William McAuliffe

Rethink Priorities hosted the “Dimensions of Pain” workshop in April 2023 with experts in pain research. The goal was to identify empirical methods to test whether brief but severe pains (e.g. botched slaughter) or milder but longer pains (e.g. lameness) have a greater overall negative impact on farmed animals’ welfare. This report summarizes the results and our researchers’ updated conclusions.

This report provides an overview of five organizations that dedicate substantial effort to improving wild animal welfare. The researchers identify commonalities in their approaches, as well as gaps that other organizations could fill.

Executive Summary A theory of change specifies how a social movement will achieve the change it desires. The theory first posits preconditions that are necessary for meeting its goals. It…

This is the second report in Rethink Priorities’ Shrimp Welfare Sequence. The first report estimated the scale of shrimp farming. This report examines the welfare threats that these individuals face.

This is the third report in Rethink Priorities’ Shrimp Welfare Sequence, a series that addresses whether and how to best protect the welfare of shrimp. After outlining the welfare threats farmed shrimp may face, this report investigates the effect of these welfare threats on pre-slaughter mortality.

Given the number of wild animals that exist, interventions to improve their welfare could have greater expected value than interventions on behalf of other groups. Yet, wild animals receive only a small share of resources earmarked for animal welfare causes. This report explores how different risk aversion frameworks might help increase advocates’ reasoning transparency.

This post is the third installment in the Rodenticide Reduction sequence. This report describes and ranks interventions to reduce rodenticide use in the U.S. according to their expected impact, neglectedness, and tractability.

  Executive Summary Who should read this report? Desk researchers attempting to Fermi estimate which wild animal interventions are cost-effective. Field scientists who want to know how much value of information there…

Shrimp welfare research at Rethink Priorities Rethink Priorities’ Shrimp Welfare Sequence is a series that addresses whether and how best to protect the welfare of shrimp. At any time, more…

How should effective altruists decide whether to prioritize interventions that alleviate severe but relatively brief suffering or instead those that alleviate longer-lasting but less severe suffering? When one pain is longer-lasting but less intense than a second pain, the most straightforward way to compare how much disutility they cause is to multiply how much longer by how much less severe the first pain is than the second pain. This report investigates whether this mathematical approach is sufficient for making cause prioritization decisions, requires some amendments, or is fundamentally flawed.

This report is a postscript to “The relative Importance of the severity and duration of pain,” and addresses whether the order of negative and positive experiences matter. For example, is pain worse if it occurs at the end of an individual’s life?

This post is the second installment in the Rodenticide Reduction sequence. This report explores the reasons why rodenticides are used, under what circumstances they could be replaced, and whether they are replaceable with currently available alternatives.

Shrimp welfare research at Rethink Priorities Rethink Priorities’ Shrimp Welfare Sequence is a series that addresses whether and how best to protect the welfare of shrimp. At any time, more…

Key takeaways Thirty-two participants gathered in May 2024 for this year’s Animal Advocacy Strategy Forum (AASF), an event designed for animal advocacy leaders to connect and strategize. Among others, participants…