″ 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 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.