In the 3rd point of Summary, I mention that that āThe conclusions are very sensitive to the moral weight of poultry birds relative to humans, and the quality of their living conditions in factory farms relative to fully healthy lifeā.
āYouāre saying that weāre indifferent been giving a human a year of healthy life, or giving a chicken six months, right?ā Yes, assuming the āsix monthsā would correspond to fully healthy poultry life (in reality, you might need more than 1 chicken).
I am also thinking about writing a short separate post about the mean moral weight, under various distributions, of the animals mentioned in section āMoral weights of various speciesā of the post from Luke Muehlhauser based on which I modelled the moral weight distribution.
Itās one thing to say that itās sensitive, but itās another to base your mainline argument on a really unusual view without flagging that?
Does it really seem plausible to you that we should be indifferent between six months of a happy healthy pet chicken and a year of a happy healthy human?
To highlight better my view, I have moved the interpretation of the results regarding the moral weight and quality of the living condition of poultry from the Methodology to the Discussion.
Regarding your 2nd question, assuming that by āplausibleā you mean likely, my answer is yes:
The mean and 82th percentile of the moral weight distribution are equal, which translates into a chance of 80% (20%) of the actual moral weight being smaller (larger) than the expected one.
That being said, I tend to think the focus should be on the expected moral weight, not on the quantile of the expected moral weight (although this is also relevant).
Thanks for the comment!
In the 3rd point of Summary, I mention that that āThe conclusions are very sensitive to the moral weight of poultry birds relative to humans, and the quality of their living conditions in factory farms relative to fully healthy lifeā.
āYouāre saying that weāre indifferent been giving a human a year of healthy life, or giving a chicken six months, right?ā
Yes, assuming the āsix monthsā would correspond to fully healthy poultry life (in reality, you might need more than 1 chicken).
I am also thinking about writing a short separate post about the mean moral weight, under various distributions, of the animals mentioned in section āMoral weights of various speciesā of the post from Luke Muehlhauser based on which I modelled the moral weight distribution.
Itās one thing to say that itās sensitive, but itās another to base your mainline argument on a really unusual view without flagging that?
Does it really seem plausible to you that we should be indifferent between six months of a happy healthy pet chicken and a year of a happy healthy human?
I have now contextualised in this section how unusual my results are, and proposed a speculative explanation.
Thanks for the feedback!
To highlight better my view, I have moved the interpretation of the results regarding the moral weight and quality of the living condition of poultry from the Methodology to the Discussion.
Regarding your 2nd question, assuming that by āplausibleā you mean likely, my answer is yes:
The mean and 82th percentile of the moral weight distribution are equal, which translates into a chance of 80% (20%) of the actual moral weight being smaller (larger) than the expected one.
That being said, I tend to think the focus should be on the expected moral weight, not on the quantile of the expected moral weight (although this is also relevant).