Thanks for sharing, I am looking forward to the series!
To make this tractable, we made four assumptions: utilitarianism, hedonism, valence symmetry, and unitarianism.
I am glad you made these assumptions! They seem the most reasonable and action-guiding.
So, let’s assume symmetry. We’ll say that the relevant best animal welfare states are the average welfare levels of the average animal-(of a given species)-in-full-health. If we represent that welfare state with some arbitrary positive number, then the “worst” welfare state is represented by its negation.
I have estimated here the welfare of broilers in a conventional scenario is 2.21 times as bad as their full health is good, and the welfare of hens in conventional cages is 2.19 times as bad as their full health is good. These estimates are pretty close to 1 given the high uncertainty, but I am curious about whether you will elaborate on the symmetry assumption in the series.
Thanks for your comment, Vasco! We don’t discuss the symmetry assumption in other posts. Our only discussion is in the supplementary report that’s linked above, which is focused on axiological asymmetries (where the theory of welfare itself posits a fundamental asymmetry), not contingent asymmetries (where contingent physiological facts about organisms explain the asymmetry). But to be clear: we aren’t attached to the symmetry assumption and agree that it’s controversial. We make it purely to simplify the project, as it makes it much easier to define a lower welfare bound (negating the number that represents full health) and, for that reason, makes cross-species comparisons more straightforward. That being said, we’ve built a BOTEC for doing cost-effectiveness analyses with welfare ranges (not yet released), and that tool allows you to factor in different welfare range “skews” (i.e., the appropriate asymmetry for a species). We’re also interested in doing more work on asymmetry in the future. So I agree with you about the importance of the issue!
Thanks for sharing, I am looking forward to the series!
I am glad you made these assumptions! They seem the most reasonable and action-guiding.
I have estimated here the welfare of broilers in a conventional scenario is 2.21 times as bad as their full health is good, and the welfare of hens in conventional cages is 2.19 times as bad as their full health is good. These estimates are pretty close to 1 given the high uncertainty, but I am curious about whether you will elaborate on the symmetry assumption in the series.
Thanks for your comment, Vasco! We don’t discuss the symmetry assumption in other posts. Our only discussion is in the supplementary report that’s linked above, which is focused on axiological asymmetries (where the theory of welfare itself posits a fundamental asymmetry), not contingent asymmetries (where contingent physiological facts about organisms explain the asymmetry). But to be clear: we aren’t attached to the symmetry assumption and agree that it’s controversial. We make it purely to simplify the project, as it makes it much easier to define a lower welfare bound (negating the number that represents full health) and, for that reason, makes cross-species comparisons more straightforward. That being said, we’ve built a BOTEC for doing cost-effectiveness analyses with welfare ranges (not yet released), and that tool allows you to factor in different welfare range “skews” (i.e., the appropriate asymmetry for a species). We’re also interested in doing more work on asymmetry in the future. So I agree with you about the importance of the issue!