I’d add one more: having to put your resources towards more speculative, chancy causes is more demanding.
When donating our money and time to something like bednets, the cost is mitigated by the personal satisfaction of knowing that we’ve (almost certainly) had an impact. When donating to some activity which has only a tiny chance of success (e.g., x-risk mitigation), most of us won’t get quite the same level of satisfaction. And that’s pretty demanding to have to give up not only a large chunk of your resources but also the satisfaction of having actually achieved something.
Thanks for that link, it’s an interesting article. In the context of theory within the animal movement Singer’s pragmatism isn’t particularly demanding, but a more justice oriented approach is (along the lines of Regan). In my view it would be a good thing not least for the sake of diversity of viewpoints to make more claims around demandingness rather than largely following a less demanding position. Though i do think that because people are not used to ascribing significant moral value to other animals then it follows that anything more than the societal level is therefore considered demanding, particularly in regard to considering speciesism alongside other forms of human discrimination.
I’d add one more: having to put your resources towards more speculative, chancy causes is more demanding.
When donating our money and time to something like bednets, the cost is mitigated by the personal satisfaction of knowing that we’ve (almost certainly) had an impact. When donating to some activity which has only a tiny chance of success (e.g., x-risk mitigation), most of us won’t get quite the same level of satisfaction. And that’s pretty demanding to have to give up not only a large chunk of your resources but also the satisfaction of having actually achieved something.
Rob Long has written a bit about this - https://experiencemachines.wordpress.com/2018/06/10/demanding-gambles/
Thanks for that link, it’s an interesting article. In the context of theory within the animal movement Singer’s pragmatism isn’t particularly demanding, but a more justice oriented approach is (along the lines of Regan). In my view it would be a good thing not least for the sake of diversity of viewpoints to make more claims around demandingness rather than largely following a less demanding position. Though i do think that because people are not used to ascribing significant moral value to other animals then it follows that anything more than the societal level is therefore considered demanding, particularly in regard to considering speciesism alongside other forms of human discrimination.