On the 7-15% figure I donât actually see where the idea that smaller, less intelligent animals suffer less when they are in physical pain is commonsense comes from. People almost never cite a source for it being commonsense, and I donât recall having had any opinion about it before I encountered academic philosophy. I think it is almost certainly true that people donât care very much about small dumb animals, but that, but there are a variety of reasons why that is only moderate evidence for the claim that ordinary people think they experience less intense pain:
-They might not have ever thought about it, since most people donât feel much need to give philosophical justifications for banal, normal opinions like not caring much about animals.
-Hedonistic utilitarianism is not itself part of commonsense, but without assuming it, you canât quickly and easily move from âwhat happens to bees isnât importantâ to âbees have low capacity for pain.â
-We know there are cases where people downgrade the importance of what happens to subjects who they see as outside of their community, even when they definitely donât believe those subjects have diminished capacity for pain. Many ordinary people are nationalists who donât care that much about foreigners, but they donât think foreigners feel less pain!
-They might just assume that it is unlikely small simple animals can feel pain at all. This doesnât necessarily mean they also think that, conditional on small simple animals being able to feel pain they only feel it a little bit.
Independently of what the commonsense prior is here, Iâd also say that I have a PhD in the philosophy of consciousness, and I donât think the claim that less neurons=less capacity for pain is commonly defended in the academic literature. At most some people might defend the more general idea that how conscious a state is comes in degrees, and some theories that allow for that might predict bee pains are not very conscious. But Iâve never seen any sign that this is a consensus view. In general, âmore neurons=more intense painsâ seems to play badly with the standard functionalist picture that what makes a particular mental state the mental state it is, is itâs typical causes and effects, not its intrinsic properties. Not to mention that it seems plausible there could be aliens without neurons who nonetheless felt pain.
On the 7-15% figure I donât actually see where the idea that smaller, less intelligent animals suffer less when they are in physical pain is commonsense comes from. People almost never cite a source for it being commonsense, and I donât recall having had any opinion about it before I encountered academic philosophy. I think it is almost certainly true that people donât care very much about small dumb animals, but that, but there are a variety of reasons why that is only moderate evidence for the claim that ordinary people think they experience less intense pain:
-They might not have ever thought about it, since most people donât feel much need to give philosophical justifications for banal, normal opinions like not caring much about animals.
-Hedonistic utilitarianism is not itself part of commonsense, but without assuming it, you canât quickly and easily move from âwhat happens to bees isnât importantâ to âbees have low capacity for pain.â
-We know there are cases where people downgrade the importance of what happens to subjects who they see as outside of their community, even when they definitely donât believe those subjects have diminished capacity for pain. Many ordinary people are nationalists who donât care that much about foreigners, but they donât think foreigners feel less pain!
-They might just assume that it is unlikely small simple animals can feel pain at all. This doesnât necessarily mean they also think that, conditional on small simple animals being able to feel pain they only feel it a little bit.
Independently of what the commonsense prior is here, Iâd also say that I have a PhD in the philosophy of consciousness, and I donât think the claim that less neurons=less capacity for pain is commonly defended in the academic literature. At most some people might defend the more general idea that how conscious a state is comes in degrees, and some theories that allow for that might predict bee pains are not very conscious. But Iâve never seen any sign that this is a consensus view. In general, âmore neurons=more intense painsâ seems to play badly with the standard functionalist picture that what makes a particular mental state the mental state it is, is itâs typical causes and effects, not its intrinsic properties. Not to mention that it seems plausible there could be aliens without neurons who nonetheless felt pain.