#182 – Bob Fischer on comparing the welfare of humans, chickens, pigs, octopuses, bees, and more
Mar 8, 2024
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In this engaging conversation, Bob Fischer, a senior research manager at Rethink Priorities and director of the Society for the Study of Ethics and Animals, delves into animal welfare nuances. He explores the complex sentience of various beings—from chickens to octopuses—highlighting their emotional capacities and ethical implications. Fischer discusses the challenges of quantifying welfare and consciousness across species and urges a reassessment of how we prioritize suffering, prompting listeners to rethink their values regarding animal rights and welfare.
Recognizing the individuality and perspective of nonhuman animals challenges our tendency to underestimate their desires and preferences.
Poor research focus has led to biased welfare range estimates for understudied organisms like salmon, highlighting a need for more comprehensive studies.
The limitations of current methodologies impact the accuracy of welfare range estimates for bees, emphasizing the importance of further research and understanding.
Chickens exhibit significant levels of depression and neurologic similarities to humans, raising ethical concerns and prompting behavioral considerations.
The comparison of welfare ranges among different species highlights the nuanced decision-making processes influenced by risk aversion and ethical implications.
Deep dives
Main Idea 1
Octopuses were found to have a welfare range estimate that is roughly one-fifth as intense as humans, indicating a high level of complexity and intelligence in these creatures. With distributed neural systems and remarkable abilities like coordinated planning and facial recognition, octopuses were perceived as highly intricate beings.
Main Idea 2
Salmon exhibited a welfare range estimate that is about 5-6% of a human, showcasing a bias against understudied organisms and a general lack of research into the cognitive and affective lives of the animals. Including a case of dropout fish in farm contexts highlighted the stress and behavioral issues faced by salmon in artificial environments.
Main Idea 3
Bees were determined to have a welfare range estimate largely influenced by studiedness, leading to a figure of around 7% compared to humans. The charismatic nature of bees contributed to a more comprehensive understanding of their abilities, while acknowledging the limitations of the methodology due to lack of research focus.
Main Idea 4
Chickens were evaluated to have a welfare range estimate of approximately one-third as intense as humans, emphasizing the similarities in neurology between chickens and humans. Research literature showed a capacity for experiencing depression in chickens, prompting considerations on behavioral implications and the ethical dimensions of studying these organisms.
Octopuses and Multiple Minds Hypothesis
Octopuses have raised questions about the idea of whether they possess multiple minds due to their distributed cognition and behavioral attributes. The speculation arises from observations of octopuses' arms seemingly operating independently from the main cognitive focus of the organism, leading to pondering on the coordination of numerous neurons acting quasi-independently. However, empirical evidence is inconclusive, and the concept is considered speculative and complex.
Welfare Ranges and Sentience in Organisms
The project's outcomes suggested welfare ranges for various species within close proximity to each other in terms of moral importance, with humans fairly comparable to animals like pigs, chickens, and fish. The concept of risk aversion in decision-making alters considerations, including worst-case outcome avoidance, difference-making, and ambiguity aversion. Ambiguity aversion specifically pertains to discomfort with situations of uncertain probability distributions, impacting decisions related to entities with less well-defined roles, such as invertebrates.
Ethical Implications and Risk Aversion in Decision-Making
Ethical implications arise when considering how the relative moral importance of organisms influences decision-making. Risk aversion types such as worst-case outcome avoidance, difference-making focus, and ambiguity aversion play significant roles in determining actions towards entities with varying welfare ranges and uncertain moral standing. Balancing these risk attitudes can lead to nuanced choices in addressing moral weights and welfare considerations across diverse species.
The importance of risk aversion in decision-making
The podcast discusses the significance of risk aversion in decision-making, emphasizing the distinction between outcome-oriented and epistemic ways of caring about risk. Different levels of risk aversion can impact how decisions are prioritized, especially when considering ambiguous or uncertain information.
Exploring the significance of hedonism in determining welfare
The episode delves into the concept of hedonism as a determinant of welfare, highlighting the balance between positive and negative valenced experiences. Through a thought experiment involving 'tortured Tim', the discussion challenges assumptions about the weight of non-hedonic goods in comparison to hedonic considerations, raising questions about their varying impacts on individual well-being.
"[One] thing is just to spend time thinking about the kinds of things animals can do and what their lives are like. Just how hard a chicken will work to get to a nest box before she lays an egg, the amount of labour she’s willing to go through to do that, to think about how important that is to her. And to realise that we can quantify that, and see how much they care, or to see that they get stressed out when fellow chickens are threatened and that they seem to have some sympathy for conspecifics.
"Those kinds of things make me say there is something in there that is recognisable to me as another individual, with desires and preferences and a vantage point on the world, who wants things to go a certain way and is frustrated and upset when they don’t. And recognising the individuality, the perspective of nonhuman animals, for me, really challenges my tendency to not take them as seriously as I think I ought to, all things considered." — Bob Fischer
The methods used to assess the welfare ranges and capacities for pleasure and pain of chickens, pigs, octopuses, bees, and other animals — and the limitations of that approach.
Concrete examples of how someone might use the estimated moral weights to compare the benefits of animal vs human interventions.
The results that most surprised Bob.
Why the team used a hedonic theory of welfare to inform the project, and what non-hedonic theories of welfare might bring to the table.
Thought experiments like Tortured Tim that test different philosophical assumptions about welfare.
Confronting our own biases when estimating animal mental capacities and moral worth.
The limitations of using neuron counts as a proxy for moral weights.
How different types of risk aversion, like avoiding worst-case scenarios, could impact cause prioritisation.
And plenty more.
Chapters:
Welfare ranges (00:10:19)
Historical assessments (00:16:47)
Method (00:24:02)
The present / absent approach (00:27:39)
Results (00:31:42)
Chickens (00:32:42)
Bees (00:50:00)
Salmon and limits of methodology (00:56:18)
Octopuses (01:00:31)
Pigs (01:27:50)
Surprises about the project (01:30:19)
Objections to the project (01:34:25)
Alternative decision theories and risk aversion (01:39:14)
Hedonism assumption (02:00:54)
Producer and editor: Keiran Harris Audio Engineering Lead: Ben Cordell Technical editing: Simon Monsour and Milo McGuire Additional content editing: Katy Moore and Luisa Rodriguez Transcriptions: Katy Moore
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