Your essay makes me think of a system where you have three things: a human welfare "bucket," values that control how much flows from human to animal welfare at a given time, and another animal welfare "bucket." And human welfare and values are long-term things, which at any given time feed into animal welfare. And you're saying that expanding the animal welfare bucket is not the best long-term intervention for the ultimate purpose of, say, maximizing the combined human and animal welfare. Given that we assume influencing the far future is possible, I don't see any flaw there.
but do you see practical differences between promoting animal causes in the short term and changing values to prioritize animal welfare?
Your essay makes me think of a system where you have three things: a human welfare "bucket," values that control how much flows from human to animal welfare at a given time, and another animal welfare "bucket." And human welfare and values are long-term things, which at any given time feed into animal welfare. And you're saying that expanding the animal welfare bucket is not the best long-term intervention for the ultimate purpose of, say, maximizing the combined human and animal welfare. Given that we assume influencing the far future is possible, I don't see any flaw there.
but do you see practical differences between promoting animal causes in the short term and changing values to prioritize animal welfare?