Gary Comstock

Consequentialism is thought to be in significant conflict with animal rights theory because it does not regard activities such as confinement, killing, and exploitation as in principle morally wrong. Proponents of the “Logic of the Larder” argue that consequentialism results in an implausibly pro-exploitation stance, permitting us to eat farmed animals with positive well- being to ensure future such animals exist. Proponents of the “Logic of the Logger” argue that consequentialism results in an implausibly anti-conservationist stance, permitting us to exterminate wild animals with negative well-being to ensure future such animals do not exist. We argue that this conflict is overstated. Once we have properly accounted for indirect effects, such as the role that our policies play in shaping moral attitudes and behavior and the importance of accepting policies that are robust against deviation, we can see that consequentialism may converge with animal rights theory significantly, even if not entirely.

Should we accept that different moral norms govern our treatment of human and nonhuman animals? In this paper I suggest that the answer is both yes and no. At the theoretical level of morality, a single, unified set of norms governs our treatment of all sentient beings. But at the practical level of morality, different sets of norms can govern our treatment of different groups in different contexts. And whether we accept that we should, say, respect rights or maximize utility at the theoretical level, we might also accept that we should apply a relatively Kantian set of norms to our treatment of humans and a relatively utilitarian set of norms to our treatment of nonhumans in practice, with many caveats. I argue that this moderate “monist in theory, hybrid in practice” view has many advantages over fully monist or hybrid alternatives.

This paper considers questions that small animals and AI systems raise for utilitarianism. Specifically, if these beings have more welfare than humans and other large animals, then utilitarianism implies that we should prioritize them, all else equal. This could lead to a ‘rebugnant conclusion’, according to which we should, say, create large populations of small animals rather than small populations of large animals. It could also lead to a ‘Pascal’s bugging’, according to which we should, say, prioritize large populations of small animals even if they have a low chance of being sentient. I suggest that utilitarians should accept these implications in theory but might be able to avoid some of them in practice.

In the future, when we compare the welfare of a being of one substrate (say, a human) with the welfare of another (say, an artificial intelligence system), we will be making an intersubstrate welfare comparison. In this paper, we argue that intersubstrate welfare comparisons are important, difficult, and potentially tractable. The world might soon contain a vast number of sentient or otherwise significant beings of different substrates, and moral agents will need to be able to compare their welfare levels. However, this work will be difficult, because we lack the same kinds of commonalities across substrates that we have within them. Fortunately, we might be able to make at least some intersubstrate welfare comparisons responsibly in spite of these issues. We make the case for cautious optimism and call for more research.