Suffering in animals vs. humans

Abstract

There’s a wide consensus that at least higher animals can consciously suffer, and even if we had doubts about this fact, it wouldn’t much affect our expected-value calculations. It’s sometimes claimed that humans suffer more intensely than animals because of deeper emotional experiences, but I think the raw pain itself represents a nontrivial fraction of the total badness of suffering, and even if we did count animals less, it again wouldn’t much affect calculations because of their extraordinary numbers relative to humans.