Sequence overview: Welfare and moral weights

post by MichaelStJules · 2024-08-15T04:22:32.567Z · LW · GW · 0 comments

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We may be making important conceptual or methodological errors in prioritization between moral patients. In this sequence [? · GW], I illustrate and address several:

  1. Types of subjective welfare [LW · GW]: I review types of subjective welfare, interpersonal comparisons with them and common grounds between them.
  2. Solution to the two envelopes problem for moral weights [LW · GW]: The welfare concepts we value directly are human-based, so we should normalize nonhuman welfare by human welfare. This would increase the priority for nonhumans.
  3. Which animals realize which types of subjective welfare? [LW · GW]: I argue that many nonhuman animals may have access to (simple versions of) types of subjective welfare people may expect to require language or higher self-awareness. This would support further prioritizing them.
  4. Increasingly vague interpersonal welfare comparisons [LW · GW]: I illustrate that interpersonal welfare comparisons can be vague, and more vague the more different two beings are.
  5. Gradations of moral weight [LW · GW]: I build a model for moral weight assignments given vagueness and gradations in capacities. I explore whether other moral patients could have greater moral weights than humans through (more sophisticated) capacities we don’t have.
  6. Pleasure and suffering are not conceptual opposites [LW · GW]: Suffering is probably (at least) unpleasantness + desire (motivational salience), not just unpleasantness. So suffering is not the opposite of pleasure.

For more detailed summaries, see the individual posts.

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