I, too, have a strong intuitive sense that human lives are, on average, much more valuable than animal lives, yet I strongly agree with the proposition. In fact, I think most people would agree with that prior, including those who strongly agree.
Let me pose a few questions to examine this view more deeply:
Is there a specific trait or set of traits that humans possess which animals lack that grounds our belief that humans are more important? Is it intelligence, self-awareness, ability to suffer, something else? And do all humans have those traits to a greater degree than all animals?
Even if we believe each individual human life is more valuable than an individual animal life, could there be a number of animals whose collective suffering would outweigh a human’s? Is there a ratio where the sheer scale of animal suffering would compel us to prioritize it? 10 animals, 100, 10,000?
If we faced a situation where we could spend $100 to give 10 people a slight positive boost to their well-being or to eliminate extreme suffering for 1,000 animals, would our prior that humans are more important still lead us to help the 10 humans over the 1,000 suffering animals?
My overall point is this: even with a strong prior that humans are more valuable, if we zoom out and look at the metrics of scale, neglectedness, and tractability, there are still compelling reasons to allocate more resources to animal welfare.
I, too, have a strong intuitive sense that human lives are, on average, much more valuable than animal lives, yet I strongly agree with the proposition. In fact, I think most people would agree with that prior, including those who strongly agree.
Let me pose a few questions to examine this view more deeply:
Is there a specific trait or set of traits that humans possess which animals lack that grounds our belief that humans are more important? Is it intelligence, self-awareness, ability to suffer, something else? And do all humans have those traits to a greater degree than all animals?
Even if we believe each individual human life is more valuable than an individual animal life, could there be a number of animals whose collective suffering would outweigh a human’s? Is there a ratio where the sheer scale of animal suffering would compel us to prioritize it? 10 animals, 100, 10,000?
If we faced a situation where we could spend $100 to give 10 people a slight positive boost to their well-being or to eliminate extreme suffering for 1,000 animals, would our prior that humans are more important still lead us to help the 10 humans over the 1,000 suffering animals?
My overall point is this: even with a strong prior that humans are more valuable, if we zoom out and look at the metrics of scale, neglectedness, and tractability, there are still compelling reasons to allocate more resources to animal welfare.