I am very late to this discussion, but the quote from William MacAskill that the “average rating for broiler chickens is −1” does not accurately represent Norwood’s views.
Norwood gives his estimates on animal welfare for one breeder chicken (-4) and one market chicken (+3) for chicken meat (page 229). Norwood and Lusk also report how many breeder chickens (0.001804675) and how many market chickens (0.259740260) are associated with 1lb of chicken meat (page 233). Given the numbers provided, the weighted average of animal welfare for 1lb of chicken meat is:
(-4 0.001804675) + (3 0.259740260) = 0.77
So, based on Norwood’s estimates, eating chicken meat increases animal welfare.
I don’t know whether I agree with this, but that is the implication of Norwood’s estimates, and that is clearly Norwood’s intent. In fact, Norwood and Lusk write on page 241 that “Because Bailey [Norwood] believes chickens are overall happy animals, fewer chickens means less happiness in the world.”
Yep! Thanks for pointing that out. I’ve read the book at this point, and by “average rating” Will seemingly means an unweighted average, which is a bit silly when one pound of chicken is associated with 0.001804675 breeder and 0.259740260 nonbreeder individuals, so 144 to 1 should be the weights, so that the breeder animal can be just about ignored in the calculation. Then again it’s also silly for Norwood not to take the slaughter into account for animals that live for 42 days before being deported to the slaughterhouse.
Whether Norwood’s conclusion follows is also dependent on whether one adhere’s to classic hedonistic utilitarianism or any other form of utilitarianism, e.g., preference utilitarianism. They touch on that in the context of the repugnant conclusion.
Norwood says he did take slaughter into account, but that he didn’t think it affected animal welfare much relative to other factors. See his discussion with Simon Knutsson:
FWIW, if I had a choice whether to live as a broiler chicken and be slaughtered after 42 days or not exist at all, I think I’d prefer not to exist at all. OTOH, I think I’d prefer to live 2 years or so as a beef cow and then be slaughtered rather than not exist at all. So I feel a lot more comfortable eating beef than chicken. But I’m not completely comfortable because I’m not fully confident in this preference, and because I think “animal rights” arguments have some merit independent of utilitarian considerations.
Great conversation! I hadn’t seen that yet. Simon doesn’t ask about slaughter in the case of chickens again, unfortunately, because it seems like Bailey replied with other animals in mind than chickens farmed for meat. But his reply with regard to transport probably transfers to slaughter: “Yes, I did take into account the number of times they were transported relatively to their lifespan. It is hard for me to say exactly how much it influenced the scores, because they are just my judgment calls, but it is something I tried to account for, and something I definitely thought of.”
I thought I had read something to the effect that he didn’t factor in slaughter in the book itself, but I can’t find it anymore. What I may be remembering is Bailey’s comment on Brain’s old blog: “I do not make any adjustments for the length of the life for any animal. I did at first, but I found the difficulties and ambiguities unsatisfying.” I understood this as meaning that the chickens would receive the same score even if they lived for years, but Bailey may’ve meant something else.
And agreed. When I consider what life I would prefer to not living, I arrive at similar results, with considerably less uncertainty about my preference in the first than in the second case.
“I think ‘animal rights’ arguments have some merit independent of utilitarian considerations”: I tend to consider those from a two-level utilitarian perspective. For example, a society that is alert to speciesism will also be better equipped to avoid discrimination of sentient algorithms, what I’ve heard called substratism. Hard and fast, broad and imperfect principles can make it easier for many people to see violations.
Then consistency is also important to me, so when I’m comfortable with beef I also ought to be comfortable with a company serving a cannibal customer base by raising children in isolation, providing them with most things they desire including libraries for intellectual stimulation and so on, and then harvesting them at age 16–20 or so for their meat. I don’t think I would be entirely comfortable with that and rather prefer such a company to not exist, maybe because of the years of life stolen from them which to keep they already formed a preference. Not sure.
I am very late to this discussion, but the quote from William MacAskill that the “average rating for broiler chickens is −1” does not accurately represent Norwood’s views.
