Volume XII · The Essentials of Animal Ethics · chapter 9
What Criteria Should We Use to Help Efficiently?
Before you read study layer, not part of the original text
To help effectively, we use criteria: seriousness (the number of victims and how bad it is for each one), tractability, neglect, size of the benefit, long-term effects, and tackling causes, not just symptoms.
If you want to help as much as possible, ask: Where are the most individuals suffering? Where can the problem be solved? Where is almost nobody helping? What helps now and in the future too?
Preventing fires helps more than rushing to every fire, because it tackles the cause.
- P1 Resources are limited, so where we apply them matters.
- P2 Seriousness, tractability, neglect, and size of benefit guide the choice.
- P3 Long-term effects can reverse what looks best in the short term.
- P4 Tackling causes, such as speciesism, has great potential over time.
- C So these criteria let us help more effectively.
The chapter’s central argument in logical form. If the premises are true, the conclusion follows. To disagree, you have to show which premise is false.
They say “It is always better to tackle the most serious problem.”
Answer Not always: if the resource helps many more victims in another problem that is just as bad, or if the benefit is much larger, it may be worth prioritizing that one.
More objections and answers in Debunking objections.
Original text Luciano Carlos Cunha · Volume XII, p. 37 of the PDF edition · English translation
Suppose our goal is to make the world a less bad place, and that we want to do so as efficiently as possible. What criteria can we use to select: (1) which causes to prioritize, (2) which problems to prioritize within these causes, and (3) to choose strategies? Below is a list of criteria that have been proposed33.
| Criteria | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Severity of the situation. (VIII, ch. 1.2). | It is usually measured by taking into account both of the following factors: (1) The number of victims (2) How bad each victim's situation is |
| When one problem has more victims, but in another the victims are in a worse situation, how should we proceed? (VIII, ch. 1.2; XI, ch. 1.6 and 7). | One possibility is to ask: (1) How much worse does the minority's situation need to be for them to have priority? (2) How much larger does the number of victims who are not in the worst situation need to be for them to have priority? However, there are several other possibilities, which are addressed in: VIII, ch. 1.2; XI, ch. 1.6, 7. |
| Tractability of the problem. (VIII, ch. 1.3). | Example. Problem A: 900,000 victims. Problem B: 500,000 victims. The victims of A and B are in equally bad situations. By the severity of the situation, we should prioritize A. But suppose that, with the resources we have, we can either help 400,000 victims of A or help to the same extent 450,000 victims of B. Thus, although A is a worse situation, it is B that presents the worse situation that can be improved. |
| Degree of neglect. (VIII, ch. 1.7). | The greater the number of people already involved in trying to solve a problem, the greater the probability that the problem will be minimized without our help. And the more neglected a cause, the more difference each additional person makes, since there are still many easy opportunities to make a significant difference that have not yet been tried. |
| Size of the benefit to be brought about. (VIII, ch. 1.4). | Imagine that problem A has 100 victims with suffering of -50 and problem B has 90 victims with suffering of -40. That is, A is more serious. Both problems are equally neglected, and it is possible to help all the victims of one or the other. However, imagine that, with the same amount of resources, we can either move all the victims of A from -50 to -49 (a very slight relief), or move all the victims of B from -40 to -10 (considerable relief). By prioritizing B we would bring about a greater good with the same amount of resources. |
| Is the size of the benefit always the most important factor? (VIII, ch. 1.4). | Suppose that, in the example above, the decision were between either moving the 100 victims of A from -50 to -30 (total benefit = 2,000, 20 per victim) or moving the 90 victims of B from -40 to -10 (total benefit = 2,700, 30 per victim). In this case, some people would say that we should choose the first option (since the benefit goes to the victims in the worst situation and benefits a larger number of victims), even though with the second option we would produce a greater benefit (for each victim and in total). |
| How do we know when the size of the benefit weighs more and when the severity of the situation weighs more? (VIII, ch. 1.2; XI, ch. 1.6 and 7). | There are several possibilities. For example: (1) establishing that one of the aspects is a trump (absolute or up to a certain point); (2) a continuous relationship: there are no trumps, and each aspect has either a fixed weight (equal or different) or a variable weight in the overall calculation; (3) combining approaches 1 and 2: using trumps (absolute or up to a certain point) up to a cutoff line and from there on using a continuous relationship (with fixed or variable weight). An example of a continuous approach (without trumps), with each aspect having variable weight, is the approach with diminishing returns, in which the weight of each aspect decreases proportionally as it is filled. One possibility along these lines would be to seek to maximize benefits, but to establish that a unit of benefit has more value the more serious the problem toward which that benefit would be directed. |
| Why is it crucial to try to estimate long-term effects? (VIII, ch. 1.5) | When two strategies are compared, it is possible that one brings about more benefits initially, but that, taking into account the complete history (and therefore the long-term effects), it is the other that will bring about a greater total benefit. It is also possible that a strategy brings about great benefits in the short term but has negative effects in the long term, and may even have a negative total balance. |
| Why prioritize strategies that tackle the causes (and not only the symptoms)? (VIII, ch. 1.5 and 1.6) | For example, if we compare a strategy that helps many animals if they are caught in a fire with another that prevents fires, the second probably has the better impact over time. That is why fighting speciesism has great potential for positive impact over time, since it directly tackles one of the main causes of the problems affecting animals (since speciesism leads people to attach little importance to the situation of animals, whether exploited or wild). |
Practice
Study layer. The answers are based on the chapter’s text.
According to the table, why does fighting speciesism have great potential for impact?
In the tractability example, why can B be a priority even with fewer victims than A?
Food for thought
Try the Priority Calculator with the table's example: 900,000 and 500,000 victims.
Author’s notes 1
Sources cited in this text 1
The full list for the volume is in the Volume XII references.
- CUNHA, L. C. Uma breve introdução à ética animal: desde as questões clássicas até o que vem sendo discutido atualmente. Curitiba: Appris, 2021.
Go deeper on each point
The chapters the author points to in the tables above.
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