This is half a criticism and half a reflection of arguments that have been used against my position that I think are problematic. To the extent that you think these arguments are problematic, I probably agree.
is there any reason why we shouldn’t care about the suffering of non-humans?
Resources spent on alleviating the suffering of non-humans are resources that aren’t spent on alleviating the suffering of humans, which I value a lot more.
That’s a false dichotomy. Resources that stop being spent on alleviating the suffering of non-humans do not automatically translate into resources that are spent on alleviating the suffering of humans. Nor is it the case that there are insufficient resources in the world today to eliminate most human suffering. The issue there is purely one of distribution of wealth, not gross wealth.
Yes, but they’re less available. Maybe I triggered the wrong intuition with the word “resources.” I had in mind resources like the time and energy of intelligent people, not resources like money. I think it’s plausible to guess that time and energy spent on one altruistic cause really does funge directly against time and energy spent on others, e.g. because of good-deed-for-the-day effects.
There is nothing inconsistent about valuing the pain of some animals, but not of others. That said, I find the view hard to believe. When I reflect on why I think pain is bad, it seems clear that my belief is grounded in the phenomenology of pain itself, rather than in any biological or cognitive property of the organism undergoing the painful experience.
Pain is bad because it feels bad. That’s why I think pain should be alleviated irrespective of the species in which it occurs.
Truthfully, I’m not even sure I believe pain is bad in the relevant sense. It’s certainly something I’d prefer to avoid under most circumstances, but when I think about it in detail there always ends up being a “because” in there: because it monopolizes attention, because in sufficient quantity it can thoroughly screw up your motivational and emotional machinery, because it’s often attached to particular actions in a way that limits my ability to do things. It doesn’t feel like a root-level aversion to my reasoning self: when I’ve torn a ligament and can’t flex my foot in a certain way without intense stabbing agony, I’m much more annoyed by the things it prevents me from doing than by the pain it gives me, and indeed I remember the former much better than the latter.
I haven’t thought this through rigorously, but if I had to take a stab at it right now I’d say that pain is bad in roughly the same way that pleasure is good: in other words, it works reasonably well as a rough experiential pointer to the things I actually want to avoid, and it does place certain constraints on the kind of life I’d want to live, but I’d expect trying to ground an entire moral system in it to give me some pretty insane results once I started looking at corner cases.
Probably that fish don’t seem to be hugely different from amphibians/reptiles, birds, and mammals in terms of the six substitute-indicators-for-feeling-pain, and so it’s hard to say whether their pain experience is different.
I would agree that fish pain is less relevant than human pain (they have a central nervous system, yes, but less of one, and a huge part of what makes human pain bad is the psychological suffering associated with it).
My claim was that I don’t care about fish pain, not that fish pain is too different from human pain to matter. Rather, fish are too different from humans to matter.
How is the statement “fish and humans feel pain approximately equally” different from the statement “we should care about fish and human pain approximately equally?”
Most people probably wouldn’t consider that moral as such (though they’d likely be okay with it on pragmatic grounds), but the more general idea of treating some people’s pain as more significant than others’ is certainly consistent with a lot of moral systems. Common privileged categories: friends, relatives, children, the weak or helpless, people not considered evil.
It’s perfectly moral for me to be selfish to some degree, yes. I cannot care about others if I don’t care about myself. You might work differently, but utter unselfishness seems like an anomaly.
“I care about X’s pain” is mostly a statement about X, not a statement about pain. I don’t care about fish and I care about humans. You may not share this moral preference, but are you claiming that you don’t even understand it?
No, I have a lot of biases like this: the halo effect makes me think that humans’ ability to do math makes our suffering more important, “what you see is all there is” allows me to believe that slaughterhouses which operate far away must be morally acceptable, and so forth.
Anyway, fish suffering isn’t a make-or-break decision. People very frequently have the opportunity to choose a bean burrito over a chicken one (or even a beef burrito over a chicken one), and from what Peter has presented here it seems like this is an extremely effective way to reduce suffering.
I may be misunderstanding you, but I thought you were suggesting that there is a non-arbitrary set of physiological features that vertebrates share but fish don’t. I was pointing out that this doesn’t seem to be the case.
This is half a criticism and half a reflection of arguments that have been used against my position that I think are problematic. To the extent that you think these arguments are problematic, I probably agree.
Resources spent on alleviating the suffering of non-humans are resources that aren’t spent on alleviating the suffering of humans, which I value a lot more.
That’s a false dichotomy. Resources that stop being spent on alleviating the suffering of non-humans do not automatically translate into resources that are spent on alleviating the suffering of humans. Nor is it the case that there are insufficient resources in the world today to eliminate most human suffering. The issue there is purely one of distribution of wealth, not gross wealth.
