One kind of reason to do both: It’s not a true tradeoff.
It’s easy to spend a lot of money on top-of-the-line vegan cheeses and meats. But it’s also quite feasible to meet most people’s dietary requirements with vegan foods that cost just as much as, or even less than, animal-based foods. (Shout out to my boi rice-and-beans.)
In that case, we’re not trading off dollars for dollars. We’re trading off time, effort, and comfort for dollars.
At some point, if you spend enough time on something, it might cut into your earning potential. But many of us have jobs that only allow us to work a certain number of hours per week anyway, or minds that only allow us to be focused and productive for a certain number of hours per week. For these people, it’s possible to spend additional time and effort without cutting into earning potential.
So the question is not “Can I do more good than veganism with my money?” but rather “Can I do more good than veganism with my time?” Not a lot of other volunteer opportunities give you the chance to spare multiple individuals from torture every year, so I think it’s likely still a good use of time.
(Though this obviously intersects with the other question of “Just how morally valuable is it to spare animals from factory farming?”)
One kind of reason to do both: It’s not a true tradeoff.
This argument comes up a lot in the EA/veganism debate, and I think it’s a “minds very different from our own” situation. Some people don’t find eating vegan to be costly, or find it cheap enough to not notice. Some people find it prohibitively costly, or so costly that it’s not worth considering. What I would ask is that people who find veganism cheap acknowledge that their experience is not universal, and for some people it really is that hard.
This isn’t a moral argument. Sometimes the morally correct thing to do is costly. But it doesn’t help anything to pretend it’s cheap.
This isn’t a “minds very different from our own” claim, though. It’s an empirical claim about how expensive a vegan diet needs to be to be nutritious. Cam stated: “But it’s also quite feasible to meet most people’s dietary requirements with vegan foods that cost just as much as, or even less than, animal-based foods.” What exactly in that statement do you dispute?
ETA: Even though there is a risk in overstating the case that veganism is universally “cheap,” at present it seems that case is far understated. I think the value of Cam’s comment is in noting that veganism is at the very least cheaper than most people suspect before trying it.
I don’t think “costly” here just refers to money. I think Elizabeth is talking about all kinds of costs, from time and money to emotions and social connections.
If we’re using Jeff’s weighting, he could babysit a neighbor’s children for an hour once a decade, receive $5, and donate it to the Against Malaria Foundation, and that would be a better use of his time than all the time spent on veganism.
If you’re arguing “people should spend their leisure time doing good”, I think that’s a different argument—but I think Jeff could find better ways to do good during his leisure time than going vegan.
One kind of reason to do both: It’s not a true tradeoff.
It’s easy to spend a lot of money on top-of-the-line vegan cheeses and meats. But it’s also quite feasible to meet most people’s dietary requirements with vegan foods that cost just as much as, or even less than, animal-based foods. (Shout out to my boi rice-and-beans.)
In that case, we’re not trading off dollars for dollars. We’re trading off time, effort, and comfort for dollars.
At some point, if you spend enough time on something, it might cut into your earning potential. But many of us have jobs that only allow us to work a certain number of hours per week anyway, or minds that only allow us to be focused and productive for a certain number of hours per week. For these people, it’s possible to spend additional time and effort without cutting into earning potential.
So the question is not “Can I do more good than veganism with my money?” but rather “Can I do more good than veganism with my time?” Not a lot of other volunteer opportunities give you the chance to spare multiple individuals from torture every year, so I think it’s likely still a good use of time.
(Though this obviously intersects with the other question of “Just how morally valuable is it to spare animals from factory farming?”)
This argument comes up a lot in the EA/veganism debate, and I think it’s a “minds very different from our own” situation. Some people don’t find eating vegan to be costly, or find it cheap enough to not notice. Some people find it prohibitively costly, or so costly that it’s not worth considering. What I would ask is that people who find veganism cheap acknowledge that their experience is not universal, and for some people it really is that hard.
This isn’t a moral argument. Sometimes the morally correct thing to do is costly. But it doesn’t help anything to pretend it’s cheap.
This isn’t a “minds very different from our own” claim, though. It’s an empirical claim about how expensive a vegan diet needs to be to be nutritious. Cam stated: “But it’s also quite feasible to meet most people’s dietary requirements with vegan foods that cost just as much as, or even less than, animal-based foods.” What exactly in that statement do you dispute?
ETA: Even though there is a risk in overstating the case that veganism is universally “cheap,” at present it seems that case is far understated. I think the value of Cam’s comment is in noting that veganism is at the very least cheaper than most people suspect before trying it.
I don’t think “costly” here just refers to money. I think Elizabeth is talking about all kinds of costs, from time and money to emotions and social connections.
If we’re using Jeff’s weighting, he could babysit a neighbor’s children for an hour once a decade, receive $5, and donate it to the Against Malaria Foundation, and that would be a better use of his time than all the time spent on veganism.
If you’re arguing “people should spend their leisure time doing good”, I think that’s a different argument—but I think Jeff could find better ways to do good during his leisure time than going vegan.