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.)
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.)