I can only speak for myself, but while I would have disagreed with you even more if you’d lead with advocacy for involuntary abortion reduction, I’d have been more supportive of your efforts in making that argument.
In the future, you might consider dealing with this challenge by making a sock puppet account. That way, you can air your views without risking social blowback. If the conversation turns out better than you expect, you can open up about your identity if you choose.
I understand your hesitancy. However, I find it frustrating when I intuit that my debate partner is making the argument they think I might accept rather than the one they actually believe. Time and energy I put into arguing against them is wasted—I don’t know what your true cruxes are, and not even you truly hold the beliefs you’re putting forth in your OP.
Thanks for your advice, and for all of your value-adding comments! I genuinely apologize for making you feel that way. In hindsight, it’s much easier to see where and how one’s structural choices can damage the conversation, and I regret those choices all the more because of that.
On making a sock puppet account, I was always taught that “if it’s worth saying in public, you should be willing to attach your name to it.” Perhaps that belief was too simplistic, but it’s why I chose to write this under my true identity.
I do truly hold the beliefs I’m putting forth. As in the KFC analogy, I chose to focus on voluntary interventions because the feedback I received was that anything else would land on deaf ears. However, I do believe that voluntary interventions, especially broadly agreeable policies which help parents, would be a great thing to do.
Regarding crux(es), I hold total and non-person-affecting views in population ethics, and I think a child will live a life of positive value in expectation. Ignoring replaceability, I don’t see the moral distinction between preventing an abortion and adding a future person who will live a life of positive value (in expectation). So even if x-risks are much more important, or animal welfare considerations completely dominate, etc, it still seems to me that preventing an abortion (ignoring replaceability) is as good as saving a human life today. Given the scale of abortion, it seems to me that if none of the abortions occurring today occurred, even with replaceability, that would still be as good as saving millions of lives, which I think dominates concerns of personal autonomy.
I’ll add this, now that you’ve confirmed your views RE: voluntary vs nonvoluntary abortion reduction (mainly referring to “that would still be as good as saving millions of lives, which I think dominates concerns of personal autonomy”)
Taking your analogy from this comment, which you use to argue against family planning despite “the aims we want—women’s health + autonomy”
As an analogy, many Ethiopians suffer from malnutrition. Let’s say well-meaning EAs sponsored an “EA steakhouse” in Ethiopia, as steak can provide crucial nutrients to people in extreme poverty. There seem to be other interventions, including GAIN’s Salt Iodization program, which also target malnutrition, without the possible serious negative externality of animal suffering. In that case, I think we should temporarily suspend our support for the steakhouse while we evaluate the relevant moral considerations. In the meanwhile, Ethiopians can still eat steak at non-EA steakhouses if they’d like (as other well-meaning altruists have sponsored steakhouses of their own), or acquire steak through other means—we wouldn’t be reducing their ability to voluntarily eat steak if they so choose. Our goal—combating malnutrition—remains the same, but we choose the intervention to accomplish that goal without the possible negative externality.
If I apply this same logic to your goal of increasing population size, you could plausibly say that interventions that empower women who want to have more children or reduce barriers that they face are equivalent to GAIN’s salt iodisation programme, and interventions that reduce the ability for women who don’t want children to have abortions are equivalent to the steakhouse? If so, shouldn’t you choose the intervention to accomplish the goal of increasing population size that didn’t have the negative externality?
I’m not actually endorsing using this argument generally for all cause prioritisation considerations, but just pointing out that if you’re happy to use this analogy to argue against family planning, it seems like it could now be also used to argue against interventions that reduce access to abortion, if your goal is to “increase future humans”? So am curious about the inconsistency there and what other considerations you’re taking into account.
And I guess this makes me update towards your your goal of pushing against abortion being higher than I previously had in mind. May be misinterpreting you though!
My aim is to increase the amount of happy future people. Reducing abortion is one way to do that, but I’ve been clear in a few comments that I would endorse other interventions over reducing abortions:
“optimizing for increasing the amount of children that families want and are able to happily have is probably better than voluntary abortion reduction as a means of increasing the amount of near-term future people” (source)
“I think voluntary abortion reduction is just one of many ways to increase the amount of near-term future people. The post’s “In Our Personal Lives” section includes the suggestions you gave and more, which I agree are arguably more effective than voluntary abortion reduction in accomplishing that goal.” (source)
You weren’t able to see this, but I also agree-voted the following comments by others:
“the best solution here is incentivizing people to voluntarily have more children—e.g. child tax credits, maternity/paternity leave, etc” (source)
“I’d be tentatively more comfortable with measures taken to facilitate increasing the number of wanted pregnancies, including legalizing paid surrogacy services and subsidizing childcare and adoption of older children.” (source)
Everything I wrote about prioritizing other causes over voluntary abortion reduction goes double for involuntary abortion reduction, because of personal autonomy concerns. So yes, I endorse applying the same argument here in favor of prioritizing EA intervention without a negative externality regarding personal autonomy. I don’t think there’s an inconsistency here, because I’ve made it clear that I would prioritize “interventions that empower women who want to have more children or reduce barriers that they face.”
