The attempts by the Rethink Priorities Welfare Range Estimates project to create a framework for comparing animal suffering is necessary for doing the cost-benefit analyses we would need to decide whether the cost to humans of an intervention is worth the benefit to animals. Unfortunately these ranges have such wide confidence intervals that, putting aside the question of whether the methodology and ranges are even valid, it doesn’t seem to get us any closer to doing the necessary cost-benefit analyses.
we have no objective way to measure animal suffering and compare it to our intuitive feelings about human welfare
This can also cut the other way if we’re trying to ensure we have a positive impact (difference-making risk averse or difference-making ambiguity averse). We have no objective way to measure how much potential harm saving humans or improving their incomes does to nonhuman animals through the meat eater problem or wild animal effects.
I think we agree: the massive uncertainty in the utility calculus approach to this problem could go either way and so it tells us nothing.
In the end we’re forced to fall back on our moral intuitions like: “harpooning whale feels bad” and comparative arguments like: “well if you wouldn’t suffocate your dog, how can you pay someone to suffocate a pig?”. This is the only feasible approach.
I think we can put some reasonable bounds on our uncertainty and ranges, and they can tell us some useful things. Or, at least, I can, according to my own intuitions, and end up prioritizing animal welfare this way.
Also, I’ve argued here that uncertainty about moral weights actually tends to further favour prioritizing nonhumans.
This can also cut the other way if we’re trying to ensure we have a positive impact (difference-making risk averse or difference-making ambiguity averse). We have no objective way to measure how much potential harm saving humans or improving their incomes does to nonhuman animals through the meat eater problem or wild animal effects.
I think we agree: the massive uncertainty in the utility calculus approach to this problem could go either way and so it tells us nothing.
In the end we’re forced to fall back on our moral intuitions like: “harpooning whale feels bad” and comparative arguments like: “well if you wouldn’t suffocate your dog, how can you pay someone to suffocate a pig?”. This is the only feasible approach.
I think we can put some reasonable bounds on our uncertainty and ranges, and they can tell us some useful things. Or, at least, I can, according to my own intuitions, and end up prioritizing animal welfare this way.
Also, I’ve argued here that uncertainty about moral weights actually tends to further favour prioritizing nonhumans.