As I continue to consider the implications of a longtermist philosophy, it is with a heavy heart that the animal-focused side of me feels less enthused about welfare improvements.
This post by Tobias Baumann provides some insight into what might be important when thinking about animal advocacy from a longtermist point of view and is leading me to judge animal advocacy work against three longtermist criteria:
Persistence: A focus on lasting change as opposed to just short-term suffering reduction
Stability: Low risk of bringing controversy to the effective animal advocacy movement or causing divisions within it
Moral Circle Expansion: The potential to expand humanity’s moralcircle to include anything sentient
I don’t feel that welfare improvements score particularly well against any of these criteria.
Persistence—Corporate welfare improvements are promises that are made public and reversing them should come with reputational damage, however there are reasons to believe that some companies will fail to follow through with their commitments (see here). It isn’t clear how well welfare improvements might persist beyond the short-run into the medium/long-run.
Stability—A fairly healthy contingent in the animal advocacy and even EAA movements, feels uncomfortable about a focus on welfare improvements as this can be seen to implicitly support animal agriculture and so may be counterproductive to the goal of abolition of all animal exploitation.
MoralCircleExpansion—Unclear. It is possible that welfare improvements may make people feel less concerned about consuming animal products, resulting in a persistent lack of concern for their moral status. It is also possible that there is an opposite effect (see here).
I look forward to further work on longtermism and animal advocacy. I suspect such work may redirect efforts away from welfare improvements and towards areas such as legal/legislative work, wild animal suffering, capacity building, cultured meat, and maybe even general advocacy. Whilst I feel slightly uncomfortable about a potential shift away from welfare improvements, I suspect it may be justified.
I think of welfare reforms as being excellent complements to work on cultured meat. By raising prices, and drawing attention to the issue of animal welfare, they may increase demand for cultured meat when it becomes available.
This is plausible. Unfortunately the opposite possibility—that people become less concerned about eating animals if their welfare is better—is also quite plausible. I would be interested in seeing some evidence on this matter.
As I continue to consider the implications of a longtermist philosophy, it is with a heavy heart that the animal-focused side of me feels less enthused about welfare improvements.
This post by Tobias Baumann provides some insight into what might be important when thinking about animal advocacy from a longtermist point of view and is leading me to judge animal advocacy work against three longtermist criteria:
Persistence: A focus on lasting change as opposed to just short-term suffering reduction
Stability: Low risk of bringing controversy to the effective animal advocacy movement or causing divisions within it
Moral Circle Expansion: The potential to expand humanity’s moral circle to include anything sentient
I don’t feel that welfare improvements score particularly well against any of these criteria.
Persistence—Corporate welfare improvements are promises that are made public and reversing them should come with reputational damage, however there are reasons to believe that some companies will fail to follow through with their commitments (see here). It isn’t clear how well welfare improvements might persist beyond the short-run into the medium/long-run.
Stability—A fairly healthy contingent in the animal advocacy and even EAA movements, feels uncomfortable about a focus on welfare improvements as this can be seen to implicitly support animal agriculture and so may be counterproductive to the goal of abolition of all animal exploitation.
Moral Circle Expansion—Unclear. It is possible that welfare improvements may make people feel less concerned about consuming animal products, resulting in a persistent lack of concern for their moral status. It is also possible that there is an opposite effect (see here).
I look forward to further work on longtermism and animal advocacy. I suspect such work may redirect efforts away from welfare improvements and towards areas such as legal/legislative work, wild animal suffering, capacity building, cultured meat, and maybe even general advocacy. Whilst I feel slightly uncomfortable about a potential shift away from welfare improvements, I suspect it may be justified.
I think of welfare reforms as being excellent complements to work on cultured meat. By raising prices, and drawing attention to the issue of animal welfare, they may increase demand for cultured meat when it becomes available.
This is plausible. Unfortunately the opposite possibility—that people become less concerned about eating animals if their welfare is better—is also quite plausible. I would be interested in seeing some evidence on this matter.
Might be outdated, and the selection of papers is probably skewed in favor of welfare reforms, but here’s a bibliography on this question.
Thanks for that