I can only speak for myself, but while I would have disagreed with you even more if you’d lead with advocacy for involuntary abortion reduction, I’d have been more supportive of your efforts in making that argument.
In the future, you might consider dealing with this challenge by making a sock puppet account. That way, you can air your views without risking social blowback. If the conversation turns out better than you expect, you can open up about your identity if you choose.
I understand your hesitancy. However, I find it frustrating when I intuit that my debate partner is making the argument they think I might accept rather than the one they actually believe. Time and energy I put into arguing against them is wasted—I don’t know what your true cruxes are, and not even you truly hold the beliefs you’re putting forth in your OP.
Thanks for your advice, and for all of your value-adding comments! I genuinely apologize for making you feel that way. In hindsight, it’s much easier to see where and how one’s structural choices can damage the conversation, and I regret those choices all the more because of that.
On making a sock puppet account, I was always taught that “if it’s worth saying in public, you should be willing to attach your name to it.” Perhaps that belief was too simplistic, but it’s why I chose to write this under my true identity.
I do truly hold the beliefs I’m putting forth. As in the KFC analogy, I chose to focus on voluntary interventions because the feedback I received was that anything else would land on deaf ears. However, I do believe that voluntary interventions, especially broadly agreeable policies which help parents, would be a great thing to do.
Regarding crux(es), I hold total and non-person-affecting views in population ethics, and I think a child will live a life of positive value in expectation. Ignoring replaceability, I don’t see the moral distinction between preventing an abortion and adding a future person who will live a life of positive value (in expectation). So even if x-risks are much more important, or animal welfare considerations completely dominate, etc, it still seems to me that preventing an abortion (ignoring replaceability) is as good as saving a human life today. Given the scale of abortion, it seems to me that if none of the abortions occurring today occurred, even with replaceability, that would still be as good as saving millions of lives, which I think dominates concerns of personal autonomy.
I’ll add this, now that you’ve confirmed your views RE: voluntary vs nonvoluntary abortion reduction (mainly referring to “that would still be as good as saving millions of lives, which I think dominates concerns of personal autonomy”)
Taking your analogy from this comment, which you use to argue against family planning despite “the aims we want—women’s health + autonomy”
If I apply this same logic to your goal of increasing population size, you could plausibly say that interventions that empower women who want to have more children or reduce barriers that they face are equivalent to GAIN’s salt iodisation programme, and interventions that reduce the ability for women who don’t want children to have abortions are equivalent to the steakhouse? If so, shouldn’t you choose the intervention to accomplish the goal of increasing population size that didn’t have the negative externality?
I’m not actually endorsing using this argument generally for all cause prioritisation considerations, but just pointing out that if you’re happy to use this analogy to argue against family planning, it seems like it could now be also used to argue against interventions that reduce access to abortion, if your goal is to “increase future humans”? So am curious about the inconsistency there and what other considerations you’re taking into account.
And I guess this makes me update towards your your goal of pushing against abortion being higher than I previously had in mind. May be misinterpreting you though!
My aim is to increase the amount of happy future people. Reducing abortion is one way to do that, but I’ve been clear in a few comments that I would endorse other interventions over reducing abortions:
“optimizing for increasing the amount of children that families want and are able to happily have is probably better than voluntary abortion reduction as a means of increasing the amount of near-term future people” (source)
“I think voluntary abortion reduction is just one of many ways to increase the amount of near-term future people. The post’s “In Our Personal Lives” section includes the suggestions you gave and more, which I agree are arguably more effective than voluntary abortion reduction in accomplishing that goal.” (source)
You weren’t able to see this, but I also agree-voted the following comments by others:
“the best solution here is incentivizing people to voluntarily have more children—e.g. child tax credits, maternity/paternity leave, etc” (source)
“I’d be tentatively more comfortable with measures taken to facilitate increasing the number of wanted pregnancies, including legalizing paid surrogacy services and subsidizing childcare and adoption of older children.” (source)
Everything I wrote about prioritizing other causes over voluntary abortion reduction goes double for involuntary abortion reduction, because of personal autonomy concerns. So yes, I endorse applying the same argument here in favor of prioritizing EA intervention without a negative externality regarding personal autonomy. I don’t think there’s an inconsistency here, because I’ve made it clear that I would prioritize “interventions that empower women who want to have more children or reduce barriers that they face.”