Fake Meat - Real Talk 2: (How) can we weigh the suffering of different species? (Please RSVP)

Disclaimer: You are very welcome to join this event also if you generally prefer real meat and/or fake talk. While a significant fraction of EAs are vegetarian/vegan and enjoy lively debates, neither is necessary for being welcome in the community.

What:

“Fake Meat and Real Talk” is a series of events where we discuss philosophical and practical questions of EA in small groups over (vegan) food and drinks. EA newcomers welcome; studying our suggested materials is encouraged, but not needed. Please RSVP.

This time around, we’d like to discuss Rethink Priorities’ estimates of the welfare ranges of different species. What that is? From a summary of three RP papers by EA Berlin’s Cian Hamilton:

The concept we are discussing here is a combination of two factors: the probability that members of a certain species are sentient, and (loosely speaking) how much the members of a certain species are capable of experiencing valenced states (valenced states are states where there is the feeling of intrinsic goodness or badness associated with them). For example, it seems likely that shrimp are sentient, but they almost certainly do not have the same capacity for suffering and pleasure that humans have, and so their “moral worth” might be 3%, while humans are defined to have a moral worth of 100%.

Suggested reading:

Cian’s 1.5-page summary of Rethink Priorities’ findings
The RP papers this summary is based on:

Where/how:

With 10°C it’ll be too cold this Thursday to comfortably sit outside. Therefore we decided to move the event indoors.

We will meet at Al Catzone, where we can have delicious vegan pizza at humane temperatures.

We’ll make sure to have at least one German-speaking and one English-speaking table.

Fake Meat—Real Talk 2: (How) can we weigh the suffering of different species? (Please RSVP)