Animal Welfare and Moral Weight with Bob Fischer

In this episode, we interview Bob Fischer, a philosopher and senior researcher at Rethink Priorities. While discussing his work estimating the intensity of valenced states of farmed animals,  we touch on likelihood of sentience, hedonism as a theory of moral value, evolutionary functions of pleasure and pain, correlation between intelligence and intensity of experience states  We also discuss the implications of Bob's work for cause prioritization and how risk aversion should impact philanthropic allocations across human welfare, animal welfare and existential risk. 

Bob  is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Texas State University, a Senior Research Manager for Rethink Priorities, and the Director of the Society for the Study of Ethics and Animals. You can find him at https://www.bobfischer.net/

Some of Bob's work that we enjoyed reading
https://rethinkpriorities.org/publications/dont-balk-at-animal-friendly-results
https://rethinkpriorities.org/publications/welfare-range-estimates

Bob's recommended charities 

https://www.shrimpwelfareproject.org/

https://www.insectwelfare.com/

Transcript Summary