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Does suffering dominate enjoyment in the animal kingdom? An update to welfare biology

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Zach Groff
Zach Groff
Zach Groff
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Yew-Kwang Ng at Monash University (Australia)
Yew-Kwang Ng
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Abstract

Ng (Biol Philos 10(3):255–285, 1995. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00852469) models the evolutionary dynamics underlying the existence of suffering and enjoyment and concludes that there is likely to be more suffering than enjoyment in nature. In this paper, we find an error in Ng’s model that, when fixed, negates the original conclusion. Instead, the model offers only ambiguity as to whether suffering or enjoyment predominates in nature. We illustrate the dynamics around suffering and enjoyment with the most plausible parameters. In our illustration, we find surprising results: the rate of failure to reproduce can improve or worsen average welfare depending on other characteristics of a species. Our illustration suggests that for organisms with more intense conscious experiences, the balance of enjoyment and suffering may lean more toward suffering. We offer some suggestions for empirical study of wild animal welfare. We conclude by noting that recent writings on wild animal welfare should be revised based on this correction to have a somewhat less pessimistic view of nature.
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Vol.:(0123456789)
Biology & Philosophy (2019) 34:40
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-019-9692-0
1 3
Does suering dominate enjoyment intheanimal
kingdom? Anupdate towelfare biology
ZachGro1 · Yew‑KwangNg2
Received: 24 July 2018 / Accepted: 7 June 2019 / Published online: 18 June 2019
© Springer Nature B.V. 2019
Abstract
Ng (Biol Philos 10(3):255–285, 1995. https ://doi.org/10.1007/bf008 52469 ) models
the evolutionary dynamics underlying the existence of suffering and enjoyment and
concludes that there is likely to be more suffering than enjoyment in nature. In this
paper, we find an error in Ng’s model that, when fixed, negates the original conclu‑
sion. Instead, the model offers only ambiguity as to whether suffering or enjoyment
predominates in nature. We illustrate the dynamics around suffering and enjoyment
with the most plausible parameters. In our illustration, we find surprising results:
the rate of failure to reproduce can improve or worsen average welfare depending on
other characteristics of a species. Our illustration suggests that for organisms with
more intense conscious experiences, the balance of enjoyment and suffering may
lean more toward suffering. We offer some suggestions for empirical study of wild
animal welfare. We conclude by noting that recent writings on wild animal welfare
should be revised based on this correction to have a somewhat less pessimistic view
of nature.
Keywords Animal welfare· Animal suffering· Welfare biology· Effective
altruism· Evolutionary biology
Introduction
In 1995, following the idea that scientists and economists should treat animal
welfare as important in its own right, Ng proposed the study of welfare biology,
with three basic questions: Which animals are capable of welfare? Is their welfare
* Zach Groff
zgroff@stanford.edu
Yew‑Kwang Ng
kwang.ng@monash.edu
1 Department ofEconomics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
2 School ofEconomics, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
... 32 Agarwal and Edelman (2020) consider this possibility, drawing on the account of artificial suffering by Metzinger (2021bMetzinger ( , 2021a. Additionally, we can speculate that extreme suffering might be computationally and/or energetically costly in organisms (Groff & Ng, 2019) and/or AI systems, which would make measures associated with extreme suffering less competitive than those associated with minimal suffering. However, we note that many instances of minimal suffering could still add up to extreme suffering in the aggregate on some views; see Sebo (2023aSebo ( , 2023b general and in the context of advanced AI systems in particular, we cannot be highly confident one way or the other about whether specific AI safety measures will harm advanced AI systems in these ways. ...
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... 6 For arguments along these lines, see Ng (1995) and Tomasik (2015). 7 For an argument suggesting that the wellbeing of animals in the wild may not be negative on balance, see Groff and Ng (2019). 8 It may also impact ongoing debates about "compassionate conservation" (Wallach et al. 2018). ...
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