This colloquium will be presented by Michael Carrick, University of Rochester.

Talk abstract: The Greater Welfare Capacity (GWC) Thesis is the view that what sets humans apart from nonhuman animals is that they have a greater capacity for welfare. This means that humans have a greater range than nonhuman animals between the best and worst welfare states that can be experienced. There are several ways to try and justify the GWC Thesis; one way is by appealing to qualitative hedonism, which is the view that there are two kinds of pleasure: higher and lower. If there are higher and lower pleasures and the higher pleasures are only accessible to humans, then the GWC Thesis is true.

Carrick argues that this line of thinking is problematic; no matter how we may try to distinguish between pleasures qualitatively, some higher pleasures will always be accessible to nonhuman animals. Thus, adopting the distinction between higher and lower pleasures does not, by itself, give one reason to conclude that humans have a greater capacity for welfare than nonhuman animals. To justify the GWC Thesis, one must adopt the further suggestion that humans have access to a greater number of higher pleasures than nonhuman animals. However, Carrick argues that we are not well situated to defend this claim. The upshot is that those looking to defend the GWC Thesis should not attempt to do so by appeal to qualitative hedonism.