Interesting! I’d be interested in arguing the “against” side, but I don’t have strong arguments or convictions, just have some basic arguments and heuristics. Would certainly like to see a more informed argument against the “net negative” case; I basically think it’s received wisdom in EA circles a bit too quickly.
Would certainly like to see a more informed argument against the “net negative” case; I basically think it’s received wisdom in EA circles a bit too quickly.
There is this preprint from Heather Browning and Walter Weit pushing against the view that wild animal welfare is negative. I think their take (and I agree) is that we simply do not know enough to be any confident either way (positive or negative).
I don’t think it makes any arguments? I also expect less to be convinced that factory-farmed animals have net positive lives, that wild animals might seems easier to defend
50%: If factory farmed animals are moral patients, it’s more likely that they have net-negative lives (i.e., it would better for them not to exist, than to live such terrible lives).
50%: If factory farmed animals are moral patients, it’s more likely that they have net-positive lives (i.e., their lives may be terrible, but they aren’t so lacking in value that preventing the life altogether is a net improvement).
This seems like a super hard question, and not one that changes the importance of working to promote animal welfare, so naively (absent some argument for a more informative prior) it should have a 50⁄50 split within animal welfare circles.
Some of the implied claims feels weird to me. I can see a 50⁄50 split ex ante but it’s hard to justify a 50-50 split ex post.
(analogously, having a ~0.5 expectation of Heads on a fair coin toss makes sense ex-ante, but I wouldn’t expect ~50% of observers of the same coin toss to be in the Heads camp and ~50% in the Tails camp).
This is interesting, but I think a debate wouldn’t be that informative or useful, and we should just support object-level research on wild animal lives like https://welfarefootprint.org/, but with positive welfare states. Break up animals into groups by moral weight/welfare range and sentience probability classes, and then pick some representatives for the total population in each class to study. Then we can aggregate the results.
A debate on intensity tradeoffs might be useful, though, because it could be that wild animals spend more time experiencing pleasure than suffering, but their average suffering is more intense than their average pleasure.
This house believes that wild animals have net negative lives
Interesting! I’d be interested in arguing the “against” side, but I don’t have strong arguments or convictions, just have some basic arguments and heuristics. Would certainly like to see a more informed argument against the “net negative” case; I basically think it’s received wisdom in EA circles a bit too quickly.
Hi Linch,
There is this preprint from Heather Browning and Walter Weit pushing against the view that wild animal welfare is negative. I think their take (and I agree) is that we simply do not know enough to be any confident either way (positive or negative).
Thanks, appreciate the link!
Who do you think would best argue that side?
If I know, I’d have already mentioned them lol.
My guess is @RobBensinger would probably hold that view, based on https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/b7Euvy3RCKT7cppDk/animal-welfare-ea-and-personal-dietary-options and it would be fun to see him debate this though unlikely he’d choose to.
I personally thought that argument was pretty bad.
I don’t think it makes any arguments? I also expect less to be convinced that factory-farmed animals have net positive lives, that wild animals might seems easier to defend
Some of the implied claims feels weird to me. I can see a 50⁄50 split ex ante but it’s hard to justify a 50-50 split ex post.
(analogously, having a ~0.5 expectation of Heads on a fair coin toss makes sense ex-ante, but I wouldn’t expect ~50% of observers of the same coin toss to be in the Heads camp and ~50% in the Tails camp).
See Browning, H., Veit, W. Positive Wild Animal Welfare. Biol Philos 38, 14 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-023-09901-5
The paper mostly argues that existing arguments for net negative lives are unsound, not that wild animals actually have net positive lives.
The authors could also be good candidates to argue against net negative lives in a debate.
This is interesting, but I think a debate wouldn’t be that informative or useful, and we should just support object-level research on wild animal lives like https://welfarefootprint.org/, but with positive welfare states. Break up animals into groups by moral weight/welfare range and sentience probability classes, and then pick some representatives for the total population in each class to study. Then we can aggregate the results.
A debate on intensity tradeoffs might be useful, though, because it could be that wild animals spend more time experiencing pleasure than suffering, but their average suffering is more intense than their average pleasure.