How do you think about the trade-offs (or “moral weights”) between species, including humans? If you believe that what matters is primarily hedonistic pleasure/pain and you believe anything on the order of magnitude of the rethink priorities weights (e.g. humans have merely twice the capacity of suffering as pigs and three times that of chickens), then it seems issues like the “poor meat eater problem” or even just opportunity costs make human poverty alleviation efforts actively bad. It also leaves open the possibility that, say, shrimp or insects should actually be the top priority and our concern for their welfare should overwhelm all concerns for human welfare. If you believe that animals matter, but humans matter much more (say, orders of magnitude more than the rethink weights), then it seems like that might undermine some of your positions on factory farming. Do you have any rough relative moral weights in mind? If not, do you think developing such weights is a top priority?
It’s really hard to know what relative weights to give chickens, and harder still with shrimp or insects. The Rethink Priorities weights could be wrong by orders of magnitude, but they might also be roughly correct.
Re the Meat Eater Problem (see Michael Plant’s article in the Journal of Controversial Ideas) I don’t think we will get to a better, kinder world by letting people die from preventable, poverty-related conditions. A world without poverty is more likely to come around to caring about animals than one in which some are wealthy and others are in extreme poverty.
I don’t claim that this is an adequate answer to the dilemma you sketch for someone with my views. It’s a good topic for further thought.
How do you think about the trade-offs (or “moral weights”) between species, including humans? If you believe that what matters is primarily hedonistic pleasure/pain and you believe anything on the order of magnitude of the rethink priorities weights (e.g. humans have merely twice the capacity of suffering as pigs and three times that of chickens), then it seems issues like the “poor meat eater problem” or even just opportunity costs make human poverty alleviation efforts actively bad. It also leaves open the possibility that, say, shrimp or insects should actually be the top priority and our concern for their welfare should overwhelm all concerns for human welfare. If you believe that animals matter, but humans matter much more (say, orders of magnitude more than the rethink weights), then it seems like that might undermine some of your positions on factory farming. Do you have any rough relative moral weights in mind? If not, do you think developing such weights is a top priority?
It’s really hard to know what relative weights to give chickens, and harder still with shrimp or insects. The Rethink Priorities weights could be wrong by orders of magnitude, but they might also be roughly correct.
Re the Meat Eater Problem (see Michael Plant’s article in the Journal of Controversial Ideas) I don’t think we will get to a better, kinder world by letting people die from preventable, poverty-related conditions. A world without poverty is more likely to come around to caring about animals than one in which some are wealthy and others are in extreme poverty.
I don’t claim that this is an adequate answer to the dilemma you sketch for someone with my views. It’s a good topic for further thought.