Hi, fellow EAs! Thank you so much for caring about making the world better. My name is Alene, and I’m excited to meet you. I run the litigation nonprofit, Legal Impact for Chickens. We sue companies and executives that abuse animals on factory farms.
Impact Markets Profile: https://app.impactmarkets.io/profile/clfvvw82d001ioppuuizzy7x3
Thank you for posting this!
Thank you so much for posting this! I love Alison Green. And she is a friend to animals.
You’re my hero.
Oh wow, Saulius, it is so exciting to read this! You described exactly how I think, also. I, too, only follow utilitarianism as a way of making moral decisions when it comports with what my moral emotions tell me to do. And the reason I love utilitarianism is just that it matches my moral emotions about 90% of the time. The main time I get off the utilitarian train is when I consider the utilitarian idea that it should be morally just as good to give one additional unit of joy to a being who is already happy, as it is to relieve an unhappy being from one unit of suffering. I’d rather relieve the suffering of the unhappy. So I relate to you not following the idea that utilitarianism led you to when it felt wrong to you emotionally. (That said, I actually love the idea of lots of blissed out minds filling the universe, so I guess our moral emotions tell us different things.)
When interacting with pure utilitarians, I’ve often felt embarrassed that I used moral emotions to guide my moral decisions. Thanks for making me feel more comfortable coming “out” about this emotional-semi-utilitarian way of thinking, Saulius!
Also, I love that you acknowledged that selfishness, of course, also influences our decision making. It does for me, too. And I think declaring that fact is the most responsible thing for us to do, for multiple reasons. It is more honest, and it helps others realize they can do good while still being human.
Thank you so much Saulius! I never heard of prioritarianism. That is amazing! Thanks for telling me!!
I’m not the best one to speak for the pure utilitarians in my life, but yes, I think it was what you said: Starting with one set of emotions (the utilitarian’s personal experience of preferring the feeling of pleasure over the feeling of suffering in his own life), and extrapolating based on logic to assume that pleasure is good no matter who feels it and that suffering is bad no matter who feels that.
Thank you for your correction Aaron! I removed “As you probably know” from my comment about the Colorado governor.
Here’s what I know about Gov. Polis: -He is very nice. -He is committed to advancing animal welfare in Colorado. -As Charles points out, a politician wanting to help farmed animals—rather than just wanting to help industries use farmed animals—is almost unheard of in US politics. So Gov. Polis is a huge deal. -And yes, animal rights is the #1 priority for Colorado’s Second Gentleman. They are a power couple.
This podcast is the #1 thing I’ve heard to date that does the best job of explaining EA to someone outside of the movement. I’m going to share this show with people in the future.
Dear James,
Thank you so much for this thoughtful response!
It is wonderful to know that people are having conversations about these issues.
You make a really great point about the risk of AGI locking in humans’ current attitude towards animals. That is super scary.
Sincerely,
Alene
This is SUPER interesting. And it’s amazing that you have put so much thought into this exact issue!
Also, I love that everybody who responded is named James! :-)
Thank you so much! I missed that post!
Fai’s post is way more educated, more specific, and better written than my post. I’m really glad Fai wrote that. And I’m even more worried, now, about future animals.
It stinks to hear that this is fully neglected. I hope that changes, thanks to analyses like Fai’s!
Thank you so much for this thoughtful, detailed, and concerning post.
Dear James III,
Thank you so much!
And thank you so much for doing that research to begin with! I would love to see the rest of it, and I’m sure other EA Forum readers would too! Your point about artificial sentience is really concerning.
I really appreciate you researching and analyzing all this, and sharing it.
Sincerely,
Alene
You should!!!
Awwwwww!!!!!
Upvoting this post even though it doesn’t criticize EA. :-)
Looking at your charts, I find it really interesting to see the trend in animal welfare posts over time. As you summarize it: “The percentage of posts on animal welfare peaked in 2018-19 and has since decreased somewhat.”
I’ve heard concerns from other animal-focused EAs that the EA movement feels like it is starting to de-emphasize animals. And that worried me. But these charts make me feel better.
Your analysis does validates peoples’ perception that the EA movement feels like it has recently started focusing less on animals. Because your analysis suggests the movement probably has been focusing less on animals ever since the 2019 peak. So that shows that people aren’t crazy to feel like something is changing in EA. :-)
But at the same time, your analysis suggests that the decrease in focus on animals is probably just a return to the norm. So there’s probably no real risk that this trend will eventually lead to EA forgetting about animals altogether! Therefore, by showing the big picture, your post is reassuring.
Thank you so much for this article! I especially liked the part about “Suggestions for improving racial diversity.” As someone who is founding a new organization, I am looking for ideas about what I can do on the front-end to set us up for success from a DEI perspective, and I love that you had a list of concrete bullets!