I would guess that most people who are serious enough about these types of questions to be involved in animal EA would probably distinguish between different animals. I feel like after reading about (sorry, I’m not going to take the time to dig up the sources) the subject and talking to some people in the EA community, my views are now approximately:
-80% confident factory-farmed, caged, chickens are net negative (agree they’re less similar to humans, but the conditions are so bad, that the physical pain alone seems very bad)
-70% confident factory-farmed pigs are net negative (better conditions than chickens, but seem more likely to be bothered emotionally by being in captivity)
-70% confident factory-farmed cattle are net positive (probably depends on the farm and how much time they spend on a grass diet)
By net positive/negative, I mean just for the animal itself, not for the world, which might require health and environmental concerns, though I tend to think animal welfare is the largest factor in most cases. Also, confidence that their lives are net positive or negative does not really matter as much as the distribution of how positive or negative, but obviously that would be a lot harder to communicate quickly here.
I assume most other birds are treated like chickens, though I don’t really know. I have not given enough thought to fish.
For reference, I’m only like 80% sure that the average human life is net positive. It just seems like a really hard thing to know, but that’s a conversation for another time. I’m just stating this for calibration.
I would guess that most people who are serious enough about these types of questions to be involved in animal EA would probably distinguish between different animals. I feel like after reading about (sorry, I’m not going to take the time to dig up the sources) the subject and talking to some people in the EA community, my views are now approximately:
-80% confident factory-farmed, caged, chickens are net negative (agree they’re less similar to humans, but the conditions are so bad, that the physical pain alone seems very bad)
-70% confident factory-farmed pigs are net negative (better conditions than chickens, but seem more likely to be bothered emotionally by being in captivity)
-70% confident factory-farmed cattle are net positive (probably depends on the farm and how much time they spend on a grass diet)
By net positive/negative, I mean just for the animal itself, not for the world, which might require health and environmental concerns, though I tend to think animal welfare is the largest factor in most cases. Also, confidence that their lives are net positive or negative does not really matter as much as the distribution of how positive or negative, but obviously that would be a lot harder to communicate quickly here.
I assume most other birds are treated like chickens, though I don’t really know. I have not given enough thought to fish.
For reference, I’m only like 80% sure that the average human life is net positive. It just seems like a really hard thing to know, but that’s a conversation for another time. I’m just stating this for calibration.