Yes that’s a good point, as Scott argues in the linked post:
The moral of the story is: if there’s some kind of weird market failure that causes galaxies to be priced at $1, normal reasoning stops working; things that do incalculable damage can be fairly described as “only doing $1 worth of damage”, and you will do them even if less damaging options are available.
Give Well notes that their analysis should only really be taken a relative measure of cost-effectiveness. But even putting that aside, you’re right that it doesn’t imply human lives are cheap or invaluable.
Actually, I pretty much agree with all your points. But a better analogy might be “is it okay to murder someone to prevent another murder?” That’s a much fuzzier line, and you can extend this to all kinds of absurd trolly-esque scenarios. In the animal case, it’s not that I’m murdering someone in cold blood and then donating some money. It’s that I’m causing one animal to be produced, and then causing another animal not to be. So it is much closer to equivalent.
To be clear again, the specific question this analysis address is not “is it ethical to eat meat and then pay offsets”. The question is “assuming you pay for offsets, is it better to eat chicken or beef?”
And of course, there are plenty of reasons murder seems especially repugnant. You wouldn’t want rich people to be able to murder people effectively for free. You wouldn’t want people getting revenge on their coworkers. You wouldn’t want to allow a world where people have to life in fear, etc etc etc. So I don’t think it’s a particularly useful intuition pump.
To be clear again, the specific question this analysis address is not “is it ethical to eat meat and then pay offsets”. The question is “assuming you pay for offsets, is it better to eat chicken or beef?”
(FWIW, this might be worth emphasizing more prominently. When I first read this post and the landing page, it took me a while to understand what question you were addressing.)
Yes that’s a good point, as Scott argues in the linked post:
Give Well notes that their analysis should only really be taken a relative measure of cost-effectiveness. But even putting that aside, you’re right that it doesn’t imply human lives are cheap or invaluable.
Actually, I pretty much agree with all your points. But a better analogy might be “is it okay to murder someone to prevent another murder?” That’s a much fuzzier line, and you can extend this to all kinds of absurd trolly-esque scenarios. In the animal case, it’s not that I’m murdering someone in cold blood and then donating some money. It’s that I’m causing one animal to be produced, and then causing another animal not to be. So it is much closer to equivalent.
To be clear again, the specific question this analysis address is not “is it ethical to eat meat and then pay offsets”. The question is “assuming you pay for offsets, is it better to eat chicken or beef?”
And of course, there are plenty of reasons murder seems especially repugnant. You wouldn’t want rich people to be able to murder people effectively for free. You wouldn’t want people getting revenge on their coworkers. You wouldn’t want to allow a world where people have to life in fear, etc etc etc. So I don’t think it’s a particularly useful intuition pump.
(FWIW, this might be worth emphasizing more prominently. When I first read this post and the landing page, it took me a while to understand what question you were addressing.)