Sentientist Benefit-Cost Analysis – SentientBCA

This project aims to integrate the welfare of sentient animals into the evaluation of public policies. Sentience, defined as the capacity to be conscious and possess the cognitive faculties necessary to experience emotions, constitutes a fundamental pillar in philosophy for moral consideration. The main objective of the project is to refine the methodology of benefit-cost analysis (BCA) to quantitatively assess the impacts of public policies on the welfare of both humans and other sentient animals. In essence, our goal is to develop a sentientist BCA.

The project is organized into four work packages (WP). The objective of WP1 is to construct an animal welfare index based on the Five Domains framework (nutrition, environment, health, behavior, mental states) used in animal sciences. This involves producing an animal welfare score on a 0-1 scale called AQUALY (Animal QALY), inspired by the QALY approach in health, where 1 represents maximal welfare and 0 represents a welfare level equivalent to death.

WP2 addresses the novel and highly complex problem of comparing welfare across species by calculating "weights" associated with each species. To date, several competing approaches have been considered to evaluate these weights: one relies on population surveys, where hypothetical choices are presented regarding trade-offs between certain species; another is based on assessing the number of neurons (or certain neurons) in different species; finally, another approach involves assessing the number of certain capacities of animals. The objective of this WP is to explore these different approaches and consider how to parameterize these weights in an economic model.

WP3 focuses on the social welfare function (SWF), which represents the rule for aggregating normalized utilities calculated in WPs 1 and 2. Our goal is to analyze the properties of an SWF encompassing multiple species and specifically reflect on the principles of equality among different animals (including humans), as well as the representation of individuals with highly varied characteristics (such as cognitive level, lifespan, etc.). Additionally, we will examine certain principles of animal ethics and population ethics from the perspective of welfare economics, including the argument of replaceability.

Building on the knowledge accumulated in the previous WPs, WP4 aims to develop specific CBAs for environmental, food, or health policies, taking into account their impacts on the welfare of humans and animals. We will also compare or combine sentientist and anthropocentric CBAs, as well as explore the possibility of integrating and quantitatively evaluating animal welfare in the corporate social and environmental responsibility (CSR) initiatives of companies.