Thanks for sharing this—I found it informative! :)
Fisheries subsidy reform would probably cause more fish to be brought into existence and more fish to suffer highly painful deaths by being caught in fisheries. This additional suffering would likely outweigh any benefits from fewer fish being caught in the short-term.
Just to clarify, are you saying that a fish dying via being caught in a fishery is more painful than other ways that it’s likely to die? If so, can you expand on why that is?
No, that was probably poorly expressed on my part. What I’m saying is: if you catch reducing fishing effort now, you catch fewer fish in the short-term, but many more fish in the long-term. This means that the total number of fish being caught (and thus suffering) could increase.
I think I’m confused by where the “additional suffering” is coming from. If dying via being caught is approximately as painful as dying via other common means, then is this argument based on the premise that the fish will lead net negative lives?
If you assume that bringing a wild fish into existence is bad (and outweighs the benefits from not catching fish), then fishery subsidy reform looks bad. The assumption of net negative lives is one position from which you can arrive at this conclusion. There are other positions from which you can arrive at this conclusion too.
If you think that bringing a wild fish into existence is good or neutral, then fishery subsidies reform looks more promising.
In practice, we don’t know whether bringing a wild fish into existence is good, bad, or neutral, and there are plausible arguments supporting all three of these. But it does seem that a large proportion of the moral value of fishery subsidy reform comes from bringing additional wild fish into existence. Since it’s unclear whether that is good or bad, we are not able to recommend this as a clearly good intervention.
Thanks for sharing this—I found it informative! :)
Just to clarify, are you saying that a fish dying via being caught in a fishery is more painful than other ways that it’s likely to die? If so, can you expand on why that is?
Thanks for the feedback :)
No, that was probably poorly expressed on my part. What I’m saying is: if you catch reducing fishing effort now, you catch fewer fish in the short-term, but many more fish in the long-term. This means that the total number of fish being caught (and thus suffering) could increase.
I think I’m confused by where the “additional suffering” is coming from. If dying via being caught is approximately as painful as dying via other common means, then is this argument based on the premise that the fish will lead net negative lives?
Very roughly, yes.
If you assume that bringing a wild fish into existence is bad (and outweighs the benefits from not catching fish), then fishery subsidy reform looks bad. The assumption of net negative lives is one position from which you can arrive at this conclusion. There are other positions from which you can arrive at this conclusion too.
If you think that bringing a wild fish into existence is good or neutral, then fishery subsidies reform looks more promising.
In practice, we don’t know whether bringing a wild fish into existence is good, bad, or neutral, and there are plausible arguments supporting all three of these. But it does seem that a large proportion of the moral value of fishery subsidy reform comes from bringing additional wild fish into existence. Since it’s unclear whether that is good or bad, we are not able to recommend this as a clearly good intervention.