Are you effectively assuming that when they are awake and not experiencing hurtful pain or worse, that they are experiencing pleasure as intense as hurtful pain? I would probably assume only pleasure that intense for eating, dustbathing and playing, at most. Foraging might be annoying or hurtful intensity.
Thanks for the question, Michael! Yes, roughly so. With the caveat that pleasure and hurtful pain can be experienced simulataneously, in which case the positive experiences may be less intense (holding the total welfare from positive experiences costant) than hurtful pain (because they could be experienced for longer).
I set the welfare from pleasure to the product between:
The lifetime minus 8 h/โd of null welfare minus the sum of the time in hurtful, disabling and excruciating pain.
The intensity of hurtful pain.
This is based on my guess that the pleasure during the non-neutral time outside that in hurtful, disabling or excruciating pain is as intense as a practically maximally happy life, which I assume to be as intense as hurtful pain.
Ideally, the Welfare Footprint Project would measure the cumulative time in each of their 4 categories of pleasure, and then one could determine the welfare from pleasure by guessing their intensity as a fraction of that of a practically maximally happy life (as I did for pain in my post).
Are you effectively assuming that when they are awake and not experiencing hurtful pain or worse, that they are experiencing pleasure as intense as hurtful pain? I would probably assume only pleasure that intense for eating, dustbathing and playing, at most. Foraging might be annoying or hurtful intensity.
Thanks for the question, Michael! Yes, roughly so. With the caveat that pleasure and hurtful pain can be experienced simulataneously, in which case the positive experiences may be less intense (holding the total welfare from positive experiences costant) than hurtful pain (because they could be experienced for longer).
This is based on my guess that the pleasure during the non-neutral time outside that in hurtful, disabling or excruciating pain is as intense as a practically maximally happy life, which I assume to be as intense as hurtful pain.
Ideally, the Welfare Footprint Project would measure the cumulative time in each of their 4 categories of pleasure, and then one could determine the welfare from pleasure by guessing their intensity as a fraction of that of a practically maximally happy life (as I did for pain in my post).