Thanks for clarifying! I think these numbers are the crux of the whole debate, so it’s worth digging into them.
You may want to prioritize humans in the same way that you prioritize your family over others, or citizens of the same country over others. The capacities values are not in tension with that. You may also prefer to help humans because of their capacity for art, friendship, etc.
I am understanding correctly that none of these factors are included in the global health and development effectiveness evaluation?
To grasp the concept, I think a better example application would be: if you had to give a human or three chickens a headache for an hour (which they would otherwise spend unproductively) which choice would introduce less harm into the world? Estimating the chickens’ range as half that of the human would suggest that it is less bad overall from the perspective of total suffering to give the headache to the human.
I’m not sure how this is different to my hypothetical, except in degree?
Still, it is hard to draw direct action-relevant comparisons of the sort that you describe because there are many potential side effects that would need to be considered.
But the thing we are actually debating here is “should we prevent african children from dying of malaria, or prevent a lot of chickens from being confined to painful cages”, which is an action. If you are using a weight of ~0.44 to make that decision, then shouldn’t you similarly use it to make the “free 3 chickens or a human” decision?
I am understanding correctly that none of these factors are included in the global health and development effectiveness evaluation?
Correct!
A common response we see is that people reject the radical animal-friendly implications suggested by moral weights and infer that we must have something wrong about animals’ capacity for suffering. While we acknowledge the limitations of our work, we generally think a more fruitful response for those who reject the implications is to look for other reasons to prefer helping humans beyond purely reducing suffering. (When you start imagining people in cages, you rope in all sorts of other values that we think might legitimately tip the scales in favor of helping the human.)
Thanks for clarifying! I think these numbers are the crux of the whole debate, so it’s worth digging into them.
I am understanding correctly that none of these factors are included in the global health and development effectiveness evaluation?
I’m not sure how this is different to my hypothetical, except in degree?
But the thing we are actually debating here is “should we prevent african children from dying of malaria, or prevent a lot of chickens from being confined to painful cages”, which is an action. If you are using a weight of ~0.44 to make that decision, then shouldn’t you similarly use it to make the “free 3 chickens or a human” decision?
Correct!
A common response we see is that people reject the radical animal-friendly implications suggested by moral weights and infer that we must have something wrong about animals’ capacity for suffering. While we acknowledge the limitations of our work, we generally think a more fruitful response for those who reject the implications is to look for other reasons to prefer helping humans beyond purely reducing suffering. (When you start imagining people in cages, you rope in all sorts of other values that we think might legitimately tip the scales in favor of helping the human.)