Notes on Wild Fish welfare

Wild Fish Welfare: Optimism vs. Pessimism

Abstract

  • Many philosophers and Effective Altruist researchers believe that wild fish have negative overall welfare.
  • Since fish are the most numerous wild vertebrates, this view is crucial to the broader idea of 'wildlife pessimism,' which suggests negative welfare for wild vertebrates.
  • The author argues that a closer examination of arguments about fish can challenge wildlife pessimism.
  • Focusing solely on fish allows for more in-depth empirical analysis than typical discussions about all wild animals.
  • The author posits that wildlife optimism (neutral or positive overall welfare) is as likely as wildlife pessimism for wild fish.

Keywords

  • Wild animal welfare
  • Fish welfare
  • Wild animal ethics
  • Conservationism
  • Animal welfare

Introduction

  • There are approximately 8 billion humans and over 600 trillion wild fish.
    • Note that this number is generally accepted for simplicity but is subject to great variance due to estimating difficulties.
  • Humans collectively experience about 250 years of consciousness per second, while wild fish experience around 19 million years.
  • If wild fish experience slightly more happiness than suffering, the world could be considered a paradise.
  • MacAskill (2022) suggests that views on wild animal suffering should be largely driven by views on fish due to their overwhelming population size.
  • Negative views on fish welfare significantly contribute to the belief that wild animals have net negative welfare.
  • Wildlife pessimism has implications for nature conservation and intervention.
  • MacAskill (2022) suggests that if wild animals' lives are worse than nothing, the expansion of Homo sapiens could be seen as a good thing from the animals' perspective.
  • Brian Tomasik suggests habitat destruction is better to prevent painful animal births (2013).
  • Browning and Veit (2023) argue for skepticism towards wildlife pessimism, stating that without effective methods for applying animal welfare science in the wild, discussions remain intuitive and can go in either direction.
  • This paper argues that optimism about the welfare of wild fish is at least as plausible as pessimism.
  • Focusing on fish allows for direct evidence and special considerations, such as fish development.
  • The author argues that very young (altricial) larvae are likely not sentient.
  • The author argues that the total negative welfare from larval deaths is likely outweighed by positive welfare in surviving adult fish, as most larval deaths occur in the altricial stage.
  • The argument should remain consistent regardless of one's specific theory of welfare (e.g. hedonism, desire satisfactionism, or some objective list theory).

Early Life

  • A major reason to assume that fish welfare is overall negative regards their reproductive behavior.
  • Fish use r-strategy reproduction, producing many offspring, but only a small fraction survives while k-strategy reproduction involves few offspring with invested resources toward the offspring survival.
  • Wildlife pessimists believe r-strategy offspring have short and unpleasant lives.
  • Johannsen (2021) describes r-strategist infants uncomfortably