Thanks for posting and for being open to outside perspectives!

The most obvious thing to ask is whether you've engaged with the previous literature on the cost-effectiveness of animal charities. For example, in October 2023, Rethink Priorities estimated that 1,132 DALYs are averted per $1,000 donated to corporate cage-free campaigns using their moral weights, and that 73 DALYs are averted per $1,000 if you assume low moral weights for chickens. They also found that shrimp stunning interventions may avert 38 DALYs per $1,000 donated to them, using their own moral weights. This compared with 19.1 DALYs averted per $1,000 donated to the Against Malaria Foundation. You can also check out their cross-cause cost-effectiveness model and play around with it.

The other question is what you mean when you say "my moral weights clearly go towards the humans here". Does this mean that you're solely incorporating the probability of sentience and the intensity of pleasure and suffering that each species experiences, or are you smuggling in speciesist discounts to your moral weights? Also, what would be your bar for preferring to donate to an animal charity? That should probably be worked out beforehand, otherwise the goalposts could shift.

Finally, I think each charity should be evaluated on its own merits. I don't think The Humane League and Shrimp Welfare Project can be grouped together in the you've done, for instance. They do quite different things!

As I commented there: I don't think this is the kind of "ends justify the means" reasoning that MacAskill is objecting to. Vasco isn’t arguing that we should break the law. He’s just doing a fairly standard EA cause prioritization analysis. Arguing that people should not donate to global health doesn't even contradict common-sense morality because as we see from the world around us, common-sense morality holds that it's perfectly permissible to let hundreds or thousands of children die of preventable diseases. Utilitarians and other consequentialists are the ones who hold "weird" views here, because we reject the act/omission distinction in the first place.

(For my part, I try to donate in such a way that I'm net-positive from the perspective of someone like Vasco as well as global health advocates.)

It is admirable that you acknowledge that you are not using “reason and evidence to do the most good” and that you presumably accept that you have no leg to stand on when trying to persuade nativists who assign zero weight to people who live in other countries to give more to those who live abroad.

Common-sense morality has nothing to say about cause prioritisation in the first place, so it rejects the problem only in the sense that it doesn’t subscribe to standard EA cause-neutrality and prioritisation frameworks. Global health EAs also violate common-sense morality when they argue that charity doesn’t begin at home (as in, within one’s own country). This is to be expected: EAs are committed to impartiality and welfarism, and the vast majority of humans are not.

Thank you for writing this, it was an interesting read.

Common sense morality is great. As Sidgwick argued, it's actually a good approximation of utilitarianism: a utilitarian does want a world in which people do not steal or kill, and in which humans (being humans) look after their family and friends.

However, common sense morality is also a bit incoherent and contradictory, and (as you demonstrate) it has very little to say about how to prioritize when it comes to our positive duties toward other sentient beings. In my view (and in Sidgwick's), utilitarianism best resolves these contradictions and guides us when it comes to prioritization. 

I don't think common sense morality has much to say about prioritization, because it barely asks us to do anything for others in the first place. It is, after all, relatively comfortable with thousands of children dying of preventable diseases each day, and with the suffering of billions of factory farmed animals each year. If you think these things require urgent action, all it has to say is "that's fine, you do you". 

So I don't think the common sense moralist can, on the one hand, say that we aren't obligated to help other sentient beings, and then presume to tell those of us who do believe we are obligated to help other sentient beings how we should go about this. In other words, I don't think that utilitarian conclusions about prioritization do go against common sense morality, because common sense morality has little to say about prioritization.

I'm not saying anything novel here. Indeed, you acknowledge this point when you say: "it is true that incommensurability of values does not provide immediate tools to weigh in different values. For example, how should we prioritize funding or reform efforts between health, education or housing?"

I don't think the problem that common sense morality has with prioritization can be "explained away", despite your attempt to do so. Ethics is about asking how we ought to live, and if an ethical theory cannot provide answers to this question, it should be discarded. And I disagree that utilitarians are ourselves guilty of "explaining away" when we "moderate" our conclusions. In fact, utilitarians are obligated to take human nature (including our own) into account, so considerations about burnout and human emotion when it comes to donations and careers aren't merely "secondary considerations" but an integral part of applying utilitarianism in a sophisticated way.

Given that EAs are tentatively committed to impartiality and welfarism, I don't think the beliefs are particularly unconventional on this Forum. 

It is also highly controversial to state that charity doesn't begin at home (as in, within one's country) and that we should instead equally consider the welfare of people no matter where they live. But it shouldn't be controversial on this Forum.

Sophisticated (as opposed to naive) utilitarians shouldn't break the law or violate commonly accepted negative duties. But they can say that one should donate to Cause X instead of Cause Y (and common-sense morality says it's fine to donate to neither!) So I disagree that the same logic could be used to justify breaking the law.

