EA - The Welfare Range Table by Bob Fischer

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: The Welfare Range Table, published by Bob Fischer on November 7, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum.Key TakeawaysOur objective: estimate the welfare ranges of 11 farmed species.Given hedonism, an individual’s welfare range is the difference between the welfare level associated with the most intense positively valenced state that the individual can realize and the welfare level associated with the most intense negatively valenced state that the individual can realize.Given some prominent theories about the functions of valenced states, we identified over 90 empirical proxies that might provide evidence of variation in the potential intensities of those states.There are many unknowns across many species.It’s rare to have evidence that animals lack a given trait.We know less about the presence or absence of traits as we move from terrestrial vertebrates to most invertebrates.Many of the traits about which we know the least are affective traits.We do have information about some significant traits for many animals.IntroductionThis is the second post in the Moral Weight Project Sequence. The aim of the sequence is to provide an overview of the research that Rethink Priorities conducted between May 2021 and October 2022 on interspecific cause prioritization—i.e., making resource allocation decisions across species. The aim of this post is to provide an overview of the Welfare Range Table, which records the results of a literature review covering over 90 empirical traits across 11 farmed species.MotivationsIf we want to do as much good as possible, we have to compare all the ways of doing good—including ways that involve helping members of different species. The Moral Weight Project’s assumptions entail that everyone’s welfare counts the same and that all welfare improvements count equally. Still, some may be able to realize more welfare than others. We’re particularly interested in how much welfare different individuals can realize at a time—that is, their respective welfare ranges. An individual’s welfare range is the difference between the best and worst welfare states the individual can realize at a time. We assume hedonism, according to which all and only positively valenced states increase welfare and all and only negatively valenced states decrease welfare.Given as much, an individual’s welfare range is the difference between the welfare level associated with the most intense positively valenced state that the individual can realize and the welfare level associated with the most intense negatively valenced state that the individual can realize. In the case of pigs, for instance, that might be the difference between the welfare level we associate with being fully healthy on a farm sanctuary, on the one hand, and a botched slaughter, on the other.If there’s variation in welfare ranges across taxa, then there’s variation in the capacities that generate the determinants of welfare. So, if there’s such variation and hedonism is true, then there’s variation in the capacities that generate positively and negatively valenced experiences.As Jason Schukraft argues, we don’t have any good direct measures of the intensity of valenced states that let us make interspecific comparisons. Indeed, we rely on indirect measures even in humans: behavior, physiological changes, and verbal reports. We can observe behavior and physiological changes in nonhumans, but most of them aren’t verbal. So, we have to rely on other indirect proxies, piecing together an understanding from animals’ cognitive and affective traits or capabilities. The Welfare Range Table includes over 90 such traits: some behavioral, others physiological; some more cognitive, others more affective. Then, it indicates whether the empirical literature provides reason to think that members of 11 farmed spec...