What Jamie said—the number of neurons across a population is irrelevant. What matters is the capacity for suffering, and that is dependent on the number (and arrangement) of neurons in an individual. This is my favorite discussion:
I agree the capacity for welfare of one individual does not depend much on the number of individuals. However, when prioritising solutions to improve animal welfare, I think we should take into account the number of individuals (amongst many other factors).
For example, developping a cheap and tasty meat subsitute for chicken is arguably more pressing than for turkeys. Factory-farmed (FF) chickens and turkeys have roughly the same welfare according to the Weighted Animal Welfare Index from Charity Entrepeneurship (-56 and −57, in a scale from −100 to 100), but there are about 50 times as many chickens as turkeys (see here). So the total suffering of all FF chickens is much larger than that of all FF turkeys.
Hey Vasco, As a founder of One Step for Animals, you don’t need to convince me we should be looking to help chickens. :-) It is when we say that X chickens = 1 human, or Y mosquitoes = 1 human, or Z electrons = 1 human—that’s where I get off the train (as I lay out in Losing My Religions). Thanks again and keep up the great work!
I think the relevant chapter from Losing My Religions is “Biting the Philosophical Bullet”. From I understand, you think the Repugnant Conclusion (RC) is sufficiently against your intuitions for the total view (which implies the RC) to be wrong.
The RC follows from 3 premises (see here). I would be curious to know the extent to which (and why) you disagree with each of them.
What Jamie said—the number of neurons across a population is irrelevant. What matters is the capacity for suffering, and that is dependent on the number (and arrangement) of neurons in an individual. This is my favorite discussion:
https://www.openphilanthropy.org/research/2017-report-on-consciousness-and-moral-patienthood/
I fear that thinking in the terms above (total neurons in some group) does significant harm.
Hi Matt,
Thanks for commenting!
I agree the capacity for welfare of one individual does not depend much on the number of individuals. However, when prioritising solutions to improve animal welfare, I think we should take into account the number of individuals (amongst many other factors).
For example, developping a cheap and tasty meat subsitute for chicken is arguably more pressing than for turkeys. Factory-farmed (FF) chickens and turkeys have roughly the same welfare according to the Weighted Animal Welfare Index from Charity Entrepeneurship (-56 and −57, in a scale from −100 to 100), but there are about 50 times as many chickens as turkeys (see here). So the total suffering of all FF chickens is much larger than that of all FF turkeys.
Hey Vasco,
As a founder of One Step for Animals, you don’t need to convince me we should be looking to help chickens. :-)
It is when we say that X chickens = 1 human, or Y mosquitoes = 1 human, or Z electrons = 1 human—that’s where I get off the train (as I lay out in Losing My Religions).
Thanks again and keep up the great work!
Ah, I know I need not convince you of that!
I think the relevant chapter from Losing My Religions is “Biting the Philosophical Bullet”. From I understand, you think the Repugnant Conclusion (RC) is sufficiently against your intuitions for the total view (which implies the RC) to be wrong.
The RC follows from 3 premises (see here). I would be curious to know the extent to which (and why) you disagree with each of them.