The Basic Case Against Human-First Ethics

[u/James_Brobin]

https://jamesbrobin.substack.com/p/should-we-take-a-human-first-approach

In this post, I argue that we shouldn't prioritize humans over other animals in moral decision-making. I specifically argue against the views that:

1. Human suffering is more important than animal suffering
2. Animals suffer vastly less than humans
3. We, as humans, have a unique obligation to help other humans
4. Helping humans is best long-term

(This is relevant to EA since it's about cause prioritization, the second argument draws on Bob Fischer's work, and the fourth argument pushes against prioritizing global health and development over animal welfare.)

[u/DavisKennethM]

Thanks for sharing this, it was very thoughtful and gave me a lot to consider. I found myself considering a few questions as I read, and I'm curious about your thoughts.

none of these differences indicate that humans experience more pain than other animals

How do you factor in emotional, social, and psychological pain when it comes to suffering?

Could more social, intelligent, and abstract-thinking animals experience a greater range or duration of suffering through anticipation, grief, rumination, or comparison?

Since animals are unable to help themselves, it seems like we have an inherent obligation to help them.

Should we prioritize reducing suffering that we cause or contribute to before otherwise equivalent suffering we are not responsible for?

If so, do our obligations differ at the individual, community, nation-state, and species levels?

this argument relies on the view that we can predictably determine the effects of our actions over very long timelines.

How do you factor in relatively persistent historical improvements in human health, wealth, technology, rights, and capabilities despite short-term volatility and unpredictable causes?

Do we need to confidently predict the long-term effects of any individual intervention to have reasonable confidence that the aggregate impact of our investments in humans will continue to compound over longer timelines?

More importantly, could discounting the importance of these investments because of their unpredictability actually slow this progress, leading to far more suffering in the meantime?

[u/James_Brobin → u/DavisKennethM]

Thanks for your thoughtful questions!

1. How do you factor in emotional, social, and psychological pain when it comes to suffering?

So, the big question here is whether different types of pain crowd each other out. Can people be in so much physical pain that they don't experience emotional pain or vice versa? I really don't know. Since the same parts of our brain are used to create different kinds of pain (afaik, I'm not a biologist), it would make me think this is not the case.

But, yeah, this could indicate more baseline pain since an animal is unlikely to be experiencing the most significant pain at all time. (I was thinking about peak pain intensity, whereas you might be thinking about average pain.)

1. Could more social, intelligent, and abstract-thinking animals experience a greater range or duration of suffering through anticipation, grief, rumination, or comparison?

Yeah, so I think these could increase one's average amount of pain since they're experiencing both emotional pain from thinking about pain as well as the physical pain itself.

It also makes sense that the duration of pain would increase since thinking about pain could cause it to persist for long.

It also makes sense that these animals would experience more average pain since more situations would cause them to experience it. For instance, a chicken may be far less distressed than a pig in the same environment since it seems like pigs can experience boredom far more easily.

1. Should we prioritize reducing suffering that we cause or contribute to before otherwise equivalent suffering we are not responsible for?

Since I'm a consequentialist, I don't think that whether we have caused suffering affects our responsibilities very much. In general, people should reverse harms that they have caused since that would create a more harmonious society. But, I do think, for instance, that it could be plausible that the animal movement should focus much of its resources on wild animals even if we haven't affected them very much.

A thought experiment to suggest this is the following.

Imagine that you hit someone in the leg, and it injures them. You get medicine to help the person, but, when you come back, you find that someone else is in far more pain than they are. It seems like you should help the second person even though you hurt the first one.

1. If so, do our obligations differ at the individual, community, nation-state, and species levels?

I think our main obligations are at the level of helping all beings, although there is still significant value in helping all the other levels since it's not an either/or choice. For instance, I host a lot of events in my community. This doesn't really contradict utilitarianism because, if I weren't hosting events, I would still be doing something social instead.

1. How do you factor in relatively persistent historical improvements in human health, wealth, technology, rights, and capabilities despite short-term volatility and unpredictable causes?

I think this is the best argument against my view. One problem with this is that, even if you expect things to continue getting better as they have, it's pretty unclear what we should be doing to have the most positive effect long-term. It could be that we should be investing in science, but it also could be that we should be trying to speed the rate of moral progress such as by normalizing caring about the interests of animals. If you have a very clear view of the future, it's very clear what we should do, but I don't feel like we can get a very clear view at all. If you asked someone in 1900 what the world's most important problems would be, they would probably be pretty far off. I think we should expect ourselves to be too.

1. Do we need to confidently predict the long-term effects of any individual intervention to have reasonable confidence that the aggregate impact of our investments in humans will continue to compound over longer timelines?

I'm not saying we have to know what the exact effects of our actions are, but I do think that it's hard to confident what the effect size of compounding will be or whether compounding will even occur. For instance, it seems like investments in science may compound, but global health investments seem less clear. If we help people in a village, it may have minimal effects on the population in the long-run, especially if we think about effects from emigration.

1. More importantly, could discounting the importance of these investments because of their unpredictability actually slow this progress, leading to far more suffering in the meantime?

That's a real risk. I think about this a lot. I'm really unsure about what time horizons we should be thinking about and how confident we should be about what the future will look like.