My actual reason to disagree is that I place much lower weight on animals than you, and I would axiomatically reject any moral weight on animals that implied saving kids from dying was net negative. I cannot give a tight philosophical defence of that view, but I am more committed to it than I am to giving tight philosophical defences of views. I suspect that if GiveWell were to publish a transparent argument as to why they ignore those effects, it would look similar to my argumentâshort and unsatisfactory to you. (Note; I work at GiveWell but this is my own view.)
I upvoted this comment for honesty, but this passage reads to me like committing to a conclusion (âsaving kids from dying cannot be net negativeâ) and then working its way backward to reject the premise (âanimals matter morallyâ, âsaving kids from dying causes more (animal) suffering than it creates (human) welfareâ) that leads to a contradictory conclusion. That seems like textbook motivated reasoning to me? It doesnât seem like a good way of doing moral reasoning. I think it would be better to either reject the premise or to argue that the desired conclusion can follow from the premise after all.
Personally I think itâs very much not obvious whether the meat eating problem is genuine. But given that the goodness of a very large part of the EA project so far hinges on it not being real, and given that itâs far from obvious whether itâs real, I think it would be useful to make progress on that question. So Iâm glad that @Vasco Grilođ¸ and others are trying to make progress on it and a little discouraged to see some pushback (from several commenters) that doesnât really engage with Vascoâs arguments/âcalculations.
(It does seem like, as @Ben Millwoodđ¸has commented, any harm caused to animals by donating to global health charities is much smaller than the harm of not giving to animal charities. So maybe a better and more palatable framing for the meat eating problem is not, âIs giving to global health charities net negative/âpositive?â but âIs giving to global health charities more/âless cost-effective than giving to animal charities?â)
I donât really route my moral reasoning through EA principles (impartiality and welfarism) and I donât claim it is great. I own up to my moral commitments, which are undeniably based on my life experiences. I am Indian. Iâm not going to be convinced that the world would be better if children around me were dead. Iâm just not! If thatâs motivated reasoning, then so be it.
The purpose of my comment was to engage with Vascoâs argument in the way that is most resonant with me, and I suspect with other people who prioritize GHD. Youâre saying itâs discouraging that people arenât engaging with the argument analytically. Iâm saying that analytical engagement is not the only legitimate kind of engagement.
In fact, I think that when analytical disagreement is the only permitted form of disagreement, that encourages much more motivated reasoning and frustrating argumentation. Imagine I had instead made a comment questioning whether GiveWell beneficiaries are really eating factory farmed meat, and Vasco then did a bunch of careful work to estimate how much that was a concern. I would be wasting their time by making an argument that doesnât correspond to my actual beliefs. Is that a better discursive norm?
Thanks. I take you to say roughly that you have certain core beliefs that youâre unwilling to compromise on, even if you canât justify those beliefs philosophically. And also that you think itâs better to be upfront about that than invent justifications that arenât really load-bearing for you. (Let me know if thatâs a misrepresentation.)
I think itâs virtuous that youâre honest about why you disagree (âI place much lower weight on animalsâ) and I think thatâs valuable for discourse in that it shows where the disagreement lies. I donât have any objection to that. But I also think that saying you just believe that and canât/âwonât justify it (âI cannot give a tight philosophical defence of that view, but I am more committed to it than I am to giving tight philosophical defences of viewsâ) is not particularly valuable for discourse. It doesnât create any opening for productive engagement or movement toward consensus. I donât think itâs harmful exactly, I just think more openness to examining whether the intuition withstands scrutiny would be more valuable.
(That is a question about discourse. I think thereâs also a separate question about the soundness of the decision procedure you described in your original comment. I think itâs unsound, and therefore instrumentally irrational, but Iâm not the rationality police so I wonât get into that.)
Thanks for the transparency, Karthik! I wish more people simply admitted they are not aiming to be impartial whenever they deep down think that is the case.
It does seem like, as @Ben Millwoodđ¸has commented, any harm caused to animals by donating to global health charities is much smaller than the harm of not giving to animal charities. So maybe a better and more palatable framing for the meat eating problem is not, âIs giving to global health charities net negative/âpositive?â but âIs giving to global health charities more/âless cost-effective than giving to animal charities?â
Here is Benâs comment (the link above is broken). I also like the prioritisation framing, and commented in the same post that the meat eating problem is mostly a distraction in that sense. However, it still seems worth analysing it to arrive to more accurate beliefs about the world, and because, in some hard to specify way, many value decreasing the probability of causing harm more than prioritising the most cost-effective interventions.