Yes, but they’re less available. Maybe I triggered the wrong intuition with the word “resources.” I had in mind resources like the time and energy of intelligent people, not resources like money. I think it’s plausible to guess that time and energy spent on one altruistic cause really does funge directly against time and energy spent on others, e.g. because of good-deed-for-the-day effects.
Why?
(Keeping in mind that we have agreed the basic tenets of utilitarianism are correct: pain is bad etc.)
Oh. No. Human pain is bad. The pain of sufficiently intelligent animals might also be bad. Fish pain and under is irrelevant.
There is nothing inconsistent about valuing the pain of some animals, but not of others. That said, I find the view hard to believe. When I reflect on why I think pain is bad, it seems clear that my belief is grounded in the phenomenology of pain itself, rather than in any biological or cognitive property of the organism undergoing the painful experience.
Pain is bad because it feels bad. That’s why I think pain should be alleviated irrespective of the species in which it occurs.
I don’t share these intuitions. Pain is bad if it happens to something I care about. I don’t care about fish.
I don’t care about fish either. I care about pain. It just so happens that fish can experience pain.
Truthfully, I’m not even sure I believe pain is bad in the relevant sense. It’s certainly something I’d prefer to avoid under most circumstances, but when I think about it in detail there always ends up being a “because” in there: because it monopolizes attention, because in sufficient quantity it can thoroughly screw up your motivational and emotional machinery, because it’s often attached to particular actions in a way that limits my ability to do things. It doesn’t feel like a root-level aversion to my reasoning self: when I’ve torn a ligament and can’t flex my foot in a certain way without intense stabbing agony, I’m much more annoyed by the things it prevents me from doing than by the pain it gives me, and indeed I remember the former much better than the latter.
I haven’t thought this through rigorously, but if I had to take a stab at it right now I’d say that pain is bad in roughly the same way that pleasure is good: in other words, it works reasonably well as a rough experiential pointer to the things I actually want to avoid, and it does place certain constraints on the kind of life I’d want to live, but I’d expect trying to ground an entire moral system in it to give me some pretty insane results once I started looking at corner cases.
You probably don’t want to draw the line at fish.
What point are you trying to make with that link?
Probably that fish don’t seem to be hugely different from amphibians/reptiles, birds, and mammals in terms of the six substitute-indicators-for-feeling-pain, and so it’s hard to say whether their pain experience is different.
I would agree that fish pain is less relevant than human pain (they have a central nervous system, yes, but less of one, and a huge part of what makes human pain bad is the psychological suffering associated with it).
My claim was that I don’t care about fish pain, not that fish pain is too different from human pain to matter. Rather, fish are too different from humans to matter.
Could you expand on this idea?
Fair enough. I think “too X to matter” is a complex concept, though.
How is the statement “fish and humans feel pain approximately equally” different from the statement “we should care about fish and human pain approximately equally?”
You and I feel pain approximately equally, but I care about mine a lot more than about yours.
Do you consider this part of morality?
I mean, I personally experience selfish emotions, but I usually, y’know, try to override them?
Most people probably wouldn’t consider that moral as such (though they’d likely be okay with it on pragmatic grounds), but the more general idea of treating some people’s pain as more significant than others’ is certainly consistent with a lot of moral systems. Common privileged categories: friends, relatives, children, the weak or helpless, people not considered evil.
It’s perfectly moral for me to be selfish to some degree, yes. I cannot care about others if I don’t care about myself. You might work differently, but utter unselfishness seems like an anomaly.
It also seems like a lie (to the self or to others).
Fair enough. To restate but with different emphasis: “we should care about fish and human pain approximately equally?”
“I care about X’s pain” is mostly a statement about X, not a statement about pain. I don’t care about fish and I care about humans. You may not share this moral preference, but are you claiming that you don’t even understand it?
No, I have a lot of biases like this: the halo effect makes me think that humans’ ability to do math makes our suffering more important, “what you see is all there is” allows me to believe that slaughterhouses which operate far away must be morally acceptable, and so forth.
Anyway, fish suffering isn’t a make-or-break decision. People very frequently have the opportunity to choose a bean burrito over a chicken one (or even a beef burrito over a chicken one), and from what Peter has presented here it seems like this is an extremely effective way to reduce suffering.
I may be misunderstanding you, but I thought you were suggesting that there is a non-arbitrary set of physiological features that vertebrates share but fish don’t. I was pointing out that this doesn’t seem to be the case.
No, I’m suggesting that I don’t care about fish.