You seem to be arguing “your theory of moral worth is incomplete, so I don’t have to believe it”. Which is true. But without presenting a better or even different theory of moral worth, it seems like you’re mostly just doing that because you don’t want to believe it.
I would overall summarize my views on the numbers in the RP report as “These provides zero information, you should update to where you would be before you read them.” Of course you can still update on the fact that different animals have complex behaviour, but then you’ll have to make the case for “You should consider bees to be morally important because they can count and show social awareness”. This is a valid argument! It trades the faux-objectivity of the RP report for the much more useful property of being something that can actually be attacked and defended.
I don’t see why you’d say hair color is obviously a pretty bad criteria but judgments about relative worth are pretty much totally arbitrary and aesthetic. I agree that judgments about moral worth are essentially arbitrary and aesthetic, but surely some claims about relative worth are more self-consistent than others (and probably by a lot), just like hair color.
I addressed this in another comment but if you want me to give more thoughts I can.
So I think there are less-wrong answers out there, we just don’t have them yet. But the best answer we have thus far is 7-15%, and dismissing that without addressing the arguments for why that’s the most consistent position seems to contradict your own stated position that there are more and less consistent arguments
The thing I take issue with is using the RP report as a Schelling point/anchor point that we have to argue away from. When evidence and theory are both scarce, choosing the Schelling point is most of the argument, and I think the RP report gives zero information.
I agree that you need an argument for “you should consider bees to be morally important because they can count and show social awareness” I was filling that argument in. To me it seems intuitive and a reasonable baseline assumption, but it’s totally reasonable that it doesn’t seem that way to you.
(It’s the same argument I make in a comment justifying neuron count as very rough proxy for moral consideration I in response to Kaj Sotala’s related short form. I do suspect that in this case many of bees cognitive abilities do not correlate with whatever-you-want-to-call-consciousness/sentience in the same way they would in mammals, which is one of the reasons I’ll continue eating honey occasionally.)
Agreed that trying to insist on a Schelling or anchor point is bad argumentation without a full justification. How much justification it needs is in the eye of the beholder. It seems reasonable to me for reasons to complex to go into, and reasonable that it doesn’t to you since you don’t share those background assumptions/reasoning.
I would overall summarize my views on the numbers in the RP report as “These provides zero information, you should update to where you would be before you read them.” Of course you can still update on the fact that different animals have complex behaviour, but then you’ll have to make the case for “You should consider bees to be morally important because they can count and show social awareness”. This is a valid argument! It trades the faux-objectivity of the RP report for the much more useful property of being something that can actually be attacked and defended.
I addressed this in another comment but if you want me to give more thoughts I can.
The thing I take issue with is using the RP report as a Schelling point/anchor point that we have to argue away from. When evidence and theory are both scarce, choosing the Schelling point is most of the argument, and I think the RP report gives zero information.
All good points.
I agree that you need an argument for “you should consider bees to be morally important because they can count and show social awareness” I was filling that argument in. To me it seems intuitive and a reasonable baseline assumption, but it’s totally reasonable that it doesn’t seem that way to you.
(It’s the same argument I make in a comment justifying neuron count as very rough proxy for moral consideration I in response to Kaj Sotala’s related short form. I do suspect that in this case many of bees cognitive abilities do not correlate with whatever-you-want-to-call-consciousness/sentience in the same way they would in mammals, which is one of the reasons I’ll continue eating honey occasionally.)
Agreed that trying to insist on a Schelling or anchor point is bad argumentation without a full justification. How much justification it needs is in the eye of the beholder. It seems reasonable to me for reasons to complex to go into, and reasonable that it doesn’t to you since you don’t share those background assumptions/reasoning.