I upvoted this comment for honesty, but this passage reads to me like committing to a conclusion (âsaving kids from dying cannot be net negativeâ) and then working its way backward to reject the premise (âanimals matter morallyâ, âsaving kids from dying causes more (animal) suffering than it creates (human) welfareâ) that leads to a contradictory conclusion. That seems like textbook motivated reasoning to me? It doesnât seem like a good way of doing moral reasoning. I think it would be better to either reject the premise or to argue that the desired conclusion can follow from the premise after all.
Personally I think itâs very much not obvious whether the meat eating problem is genuine. But given that the goodness of a very large part of the EA project so far hinges on it not being real, and given that itâs far from obvious whether itâs real, I think it would be useful to make progress on that question. So Iâm glad that @Vasco Grilođ¸ and others are trying to make progress on it and a little discouraged to see some pushback (from several commenters) that doesnât really engage with Vascoâs arguments/âcalculations.
(It does seem like, as @Ben Millwoodđ¸ has commented, any harm caused to animals by donating to global health charities is much smaller than the harm of not giving to animal charities. So maybe a better and more palatable framing for the meat eating problem is not, âIs giving to global health charities net negative/âpositive?â but âIs giving to global health charities more/âless cost-effective than giving to animal charities?â)
I donât really route my moral reasoning through EA principles (impartiality and welfarism) and I donât claim it is great. I own up to my moral commitments, which are undeniably based on my life experiences. I am Indian. Iâm not going to be convinced that the world would be better if children around me were dead. Iâm just not! If thatâs motivated reasoning, then so be it.
The purpose of my comment was to engage with Vascoâs argument in the way that is most resonant with me, and I suspect with other people who prioritize GHD. Youâre saying itâs discouraging that people arenât engaging with the argument analytically. Iâm saying that analytical engagement is not the only legitimate kind of engagement.
In fact, I think that when analytical disagreement is the only permitted form of disagreement, that encourages much more motivated reasoning and frustrating argumentation. Imagine I had instead made a comment questioning whether GiveWell beneficiaries are really eating factory farmed meat, and Vasco then did a bunch of careful work to estimate how much that was a concern. I would be wasting their time by making an argument that doesnât correspond to my actual beliefs. Is that a better discursive norm?
Thanks. I take you to say roughly that you have certain core beliefs that youâre unwilling to compromise on, even if you canât justify those beliefs philosophically. And also that you think itâs better to be upfront about that than invent justifications that arenât really load-bearing for you. (Let me know if thatâs a misrepresentation.)
I think itâs virtuous that youâre honest about why you disagree (âI place much lower weight on animalsâ) and I think thatâs valuable for discourse in that it shows where the disagreement lies. I donât have any objection to that. But I also think that saying you just believe that and canât/âwonât justify it (âI cannot give a tight philosophical defence of that view, but I am more committed to it than I am to giving tight philosophical defences of viewsâ) is not particularly valuable for discourse. It doesnât create any opening for productive engagement or movement toward consensus. I donât think itâs harmful exactly, I just think more openness to examining whether the intuition withstands scrutiny would be more valuable.
(That is a question about discourse. I think thereâs also a separate question about the soundness of the decision procedure you described in your original comment. I think itâs unsound, and therefore instrumentally irrational, but Iâm not the rationality police so I wonât get into that.)
Thanks for the transparency, Karthik! I wish more people simply admitted they are not aiming to be impartial whenever they deep down think that is the case.
I think this is an alternative way of rejecting the conclusions without dropping impartiality.
Thanks, Erich.
Here is Benâs comment (the link above is broken). I also like the prioritisation framing, and commented in the same post that the meat eating problem is mostly a distraction in that sense. However, it still seems worth analysing it to arrive to more accurate beliefs about the world, and because, in some hard to specify way, many value decreasing the probability of causing harm more than prioritising the most cost-effective interventions.
Thanks, I fixed the link. And the rest of your comment seems right to me.