The Nonlinear Library EA - Sequence overview: Welfare and moral weights by MichaelStJules
Aug 2, 2024
01:37
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Sequence overview: Welfare and moral weights, published by MichaelStJules on August 2, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum.
EAs and EA organizations may be making important conceptual or methodological errors in prioritization between moral patients. In this sequence, I illustrate and address several:
1. Types of subjective welfare: I review types of subjective welfare, interpersonal comparisons with them and common grounds between them.
2. Solution to the two envelopes problem for moral weights: The welfare concepts we value directly are human-based, so we should normalize nonhuman welfare by human welfare. This would result in greater priority for nonhumans.
3. Which animals realize which types of subjective welfare?: I argue that many nonhuman animals may have access to (simple versions of) types of subjective welfare people may expect to require language or higher self-awareness. This would support further prioritizing them.
4. Increasingly vague interpersonal welfare comparisons: I illustrate that interpersonal welfare comparisons can be vague, and more vague the more different two beings are.
5. Gradations of moral weight: I build a model for moral weight assignments given vagueness and gradations in capacities. I explore whether other moral patients could have greater moral weights than humans through (more sophisticated) capacities we don't have.
For more detailed summaries, see the individual posts.
Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org
EAs and EA organizations may be making important conceptual or methodological errors in prioritization between moral patients. In this sequence, I illustrate and address several:
1. Types of subjective welfare: I review types of subjective welfare, interpersonal comparisons with them and common grounds between them.
2. Solution to the two envelopes problem for moral weights: The welfare concepts we value directly are human-based, so we should normalize nonhuman welfare by human welfare. This would result in greater priority for nonhumans.
3. Which animals realize which types of subjective welfare?: I argue that many nonhuman animals may have access to (simple versions of) types of subjective welfare people may expect to require language or higher self-awareness. This would support further prioritizing them.
4. Increasingly vague interpersonal welfare comparisons: I illustrate that interpersonal welfare comparisons can be vague, and more vague the more different two beings are.
5. Gradations of moral weight: I build a model for moral weight assignments given vagueness and gradations in capacities. I explore whether other moral patients could have greater moral weights than humans through (more sophisticated) capacities we don't have.
For more detailed summaries, see the individual posts.
Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org