But I doubt most people are so rational. Climate offsets present an importantly different case—at least some are a true offset, where no more carbon is added to the atmosphere, so no additional or different harm is done. With animal offsetting, no more harm is done, but a different harm is. Most people would still feel bad about causing harm to that particular individual—and so they will still be insentivized to deny their moral relevance, even if they offset.
So I think this is likely to vary by person, depending on how tied their emotional response is to individuals vs abstract suffering.
I don’t know that the contrast between climate and animal offsets is so strong. The harm caused by consuming animal products is also indirect in most cases in relation to the consumer: the animal consumed is already dead and has already suffered whatever harms the factory farming system inflicted on it, so your action harms it no further. The harm you are actually doing are increasing the demand for the product.
The set of people eating meat that choose to offset and those that choose not to probably have a very different psychological environment regarding the animals consumed, I would think.
Right, I agree that’s possible.
But I doubt most people are so rational. Climate offsets present an importantly different case—at least some are a true offset, where no more carbon is added to the atmosphere, so no additional or different harm is done. With animal offsetting, no more harm is done, but a different harm is. Most people would still feel bad about causing harm to that particular individual—and so they will still be insentivized to deny their moral relevance, even if they offset.
So I think this is likely to vary by person, depending on how tied their emotional response is to individuals vs abstract suffering.
I don’t know that the contrast between climate and animal offsets is so strong. The harm caused by consuming animal products is also indirect in most cases in relation to the consumer: the animal consumed is already dead and has already suffered whatever harms the factory farming system inflicted on it, so your action harms it no further. The harm you are actually doing are increasing the demand for the product.
The set of people eating meat that choose to offset and those that choose not to probably have a very different psychological environment regarding the animals consumed, I would think.