To be honest, I’m not that confident in wild animal welfare being on the ‘other longtermist’ list rather than the ‘other global’ list—we had some internal discussion on the matter and opinions differed.
Basically it’s on ‘other longtemrmist’ because the case for it contributing to spreding positive values seems stronger to me than in the case of the other global problems. In some sense working on any issue spreds positive values, but wild animal welfare is sufficiently ‘weird’ that it’s success as a cause area seems more likely to disrupt people’s intuitive views than successes of other areas, which might be particularly useful for spreading postitive values/moral philosophy progress. In particular, the rejection of “natural = good” seems like it could be a unique and useful contribtuion. I also find the analogy of wild animals and other forms of consciousness that we might find ourselves influencing (alien life? Artificial consciousnesses?) somewhat compelling, such that getting our heads straight on wild animal welfare might help prepare us for that.
Hi Will,
To be honest, I’m not that confident in wild animal welfare being on the ‘other longtermist’ list rather than the ‘other global’ list—we had some internal discussion on the matter and opinions differed.
Basically it’s on ‘other longtemrmist’ because the case for it contributing to spreding positive values seems stronger to me than in the case of the other global problems. In some sense working on any issue spreds positive values, but wild animal welfare is sufficiently ‘weird’ that it’s success as a cause area seems more likely to disrupt people’s intuitive views than successes of other areas, which might be particularly useful for spreading postitive values/moral philosophy progress. In particular, the rejection of “natural = good” seems like it could be a unique and useful contribtuion. I also find the analogy of wild animals and other forms of consciousness that we might find ourselves influencing (alien life? Artificial consciousnesses?) somewhat compelling, such that getting our heads straight on wild animal welfare might help prepare us for that.
Thanks Arden. I agree this is probably the best case for why WAW is a longtermist cause.