When people consider it worse for a species to go from 1000 to 0 members, I think it’s mostly due to aesthetic value (people value the existence of a species, independent of the individuals), and because of option value (we might eventually find a good reason to bring back the animals, or find the information in their genome important, and then it’s important that a few remain). However, none of these have much to do with the value of individual animals’ experiences, which usually is what I think about when people talk about animals’ “moral weight”. People would probably also find it tragic for plants to go extinct (and do find languages going extinct tragic), despite these having no neurons at all. I think the distinction becomes more clear if we consider experiences instead of existence: to me, it’s very counterintuitive to think that an elephant’s suffering matter less if there are more elephants elsewhere in the world.
To be fair, scope insensitivity is a known bias (though you might dispute it being a bias, in these cases), so even if you account for aesthetic value and option value, you could probably get sublinear additivity out of most people’s revealed preference. On reflection, I personally reject this for animals, though, for the same reasons that I reject it for humans.
When people consider it worse for a species to go from 1000 to 0 members, I think it’s mostly due to aesthetic value (people value the existence of a species, independent of the individuals), and because of option value
Yes, these are among the reasons why moral value is not linearly additive. I agree.
People would probably also find it tragic for plants to go extinct (and do find languages going extinct tragic), despite these having no neurons at all.
Indeed, things other than neurons have value.
I personally reject this for animals, though, for the same reasons that I reject it for humans.
Really? You consider it to be equivalently bad for there to be a plague that kills 100,000 humans in a world with a population of 100,000 than in a world with a population of 7,000,000,000?
Yes, these are among the reasons why moral value is not linearly additive. I agree.
I think the SSC post should only be construed as arguing about the value of individual animals’ experiences, and that it intentionally ignores these other sources of values. I agree with the SSC post that it’s useful to consider the value of individual animals’ experiences (what I would call their ‘moral weight’) independently of the aesthetic value and the option value of the species that they belong to. Insofar as you agree that individual animals’ experiences add up linearly, you don’t disagree with the post. Insofar as you think that individual animals’ experiences add up sub-linearly, I think you shouldn’t use species’ extinction as an example, since the aesthetic value and the option value are confounding factors.
Really? You consider it to be equivalently bad for there to be a plague that kills 100,000 humans in a world with a population of 100,000 than in a world with a population of 7,000,000,000?
I consider it equally bad for the individual, dying humans, which is what I meant when I said that I reject scope insensitivity. However, the former plague will presumably eliminate the potential for humanity having a long future, and that will be the most relevant consideration in the scenario. (This will probably make the former scenario far worse, but you could add other details to the scenario that reversed that conclusion.)
Yes, these are among the reasons why moral value is not linearly additive.
The moral value can still be linearly additive, but additive over more variables than the ones you considered. For example, the existence of the species, and the existence of future members of the species.
When people consider it worse for a species to go from 1000 to 0 members, I think it’s mostly due to aesthetic value (people value the existence of a species, independent of the individuals), and because of option value (we might eventually find a good reason to bring back the animals, or find the information in their genome important, and then it’s important that a few remain). However, none of these have much to do with the value of individual animals’ experiences, which usually is what I think about when people talk about animals’ “moral weight”. People would probably also find it tragic for plants to go extinct (and do find languages going extinct tragic), despite these having no neurons at all. I think the distinction becomes more clear if we consider experiences instead of existence: to me, it’s very counterintuitive to think that an elephant’s suffering matter less if there are more elephants elsewhere in the world.
To be fair, scope insensitivity is a known bias (though you might dispute it being a bias, in these cases), so even if you account for aesthetic value and option value, you could probably get sublinear additivity out of most people’s revealed preference. On reflection, I personally reject this for animals, though, for the same reasons that I reject it for humans.
Yes, these are among the reasons why moral value is not linearly additive. I agree.
Indeed, things other than neurons have value.
Really? You consider it to be equivalently bad for there to be a plague that kills 100,000 humans in a world with a population of 100,000 than in a world with a population of 7,000,000,000?
I think the SSC post should only be construed as arguing about the value of individual animals’ experiences, and that it intentionally ignores these other sources of values. I agree with the SSC post that it’s useful to consider the value of individual animals’ experiences (what I would call their ‘moral weight’) independently of the aesthetic value and the option value of the species that they belong to. Insofar as you agree that individual animals’ experiences add up linearly, you don’t disagree with the post. Insofar as you think that individual animals’ experiences add up sub-linearly, I think you shouldn’t use species’ extinction as an example, since the aesthetic value and the option value are confounding factors.
I consider it equally bad for the individual, dying humans, which is what I meant when I said that I reject scope insensitivity. However, the former plague will presumably eliminate the potential for humanity having a long future, and that will be the most relevant consideration in the scenario. (This will probably make the former scenario far worse, but you could add other details to the scenario that reversed that conclusion.)
The moral value can still be linearly additive, but additive over more variables than the ones you considered. For example, the existence of the species, and the existence of future members of the species.