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 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!