I think your stance makes sense if one believes, as you do, that “I still believe that eating less or no meat is one of the easiest ways people can change their lives to do a lot of good. I appreciate that this is controversial, so I invite you to leave your thoughts or criticism in the comments below.”
I’m pretty far away from agreeing with that (mostly with the ‘easiest’) for reasons that are probably out of the scope of this thread, but just wanted to give that speculation as to why your stance is not one more widely taken.
″ Say that being vegetarian costs an extra $500 a year compared to eating meat, due to the food being more expensive (to be clear, it’s not, a vegetarian diet can be substantially cheaper). ”
A realistic scenario where this might happen is when food is not purchased by yourself. For example the company I used to work at will have free food at certain times in the day, and they don’t always have fully plant-based options. If I decide to value my personal aestheticism over actual suffering, then I will indirectly cause more suffering by choosing to purchase my calories instead of taking advantage of the free options.
Regarding your first paragraph: most people would consider it unethical to murder someone for reasons of personal convenience, even if you donated to a ‘murder offset’ organization such as, I don’t know, let’s say police departments. MacAskill is saying that ‘animal murder’ offsets are unethical in this same way. Namely, you are committing an immoral act—killing an animal—then saving some other animals to ‘make up for it’. Climate offsets are different because the harm is never caused in this case.
Regarding your last paragraph: This is a nice example, but it will fail if your company might modulate the amount of food that it buys in the future based on how much gets eaten. For example, if they consistently have a bunch of leftover chicken, they might try to save some money by purchasing less chicken next time. If this is possible, then there is a reason not to eat the free chicken.
I’m in agreement with you on the meat consumption issue: morality doesn’t begin and end with meat consumption, but it’s better to donate lots to effective animal charities and be vegan, as opposed to offsetting one’s meat consumption or having fancy vegan meals and being vegan. This seems to be the standard utilitarian stance. That’s without taking into account the benefits of being vegan in terms of flow-through effects too, which have been discussed on this forum before. Personally, after having become essentially vegan, my family has had to reduce its meat consumption too, because it’s not worth it to buy a lot of animal products anymore when 1⁄3 of the family is now vegetarian/vegan.
In terms of the overall review, I agree that it’s a good introduction for non-EAs. I enjoyed ‘Doing Good Better’ a lot, and I would highly recommend it too, though I doubt many people on here won’t have read it.
Great introduction for non-EAs; it’s worth mentioning that EAs likely won’t learn anything new about it.
Point taken, but I was hoping for some feedback on my take regarding offsetting meat consumption, which as far as I know is not a stance widely taken.
I think your stance makes sense if one believes, as you do, that “I still believe that eating less or no meat is one of the easiest ways people can change their lives to do a lot of good. I appreciate that this is controversial, so I invite you to leave your thoughts or criticism in the comments below.”
I’m pretty far away from agreeing with that (mostly with the ‘easiest’) for reasons that are probably out of the scope of this thread, but just wanted to give that speculation as to why your stance is not one more widely taken.
I disagree with the idea of offsetting in general (http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/23/vegetarianism-for-meat-eaters/#comment-239528) , but think that MacAskill’s argument that offsetting is acceptable for climate change but not vegetarianism is especially odd. Suffering is suffering is suffering.
″ Say that being vegetarian costs an extra $500 a year compared to eating meat, due to the food being more expensive (to be clear, it’s not, a vegetarian diet can be substantially cheaper). ”
A realistic scenario where this might happen is when food is not purchased by yourself. For example the company I used to work at will have free food at certain times in the day, and they don’t always have fully plant-based options. If I decide to value my personal aestheticism over actual suffering, then I will indirectly cause more suffering by choosing to purchase my calories instead of taking advantage of the free options.
Regarding your first paragraph: most people would consider it unethical to murder someone for reasons of personal convenience, even if you donated to a ‘murder offset’ organization such as, I don’t know, let’s say police departments. MacAskill is saying that ‘animal murder’ offsets are unethical in this same way. Namely, you are committing an immoral act—killing an animal—then saving some other animals to ‘make up for it’. Climate offsets are different because the harm is never caused in this case.
Regarding your last paragraph: This is a nice example, but it will fail if your company might modulate the amount of food that it buys in the future based on how much gets eaten. For example, if they consistently have a bunch of leftover chicken, they might try to save some money by purchasing less chicken next time. If this is possible, then there is a reason not to eat the free chicken.
I’m in agreement with you on the meat consumption issue: morality doesn’t begin and end with meat consumption, but it’s better to donate lots to effective animal charities and be vegan, as opposed to offsetting one’s meat consumption or having fancy vegan meals and being vegan. This seems to be the standard utilitarian stance. That’s without taking into account the benefits of being vegan in terms of flow-through effects too, which have been discussed on this forum before. Personally, after having become essentially vegan, my family has had to reduce its meat consumption too, because it’s not worth it to buy a lot of animal products anymore when 1⁄3 of the family is now vegetarian/vegan.
In terms of the overall review, I agree that it’s a good introduction for non-EAs. I enjoyed ‘Doing Good Better’ a lot, and I would highly recommend it too, though I doubt many people on here won’t have read it.