During the animal welfare vs global health debate week, I was very reluctant to make a post or argument in favor of global health, the cause I work in and that animates me. Here are some reflections on why, that may or may not apply to other people:
Moral weights are tiresome to debate. If you (like me) do not have a good grasp of philosophy, it’s an uphill struggle to grasp what RP’s moral weights project means exactly, and where I would or would not buy into its assumptions.
I don’t choose my donations/actions based on impartial cause prioritization. I think impartially within GHD (e.g. I don’t prioritize interventions in India just because I’m from there, I treat health vs income moral weights much more analytically than species moral weights) but not for cross-cause comparison. I am okay with this. But it doesn’t make for a persuasive case to other people.
It doesn’t feel good to post something that you know will provoke a large volume of (friendly!) disagreement. I think of myself as a pretty disagreeable person, but I am still very averse to posting things that go against what almost everyone around me is saying, at least when I don’t feel 100% confident in my thesis. I have found previous arguments about global health vs animal welfare to be especially exhausting and they did not lead to any convergence, so I don’t see the upside that justifies the downside.
I don’t fundamentally disagree with the narrow thesis that marginal money can do more good in animal welfare. I just feel disillusioned with the larger implications that global health is overfunded and not really worth the money we spend on it.
I’m deliberately focusing on emotional/psychological inhibitions as opposed to analytical doubts I have about animal welfare. I do have some analytical doubts, but I think of them as secondary to the personal relationship I have with GHD.
During the animal welfare vs global health debate week, I was very reluctant to make a post or argument in favor of global health, the cause I work in and that animates me. Here are some reflections on why, that may or may not apply to other people:
Moral weights are tiresome to debate. If you (like me) do not have a good grasp of philosophy, it’s an uphill struggle to grasp what RP’s moral weights project means exactly, and where I would or would not buy into its assumptions.
I don’t choose my donations/actions based on impartial cause prioritization. I think impartially within GHD (e.g. I don’t prioritize interventions in India just because I’m from there, I treat health vs income moral weights much more analytically than species moral weights) but not for cross-cause comparison. I am okay with this. But it doesn’t make for a persuasive case to other people.
It doesn’t feel good to post something that you know will provoke a large volume of (friendly!) disagreement. I think of myself as a pretty disagreeable person, but I am still very averse to posting things that go against what almost everyone around me is saying, at least when I don’t feel 100% confident in my thesis. I have found previous arguments about global health vs animal welfare to be especially exhausting and they did not lead to any convergence, so I don’t see the upside that justifies the downside.
I don’t fundamentally disagree with the narrow thesis that marginal money can do more good in animal welfare. I just feel disillusioned with the larger implications that global health is overfunded and not really worth the money we spend on it.
I’m deliberately focusing on emotional/psychological inhibitions as opposed to analytical doubts I have about animal welfare. I do have some analytical doubts, but I think of them as secondary to the personal relationship I have with GHD.