benefited, the individual doesn’t have to exist now, but they have to exist at some point.) This is completely compatible with thinking it’s worse to create the trillion people who suffer forever: it might be that their existing is worse for them than not existing, or harms them in some non-comparative way. So it can be worse to create them, since it’s worse for them. And that should also be enough to get the view that, e.g., you shouldn’t create animals with awful lives on factory farms.
Of course, usually people with person-affecting views want it to be neutral to create happy people, and then there is a problem about how to maintain that while accepting the above view about not creating people in hell. So somehow or other they’ll need to justify the asymmetry. One way to try this might be via the kind of asymmetrical complaint-based model I mentioned above: if you create the people in hell, there are actual individuals you harm (the people in hell), but if you don’t create people in heaven, there is no actual individual you fail to benefit (since the potential beneficiaries never exist). In this way, you might try to fit the views together. Then you would have the view that it’s neutral to ensure the awesome existence of future people who populate the cosmos, but still important to avoid creating animals with net-negative lives, or future people who get tortured by AM or whatever.
Now, it is true that people with person-affecting views could instead say that there is nothing good or bad about creating individuals either way—maybe because they think there’s just no way to compare existence and non-existence, and they think this means there’s no way to say that causing someone to exist benefits or harms them. But this is a fringe view, because, e.g., it leads to gonzo conclusions like thinking there’s no reason not to push the hell button.
I think all this is basically in line with how these views are understood in the academic literature, cf., e.g., here.
There are multiple views considered “person-affecting views”, and I think the asymmetry (or specific asymmetric views) is often considered one of them. What you’re describing is a specific narrow/strict person-affecting restriction, also called presentism. I think it has been called the person-affecting view or the person-affecting restriction, which is of course confusing if there are multiple views people consider person-affecting. The use of “person-affecting” may have expanded over time.
Thanks Gage!
That’s a good point I hadn’t considered! I don’t think that’s OP’s crux, but it is a coherent explanation of their neartermist cause prioritization.
It really is a nice point, Gage! Like Ariel, I also guess it is not driving OP’s neartermist prioritisation, as OP has funded lots of longtermist work, and this is also significantly less valuable under person-affecting views (unless OP thinks most of the benefits of longtermist interventions respect reducing deaths of people currently alive).