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.
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.