It’s maybe worth noting that there’s an asymmetry: For people who think wild-animal lives are net positive, there are many things that contain even more sentient value than rainforest. By contrast, if you think wild-animal lives are net negative, only few things contain more sentient disvalue than rainforest. (Of course, in comparison to expected future sentience, biological life only makes up a tiny portion, so rainforest is unlikely to be a priority from a longtermist perspective.)
I understand the worries described in the OP (apart from the “let’s better not find out” part). I think it’s important for EAs in the WAS reduction movement to proactively counter simplistic memes and advocate interventions that don’t cause great harm from the perspective of some very popular moral perspectives. I think that’s a moral responsibility for animal advocates with suffering-focused views. (And as we see in other replies here, this sounds like it’s already common practice!)
At the same time, I feel like the discourse on this topic can be a bit disingenuous sometimes, where people whose actions otherwise don’t indicate much concern for the moral importance of the action-omission distinction (esp. when it comes to non-persons) suddenly employ rhetorical tactics that make it sound like “wrongly thinking animal lives are negative” is a worse mistake than “wrongly thinking they are positive”.
I also think this issue is thorny because, IMO, there’s no clear answer. There are moral judgment calls to make that count for at least as much as empirical discoveries.
For people who think wild-animal lives are net positive, there are many things that contain even more sentient value than rainforest.
Doesn’t this lead to replacement anyway for welfarists/consequentialists, like discussed here? I.e. we should replace rainforest with things that produce more value.
At the same time, I feel like the discourse on this topic can be a bit disingenuous sometimes, where people whose actions otherwise don’t indicate much concern for the moral importance of the action-omission distinction (esp. when it comes to non-persons) suddenly employ rhetorical tactics that make it sound like “wrongly thinking animal lives are negative” is a worse mistake than “wrongly thinking they are positive”.
It may be intuitions about reversibility. It’s harder to bring a species back than it is to eliminate it. Or, not only welfare matters to them. Or, maybe they really shouldn’t consider themselves consequentialists.
I believe we’re already replacing the rainforest with many things of more (economic) value, like palm oil and cows. I guess in future we’ll just have the palm oil, at least until we discover plants can suffer and they have to go too.
If being a consequentialist implies I should, under certain circumstances, destroy the world, I think I’m going to prioritise the world over consequentialism.
It’s maybe worth noting that there’s an asymmetry: For people who think wild-animal lives are net positive, there are many things that contain even more sentient value than rainforest. By contrast, if you think wild-animal lives are net negative, only few things contain more sentient disvalue than rainforest. (Of course, in comparison to expected future sentience, biological life only makes up a tiny portion, so rainforest is unlikely to be a priority from a longtermist perspective.)
I understand the worries described in the OP (apart from the “let’s better not find out” part). I
think it’s important for EAs in the WAS reduction movement to proactively counter simplistic memes and advocate interventions that don’t cause great harm from the perspective of some very popular moral perspectives. I think that’s a moral responsibility for animal advocates with suffering-focused views. (And as we see in other replies here, this sounds like it’s already common practice!)
At the same time, I feel like the discourse on this topic can be a bit disingenuous sometimes, where people whose actions otherwise don’t indicate much concern for the moral importance of the action-omission distinction (esp. when it comes to non-persons) suddenly employ rhetorical tactics that make it sound like “wrongly thinking animal lives are negative” is a worse mistake than “wrongly thinking they are positive”.
I also think this issue is thorny because, IMO, there’s no clear answer. There are moral judgment calls to make that count for at least as much as empirical discoveries.
Doesn’t this lead to replacement anyway for welfarists/consequentialists, like discussed here? I.e. we should replace rainforest with things that produce more value.
It may be intuitions about reversibility. It’s harder to bring a species back than it is to eliminate it. Or, not only welfare matters to them. Or, maybe they really shouldn’t consider themselves consequentialists.
I believe we’re already replacing the rainforest with many things of more (economic) value, like palm oil and cows. I guess in future we’ll just have the palm oil, at least until we discover plants can suffer and they have to go too.
If being a consequentialist implies I should, under certain circumstances, destroy the world, I think I’m going to prioritise the world over consequentialism.