Norwood gives his estimates on animal welfare for one breeder chicken (-4) and one market chicken (+3) for chicken meat (page 229). Norwood and Lusk also report how many breeder chickens (0.001804675) and how many market chickens (0.259740260) are associated with 1lb of chicken meat (page 233). Given the numbers provided, the weighted average of animal welfare for 1lb of chicken meat is:
(-4 0.001804675) + (3 0.259740260) = 0.77
So, based on Norwood’s estimates, eating chicken meat increases animal welfare.
I don’t know whether I agree with this, but that is the implication of Norwood’s estimates, and that is clearly Norwood’s intent. In fact, Norwood and Lusk write on page 241 that “Because Bailey [Norwood] believes chickens are overall happy animals, fewer chickens means less happiness in the world.”
Avi
I forgot to follow-up in this earlier, but William MacAskill has issued a correction in his errata:
http://www.effectivealtruism.com/errata/
Yep! Thanks for pointing that out. I’ve read the book at this point, and by “average rating” Will seemingly means an unweighted average, which is a bit silly when one pound of chicken is associated with 0.001804675 breeder and 0.259740260 nonbreeder individuals, so 144 to 1 should be the weights, so that the breeder animal can be just about ignored in the calculation. Then again it’s also silly for Norwood not to take the slaughter into account for animals that live for 42 days before being deported to the slaughterhouse.
Whether Norwood’s conclusion follows is also dependent on whether one adhere’s to classic hedonistic utilitarianism or any other form of utilitarianism, e.g., preference utilitarianism. They touch on that in the context of the repugnant conclusion.
Norwood says he did take slaughter into account, but that he didn’t think it affected animal welfare much relative to other factors. See his discussion with Simon Knutsson:
http://simonknutsson.com/files/exchange-bailey-norwood-2013-07-29-for-publication.docx
FWIW, if I had a choice whether to live as a broiler chicken and be slaughtered after 42 days or not exist at all, I think I’d prefer not to exist at all. OTOH, I think I’d prefer to live 2 years or so as a beef cow and then be slaughtered rather than not exist at all. So I feel a lot more comfortable eating beef than chicken. But I’m not completely comfortable because I’m not fully confident in this preference, and because I think “animal rights” arguments have some merit independent of utilitarian considerations.
Avi
Great conversation! I hadn’t seen that yet. Simon doesn’t ask about slaughter in the case of chickens again, unfortunately, because it seems like Bailey replied with other animals in mind than chickens farmed for meat. But his reply with regard to transport probably transfers to slaughter: “Yes, I did take into account the number of times they were transported relatively to their lifespan. It is hard for me to say exactly how much it influenced the scores, because they are just my judgment calls, but it is something I tried to account for, and something I definitely thought of.”
I thought I had read something to the effect that he didn’t factor in slaughter in the book itself, but I can’t find it anymore. What I may be remembering is Bailey’s comment on Brain’s old blog: “I do not make any adjustments for the length of the life for any animal. I did at first, but I found the difficulties and ambiguities unsatisfying.” I understood this as meaning that the chickens would receive the same score even if they lived for years, but Bailey may’ve meant something else.
And agreed. When I consider what life I would prefer to not living, I arrive at similar results, with considerably less uncertainty about my preference in the first than in the second case.
“I think ‘animal rights’ arguments have some merit independent of utilitarian considerations”: I tend to consider those from a two-level utilitarian perspective. For example, a society that is alert to speciesism will also be better equipped to avoid discrimination of sentient algorithms, what I’ve heard called substratism. Hard and fast, broad and imperfect principles can make it easier for many people to see violations.
Then consistency is also important to me, so when I’m comfortable with beef I also ought to be comfortable with a company serving a cannibal customer base by raising children in isolation, providing them with most things they desire including libraries for intellectual stimulation and so on, and then harvesting them at age 16–20 or so for their meat. I don’t think I would be entirely comfortable with that and rather prefer such a company to not exist, maybe because of the years of life stolen from them which to keep they already formed a preference. Not sure.