Really well written, and an incredibly good breakdown of some of some of the strategic factors here that I wouldn’t have come up with myself reading the above.
But I also think you may have partially missed the mark here. Statements like:
Trying new approaches in this complex and relatively new space is great if you thoughtfully measure if it works or not.
are utilitarian in flavor and really the whole of the comment is. What if you think this sort of thing is just promoting bad norms that just sort of feel deontologically wrong?
One way I can see that is violating a norm of kindness to others. Vegans sacrifice a lot, and to have someone highlighting the negatives from within the movement isn’t great vibes. “But they’re not talking about current vegans, just those potentially thinking about change” Okay great, try telling the Christian that they should stop recruiting because Christians “annoy friends and family” leading a lifestyle that’s a significant burden to everyone, themselves included. I doubt they’ll be enthused. To state what I mean here more clearly rather than leaving it to be inferred: casting sometimes that’s a big part of someone’s life in a negative life generally doesn’t make their day better.
But they protest “No no, you got us wrong. We really are pro vegans, we just think this is a more effective way to get eyes on the issue and increase exposure to AW topics” Now I think this is potentially violating some norm of trust or honesty. Maybe if the person comes to care about AW they wouldn’t really care in the end, but I know if I decided to start donating rather than trying for diet change again, just to discover that this was all some ploy to drum up further controversy and reach, I’d feel played and more than a bit disillusioned.
If I put on my utilitarian cap, everything you say above seems right. If I put on my deontologist cap, this campaign just doesn’t seem quite right. The utilitarian in me feels compelled to say “but I also don’t know what it’s like to work in comms around AW, and maybe attention really is just some significant bottleneck standing between further animal lives saved”. The deontologist then responds “yeah, maybe. But is this the type of thing you’d see in a healthy community of animal advocates?” [1]
I realize that you’re not endorsing the strategy and are just analyzing it, part of this speaks to the analysis but part of it is also aimed at those executing as well.
Really well written, and an incredibly good breakdown of some of some of the strategic factors here that I wouldn’t have come up with myself reading the above.
But I also think you may have partially missed the mark here. Statements like:
are utilitarian in flavor and really the whole of the comment is. What if you think this sort of thing is just promoting bad norms that just sort of feel deontologically wrong?
One way I can see that is violating a norm of kindness to others. Vegans sacrifice a lot, and to have someone highlighting the negatives from within the movement isn’t great vibes. “But they’re not talking about current vegans, just those potentially thinking about change” Okay great, try telling the Christian that they should stop recruiting because Christians “annoy friends and family” leading a lifestyle that’s a significant burden to everyone, themselves included. I doubt they’ll be enthused. To state what I mean here more clearly rather than leaving it to be inferred: casting sometimes that’s a big part of someone’s life in a negative life generally doesn’t make their day better.
But they protest “No no, you got us wrong. We really are pro vegans, we just think this is a more effective way to get eyes on the issue and increase exposure to AW topics” Now I think this is potentially violating some norm of trust or honesty. Maybe if the person comes to care about AW they wouldn’t really care in the end, but I know if I decided to start donating rather than trying for diet change again, just to discover that this was all some ploy to drum up further controversy and reach, I’d feel played and more than a bit disillusioned.
If I put on my utilitarian cap, everything you say above seems right. If I put on my deontologist cap, this campaign just doesn’t seem quite right. The utilitarian in me feels compelled to say “but I also don’t know what it’s like to work in comms around AW, and maybe attention really is just some significant bottleneck standing between further animal lives saved”. The deontologist then responds “yeah, maybe. But is this the type of thing you’d see in a healthy community of animal advocates?” [1]
I realize that you’re not endorsing the strategy and are just analyzing it, part of this speaks to the analysis but part of it is also aimed at those executing as well.