I think that Toward Welfare Biology was, until maybe 2016 or so, the default thing people pointed to (along with Brian Tomasik’s website), as the introductory text to wild animal welfare. I saw it referenced a lot, especially when I started working in the space.
Weren’t that paper and Brian’s work pretty much the only EA-aligned (welfarist/consequentialist) writings on the topic until recently? And Towards Welfare Biology also covers more than just that one result.
I think there were a few other philosophy papers that were sort of EA aligned I think, but yeah, basically just those 2. So maybe it was the default by default.
Matheny and Chan’s (2005) attempted rebuttal of the ‘logic of the larder’ objection to veg*ism also is based on impacts on wild animals, though if I remember correctly they’re mostly using an unexamined premise that their lives are usually worth living in an argument about human diets rather than discussing wild animal welfare in any detail.
There probably are other classics I don’t remember off the top of my head. I’m sure Brian Tomasik or one of the orgs working on wild animal welfare has a bibliography somewhere.
I think that Toward Welfare Biology was, until maybe 2016 or so, the default thing people pointed to (along with Brian Tomasik’s website), as the introductory text to wild animal welfare. I saw it referenced a lot, especially when I started working in the space.
Weren’t that paper and Brian’s work pretty much the only EA-aligned (welfarist/consequentialist) writings on the topic until recently? And Towards Welfare Biology also covers more than just that one result.
I think there were a few other philosophy papers that were sort of EA aligned I think, but yeah, basically just those 2. So maybe it was the default by default.
Some of Oscar Horta’s papers also mostly predate EA discourse on wild animals, e.g. his 2010 Debunking the idyllic view of natural processes. And even earlier, in 2003, there was Tyler Cowen’s Policing nature.
Matheny and Chan’s (2005) attempted rebuttal of the ‘logic of the larder’ objection to veg*ism also is based on impacts on wild animals, though if I remember correctly they’re mostly using an unexamined premise that their lives are usually worth living in an argument about human diets rather than discussing wild animal welfare in any detail.
There probably are other classics I don’t remember off the top of my head. I’m sure Brian Tomasik or one of the orgs working on wild animal welfare has a bibliography somewhere.
Pablo Stafforini has a great bibliography of articles on wild animal welfare that includes some earlier work coming from outside the EA space.