I have seen worry about improving the material living conditions of animals such that people become less concerned with their welfare. I think the idea there is that most of the expected value is in the small chance of a very large shift away from consumption of animals.
Animal welfare ensures animals are taken care of, but isn’t necessarily about ending carnism, i.e., eating animal flesh. Animal rights seeks to respect the rights of nonhuman animals, including the right to life and not to be killed by humans. This is merely my impression, not objective data, but in NY experience the majority of those in effective altruism who care about factory farming are for full animal rights, not merely animal welfare. There is also a contingent of utilitarians within effective altruism who primarily care about reducing and ending suffering. They may be willing to compromise in favor of animal welfare, and not full rights, but I’m not sure. They definitely don’t seem a majority of those concerned with animal suffering within effective altruism.
There is also a contingent of utilitarians within effective altruism who primarily care >about reducing and ending suffering. They may be willing to compromise in favor of >animal welfare, and not full rights, but I’m not sure. They definitely don’t seem a >majority of those concerned with animal suffering within effective altruism.
Of course, only actual data on EAs could demonstrate the proportionate of utilitarians willing to compromise but this seems weird. To me it would seem utilitarianism all but commits you to accept “compromises” on animal welfare at least in the short term given historical facts about how groups gained ethical consideration. As far as I know (anyone feel free to provide examples to the contrary), no oppressed group has ever seen respect for their interests go from essentially “no consideration” (where animals are today) to “equal consideration” without many compromising steps in the middle.
In other words, a utilitarian may want the total elimination of meat eating (though this is also somewhat contentious) but in practice they will take any welfare gains they can get. Similarly, utilitarians may want all wealthy people to donate to effective charities until global poverty is completely solved but will temporarily “compromise” by accepting only 5% of wealthy people to donate 10% of their income to such charities while pushing people to do better.
So, in practice, utilitarianism would mean setting the bar at perfection (and publicly signaling the highest standard that advances you towards perfection) but taking the best improvement actually on offer. I see no reason this shouldn’t apply to the treatment of animals. Of course, other utilitarians may disagree that this is the best long term strategy (hopefully evidence will settle this question) but that is an argument about game theory and not whether some improvement is better than none or if settling for less than perfection is allowable.
I have seen worry about improving the material living conditions of animals such that people become less concerned with their welfare. I think the idea there is that most of the expected value is in the small chance of a very large shift away from consumption of animals.
Animal welfare ensures animals are taken care of, but isn’t necessarily about ending carnism, i.e., eating animal flesh. Animal rights seeks to respect the rights of nonhuman animals, including the right to life and not to be killed by humans. This is merely my impression, not objective data, but in NY experience the majority of those in effective altruism who care about factory farming are for full animal rights, not merely animal welfare. There is also a contingent of utilitarians within effective altruism who primarily care about reducing and ending suffering. They may be willing to compromise in favor of animal welfare, and not full rights, but I’m not sure. They definitely don’t seem a majority of those concerned with animal suffering within effective altruism.
Of course, only actual data on EAs could demonstrate the proportionate of utilitarians willing to compromise but this seems weird. To me it would seem utilitarianism all but commits you to accept “compromises” on animal welfare at least in the short term given historical facts about how groups gained ethical consideration. As far as I know (anyone feel free to provide examples to the contrary), no oppressed group has ever seen respect for their interests go from essentially “no consideration” (where animals are today) to “equal consideration” without many compromising steps in the middle.
In other words, a utilitarian may want the total elimination of meat eating (though this is also somewhat contentious) but in practice they will take any welfare gains they can get. Similarly, utilitarians may want all wealthy people to donate to effective charities until global poverty is completely solved but will temporarily “compromise” by accepting only 5% of wealthy people to donate 10% of their income to such charities while pushing people to do better.
So, in practice, utilitarianism would mean setting the bar at perfection (and publicly signaling the highest standard that advances you towards perfection) but taking the best improvement actually on offer. I see no reason this shouldn’t apply to the treatment of animals. Of course, other utilitarians may disagree that this is the best long term strategy (hopefully evidence will settle this question) but that is an argument about game theory and not whether some improvement is better than none or if settling for less than perfection is allowable.