I don't think this is an example of "naive utilitarianism". It's a fairly standard EA cause prioritization analysis. Vasco is not arguing that we ought to break the law, or even that we should go against common-sense morality. 

Indeed, common-sense morality finds itself in a bit of a pickle on this question: it cannot object to someone arguing that we ought not to donate to global health charities, because (as we see from the world around us) it deems it permissible to let thousands of children die every day of preventable disease. EAs (particularly the more utilitarian/consequentialist ones) are the weird ones because we reject the act/omission distinction.

(For my part, I try to donate in such a way that I'm net-positive from the perspective of both anti-speciesist animal welfare and global health advocates.)

I don't think this is the kind of "ends justify the means" reasoning that MacAskill is objecting to. @Vasco Grilo🔸is not arguing that we should break the law. He is just doing a fairly standard EA cause prioritization analysis. Arguing that people should not donate to global health doesn't even contradict common-sense morality because as we see from the world around us, common-sense morality holds that it's perfectly permissible to let hundreds or thousands of children die of preventable diseases. Utilitarians and other consequentialists are the ones who hold "weird" views here, because we reject the act/omission distinction in the first place.

(For my part, I try to donate in such a way that I'm net-positive from the perspective of someone like Vasco as well as global health advocates.)

Thanks for getting back to me. I think there is a spectrum of interpretations of Paragraph 29, some more favourable and some less favourable to animals. 

The least favourable interpretation is that the law does not provide farms with a "conditional permission" - that is, the law does not establish a prohibition on the keeping of farmed animals subject to a "proviso". This was the position taken by a High Court judge in May 2023, and would have ruled out private prosecutions of farms.

The "victory" in the Court of Appeal came in the Court's ruling that:

Paragraph 29 is correctly characterisied as a prohibition which is subject to a proviso. The keeping of animals for farming purposes is prohibited unless it can reasonably be expected, on the basis of their genotype or phenotype, that they can be kept without any detrimental effect on their health and welfare... In this respect, therefore, [the Court does not] agree with the view of the judge, who considered that Paragraph 29 could not be read this way.

As Essex Court Chambers put it: 

In disagreement with the judge, the Court held in summary that the relevant paragraphs of the Regulations establish a prohibition on the keeping of farmed animals which have been bred by genetic selection with a view to achieving certain characteristics, unless it can reasonably be expected on the basis of the way that they have been bred that the animals can be kept without any detrimental effect on health and welfare... The Judgment is a significant analysis of the legal obligations that apply to keepers of meat chickens and is likely to have consequences for farmed animals generally. The way forward will be a matter for the Government or the courts in the event of prosecutions.

It is true that the most favourable interpretation for animals - that the law establishes a prohibition on the keeping of farmed animals in the conditions that they are likely to be kept - was not upheld by the Court. 

But I maintain that while this means that the bar is high, I don't think it's as high as it seems at first glance. You rightly point out that the Court said that "Paragraph 29 is a prohibition on the keeping of farmed animals whose genotype and phenotype mean that, regardless of the conditions in which they are kept, they cannot be kept without detriment to their health or welfare". 

But they go on to say: 

However, this needs some further explanation. There is a difference between detrimental characteristics which are inherent in the nature of the breed and which cannot be mitigated by changing the environmental conditions in which the animal is kept, and those which can be so mitigated... the conclusions contained in the RSPCA Report, if valid... appear to illustrate this difference. If it is correct (and I emphasise 'if') that, when compared with slow-growing chickens, a particular breed of fast-growing chickens suffers from increased heart problems with consequential higher mortality, or leg development disorders because the chicken cannot support its own weight, it would seem likely (contrary to the Secretary of State's view, although this is ultimately a matter for scientific evidence) that no improvement in the environmental conditions in which such chickens are kept could mitigate those detrimental effects upon their health or welfare. Those consequences would be inherent in the particular breed of chicken and the keeping of such a breed would be prohibited by Paragraph 29. The same might be true of the problems caused by hock burn and foot burn as a result of prolonged periods of inactivity.

Similarly, Welfare Footprint write: "Although the adoption of better management practices – including lower stocking density, longer resting times and the provision of enrichment – is beneficial and desirable for improving broiler welfare, their impact is limited if the negative welfare effects inherently associated with the genetics for fast growth are not addressed."

One question I do have is why THL UK took DEFRA to Court, instead of bringing a private prosecution of a factory farm. One reason might be that this was an attempt to affect the whole industry, whereas any positive Judgment in the case of a particular farm might still only apply to that farm, even if it establishes a precedent that can be used to bring successful prosecutions against other farms. In other words, taking DEFRA to Court may have been considered a quicker and more efficient route.

This might be of interest to: @Ozzie Gooen @MHR @MichaelStJules @bruce @Rasool.