Hi All,
I have a new article out in the Journal of Animal Ethics on "The Repugnant Conclusion of Effective Animal Altruism". Abstract below! I am curious how this will land with the audience here, and I welcome your thoughts.
Abstract
Effective animal advocates want to help animals as effectively as possible. I explore a popular way of spelling out this idea, according to which, when choosing between two actions to help animals, we should pick the one that maximizes the net aggregate welfare of animals. I argue that, if this is right, then—counterintuitively—we ought to build more confined animal feeding operations. This argument is an application of Parfit's mere addition paradox. My aim in laying out how this applies to animal ethics is to aid animal advocates wishing to examine the philosophical foundations of their advocacy.
Link to article: https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/uip/jane/article/16/1/84/407918/The-Repugnant-Conclusion-of-Effective-Animal?guestAccessKey=9caf7280-2b9a-4b76-acec-89d30f1060fb
I think your reductio is standing on the big if that animals in CAFOs have a net positive existence, and the abstract / post skips that.
Thanks for your feedback, Clara! Not quite. My argument rests on the claim that it is possible for animals in CAFOs to have net positive welfare (not that they actually do). This creates an empirical and practical question for people wanting to maximize net aggregate welfare: figure out which exact living conditions ensure net positive welfare, and, based on that, which exact living conditions allow us to maximize net aggregate welfare. I have a long section in the paper were I discuss empirical research in that area, in particular the excellent work by Cynthia Schuck-Paim and her team at the Welfare Footprint Institute. As far as I can tell, with respect to layer hens, there is little evidence that lives in cage-free CAFOs would have net negative welfare.
Right. Then I think this should be in the abstract. Because right now the abstract says:
we should pick the one that maximizes the net aggregate welfare of animals. I argue that, if this is right, then—counterintuitively—we ought to build more confined animal feeding operations
and the "if this is right" only refers to the assumption of aggegation, not to the assumption of positive welfare in cafo
and the conclusion also doesn't say we maybe ought (if there are cases where cafo > 0)
Hi Clara,
I appreciate that there are different writing styles and that there certainly are other good ways to write the abstract and the conclusion of this article.
However, to clarify, the claim that net positive welfare is possible in CAFOs is not an assumption, but a premise in my argument that I provide evidence for. It's not a norm in academic journals to discuss every premise of an argument in both the abstract and the conclusion of an article. That would defeat the purpose of these sections, which are meant to provide brief overviews with tight word limits.
I agree with you that, if the conclusion was conditional on an unargued-for assumption, this should be highlighted prominently.
Hi Vera,
I agree on the meta point that you make here in principle. I think it's fine to not state every premise in the abstract and the conclusion, if it's something that it's argued for.
I also agree that "net positive welfare is possible in CAFOs" is not an assumption, but a premise that is argued for (and I find the arguments sound).
However, I still think the abstract as it stands now is saying something different, namely, that [maximizing aggregate welfare] => [we should build more CAFOs].
Afaik, this would be the logical conclusion from aggregationism if we assume that [animals in CAFOs have net positive lives], not only if [it is possible that animals in CAFOs have net positive lives].
Hi Clara,
The logical shape of my full argument is this:
If [we ought to maximize net aggregate welfare] then [we should build more CAFOs of the kind in which animals have above 0 welfare].
I also hold that:
If [we should build more CAFOs of the kind in which animals have above 0 welfare], then [we should build more CAFOs], since we cannot do the former without doing the latter.
Provided that if-then is transitive, it follows that:
If [we ought to maximize net aggregate welfare], then [we should build more CAFOs].
For these reasons, I continue to believe that the logic of the abstract is sound.
As I said, I can see that stylistic preferences could draw one towards wanting to make the difference between CAFOs in which animals have net positive welfare and CAFOs in which they don't explicit in the abstract.
Thank you for spelling out your reasoning in such a transparent way. I think our disagreement is not a matter of stylistic preferences.
I believe the following is incorrect:
If [we should build more CAFOs of the kind in which animals have above 0 welfare], then [we should build more CAFOs].
Let me rephrase your argument as
If [CAFOs > 0 is should] then [CAFOs is should].
I believe for this to hold you would need to know that [CAFOs < 0] is impossible, not just that [CAFOs > 0] is possible.
Nice! I like that we are clear on the disagreement now.
Let me substantiate my point then with a couple of examples.
- If you ought to plant an apple tree, it follows that you ought to plant a tree.
- If you ought to donate to GiveWell, it follows that you ought to donate to charity.
And so on.
Whenever you ought to do an a specific action of kind A, it follows that you ought to do an action of kind A. (This follows by existential generalization, if you want to go down into the symbolic logic of the argument.)
Furthermore, it can be true that you ought to do an action of kind A, even though, for some specific action t of kind A, if is not true that you ought to to t.
For example:
And so on.
... That's why I don't agree with your last point "I believe for this to hold you would need to know that [CAFOs < 0] is impossible, not just that [CAFOs > 0] is possible."
Okay. Thank you for your patience. I understand your point, and agree with the formal argument.
However, I still disagree. I don't know how to explain why without using some maths.
Let A be a subset of B, both sets of actions. Let G be the set of actions that we ought to do.
Existential generalization is something like
If exists x in A ^ G, exists x in B ^ G.
But this is not how I would expect readers to understand "we ought to build more confined animal feeding operations" in your abstract. This reads like a general recommendation, or even an unqualified/universal statement, not like an existential.
And let me add: even if the formal argument is airtight in your examples, it doesn't sound as obvious (in my intuition, it sounds obviously wrong) in your original case. This suggests that the same words mean different things in the different contexts, at least in how I'm reading it.
Thanks, Clara.
What I'm understanding from what you're saying is this: some people might read my abstract and think that I argue that, if we ought to maximize net aggregate welfare, then we ought to build CAFOs of any kind, including ones in which animals have net negative welfare. Then they read my article and find out that, actually, my argument shows that if we ought to maximize net aggregate welfare, then we ought to build CAFOs of certain kinds, in which animals have net positive welfare. And they might feel disappointed or mislead by that.
To which my response is: Fair! Explaining the difference between CAFOs in which animals have net negative welfare and CAFOs in which they have net positive welfare in the abstract could potentially have forestalled certain misunderstandings.
Yes. I'm one of those possible people. I'm happy to have reached mutual understanding.