I don’t think most animals are moral patients, and so see work on global health as much more valuable. This isn’t as deeply a considered view as I’d like (though I think there’s an unfortunate pattern where people who think animals are more likely to matter a lot are more likely to go into attempting to weigh the worth of animals) and people shouldn’t put as much weight on this as my other EA-related views.
Roughly, pleasure and suffering matter to the extent that there’s an entity experiencing them. I think animals very likely don’t have that kind of experience. I also think some humans don’t, but I think the consequences of trying to draw distinctions among humans in this way would be pretty terrible and we shouldn’t go in that direction. More: The Argument From Marginal Cases.
I would also be curious to hear more about why/​if you are >~95% confident that pigs are not entities that experience suffering, while most humans are.[1]
Is it about the ability to have second-order beliefs, the ability to have complex language and certain kinds of social structures, or something else entirely?
I don’t think most animals are moral patients, and so see work on global health as much more valuable. This isn’t as deeply a considered view as I’d like (though I think there’s an unfortunate pattern where people who think animals are more likely to matter a lot are more likely to go into attempting to weigh the worth of animals) and people shouldn’t put as much weight on this as my other EA-related views.
More in this direction: Weighing Animal Worth, Why I’m Not Vegan.
Can you expand on why you don’t think most animals are moral patients?
Roughly, pleasure and suffering matter to the extent that there’s an entity experiencing them. I think animals very likely don’t have that kind of experience. I also think some humans don’t, but I think the consequences of trying to draw distinctions among humans in this way would be pretty terrible and we shouldn’t go in that direction. More: The Argument From Marginal Cases.
I would also be curious to hear more about why/​if you are >~95% confident that pigs are not entities that experience suffering, while most humans are.[1]
Is it about the ability to have second-order beliefs, the ability to have complex language and certain kinds of social structures, or something else entirely?
I think pigs are much more similar to humans than broiler chickens, so are a better species to examine the difference
Why?