It seems to me that this logic necessarily makes you choose torture over dust specks, since one can construct a nearly continuous sequence of animals between chickens and humans and patch the gaps, if any, with probabilities. But you are probably OK with that, since you write
While I’m uncertain where along there things start getting up to significant levels, I think it’s probably somewhere that includes no or almost no animals but nearly all humans.
and this argument breaks down once you start making comparisons like “0.01% odds of one human dying now vs all animals dying now” or “1 day reduction in the life expectancy of one human vs all animals dying now” etc.
It seems to me that this logic necessarily makes you choose torture over dust specks, since one can construct a nearly continuous sequence of animals between chickens and humans and patch the gaps, if any, with probabilities. But you are probably OK with that, since you write
and this argument breaks down once you start making comparisons like “0.01% odds of one human dying now vs all animals dying now” or “1 day reduction in the life expectancy of one human vs all animals dying now” etc.
There are animals (chimps etc) where I think the chance that they have moral worth is too large to ignore, so “all animals dying now” would be bad.
I don’t understand how you’re bringing in torture and specks.