Rat happiness is HALF as good as human happiness? I’m not so sure about that.
Reasons to believe rat happiness and human happiness is about comparable:
The brain structures that make humans happy look similar to the brain structures that make rats happy.
Rats behave in similar ways to humans in response to pleasurable or painful stimuli.
Most of the parts of the human brain that other animals don’t possess have to do with high-level cognitive processing, which doesn’t seem to have much to do with happiness or suffering.
Reasons to believe human happiness is substantially greater than rat happiness:
Sentience may increase rapidly as number of neurons increases. (But I don’t expect that most human neurons are involved in producing conscious experiences.)
High-level cognitive abilities may increase capacity for happiness or suffering. (I find this implausible because subjectively when I feel very unhappy it usually doesn’t have much to do with my cognitive abilities.)
High-level cognitive abilities may increase capacity for happiness or suffering. (I find this implausible because subjectively when I feel very unhappy it usually doesn’t have much to do with my cognitive abilities.)
Because it can be useful to report disagreement on these things: I disagree. I find it very plausible that high-level cognitive abilities increase capacity for happiness or suffering, and my subjective experience is different from yours.
Yeah I had definitely considered that we might have different subjective experiences. I wonder how much of this comes from the fact that we introspect differently and how much is just that our brains work in different ways. Introspection is hard.
The difference in size between a human brain and a rat brain is significant. An average adult human brain is 1300-1400g and the average rat brain is 2g. There’s no reason to peg the capability of the latter to generate vivid mental states as within the same order of magnitude, or two orders of magnitude in my opinion, of capability as the former.
The brain structures that make humans happy look similar to the brain structures that make rats happy.
Yes, but one is much larger and more powerful than the other.
Rats behave in similar ways to humans in response to pleasurable or painful stimuli.
So do all sorts of non-conscious entities.
Most of the parts of the human brain that other animals don’t possess have to do with high-level cognitive processing, which doesn’t seem to have much to do with happiness or suffering.
But the difference in size and capacity is altogether too large to be handwaved in this way. Besides, many components of human happiness do depend on higher level cognitive processing. What constitutes brute pain is simple, but what makes someone truly satisfied and grateful for their life is not.
Reasons to believe rat happiness and human happiness is about comparable:
The brain structures that make humans happy look similar to the brain structures that make rats happy.
Rats behave in similar ways to humans in response to pleasurable or painful stimuli.
Most of the parts of the human brain that other animals don’t possess have to do with high-level cognitive processing, which doesn’t seem to have much to do with happiness or suffering.
Reasons to believe human happiness is substantially greater than rat happiness:
Sentience may increase rapidly as number of neurons increases. (But I don’t expect that most human neurons are involved in producing conscious experiences.)
High-level cognitive abilities may increase capacity for happiness or suffering. (I find this implausible because subjectively when I feel very unhappy it usually doesn’t have much to do with my cognitive abilities.)
Because it can be useful to report disagreement on these things: I disagree. I find it very plausible that high-level cognitive abilities increase capacity for happiness or suffering, and my subjective experience is different from yours.
Yeah I had definitely considered that we might have different subjective experiences. I wonder how much of this comes from the fact that we introspect differently and how much is just that our brains work in different ways. Introspection is hard.
The difference in size between a human brain and a rat brain is significant. An average adult human brain is 1300-1400g and the average rat brain is 2g. There’s no reason to peg the capability of the latter to generate vivid mental states as within the same order of magnitude, or two orders of magnitude in my opinion, of capability as the former.
Yes, but one is much larger and more powerful than the other.
So do all sorts of non-conscious entities.
But the difference in size and capacity is altogether too large to be handwaved in this way. Besides, many components of human happiness do depend on higher level cognitive processing. What constitutes brute pain is simple, but what makes someone truly satisfied and grateful for their life is not.
Yes, I’d treat the ratio of brain masses as a lower bound on the ratio of moral patient-ness.