Hi Jason,
I agree that many thoughtful people reject impartiality (the majority of human beings probably reject impartiality). But this is not necessarily a reason to think there may be a sound epistemic case not to completely reject partialism. Thoughtful people can be wrong, as shown by the fact that you can find thoughtful people defending almost all kind of views, and they can be biased. And then, there are very few basic moral ideas that seem harder to abandon that how much a certain given (dis)value should count should be completely independent of the identity of the one who suffers it.
I agree that if the way different animals are affected are coincident, and if some suffer more because of some capacity they have, then knowing more about this is certainly relevant. I just don’t think the situations in which animals that are very diverse typically are are similar enough to make these comparisons. (But then I must confess I’m skeptical from the start about the whole idea that given what we know now we can really learn about the possible differences in the capacities for welfare between animals. In fact I also think it may well be the case that there aren’t significant differences in that respect at least among vertebrates and invertebrates with relatively complex nervous systems. But I think the above claim stands even if you disagree with me on this.)
Anyway, my opinions about the capacities of different animals and their usefulness in situations like the ones you mention may well be all wrong! But would you agree with the main point that what ultimately matters is not capacity for welfare but the actual interests at stake in each case?
If you accept this, then maybe you can share my concern that, when different animals are in different situations, considering capacity for welfare instead of the actual interests at stake (as it seems to happen often) can lead us to make wrong decisions.
Thanks!
It is good to be open to reconsider one’s most basic assumptions every now and then. But I was nevertheless surprised when I read this post, as it questions one of the core ideas of EA, which is that of impartiality, that is, the idea that equal interests count the same. EA without impartiality wouldn’t look very much like EA anymore. Partiality drives people to engage in causes that do significantly less good than others, because in doing so they do more good for those favored by their partial views.
In the literature, one of the main ways to oppose impartiality is by using the construct of moral status, according to which equal interests don’t always count the same. This is very different from claiming that in different situations we can have different interests. It is not against impartiality to claim that, say, the interest in not dying of a human and a mouse, or of an old human and a young human, may be different. If these interests do differ, then, as they are different interests, they count differently. This is perfectly in accordance with the idea of the equal consideration of interests. But this is totally different from saying that the equal interests of a mouse and a human, or of an old and a young humans, shouldn’t count the same, because their status is different.
As for the capacity for (positive or negative) welfare, its usefulness is very limited. It can allow you do compare the weight of different individuals only when they’re facing the same situation. But, in many other cases, considering that their capacity for welfare is relevant can drive us to make very wrong decisions. Suppose Nemo the fish has a lower capacity for welfare than Jason the human. Suppose I can choose between causing some pain to Jason or a slightly worse pain to Nemo. Other things being equal, choosing the latter would be wrong. This is because what matters for this decision is not Jason and Nemo’s capacity for welfare, but the actual interests involved, which, again, other things being equal are determined only by the actual alternative pains at stake.
In practice, most of the decisions we have to make are of this kind, as those affected by the different causes we can compare aren’t in the same situation (which is what would allow us to make our decisions on the basis of their capacity for welfare). Rather, they are in situations that differ significantly from each other.