Hi Abraham! Thanks for pointing out that it would be helpful to clarify what is meant by the tradeoff values.
I differ on this point:
if you’re just saying, with little basis, that a pig has 1⁄100 human moral worth, I don’t know how to evaluate it. It isn’t an argument. It’s just an arbitrary discount to make your actions feel justified from a utilitarian standpoint.
I think we should give Jeff the benefit of the doubt here. I don’t think his estimates are arbitrary. I think they are honest reflections of the conclusions he has come to given his experience and his understanding of the evidence.
It would be nice to hear more about Jeff’s rationale. But in terms of community norms, I’d like to keep space open for people who want to present novel arguments without having to exhaustively justify every premise.
Yeah, that’s fair—I was not charitable in my original comment RE whether or not there is a rationale behind those estimates, when perhaps I ought to assume there is one. But I guess part of my point is that because this argument entirely hinges on a rationale, not providing it just makes this seem very sketchy.
While I don’t think human experiences and animal experiences are comparable in this direct a way, as an illustration imagine me making a post that said, “I think humans in other countries are worth 1⁄10 of those in my own country, therefore it seems like more of a priority to help those in my own country”, and providing no reasoning or clarification for that discount. You would be justified in being very skeptical of the argument I was making, and to view my argument as low quality, even though there might be a variety of other good reasons to prioritize helping those in my own country. I don’t think that kind of statement is high enough quality on its own to be entertained or to support an argument. But at its core, that’s the argument in this post. I’d be interested in talking about the reasons behind those discounts, but without them, there just isn’t even a way to engage with this argument that I think is productive.
For the record, I generally don’t think it is a major wrong to not be vegan, and wouldn’t downvote / be this critical of someone voicing something along the lines of “I really like how meat tastes, so am not vegan,” etc. I am more critical here because it is an attempt to make a moral justification of not eating a vegan diet, and I think that argument not only fails, but also doesn’t attempt to defend or explain core premises and assumptions, especially when aspects of those premises seem contrary to some degree of scientific evidence / consensus, which strike me to broadly be taken seriously as part of the community norms.
That being said, I think it’s fully possible there are good justifications for having such large discounts on the moral worth of animals, and those discounts are worth discussing. But that was glossed over here, which is why I am responding more critically.
Hi Abraham! Thanks for pointing out that it would be helpful to clarify what is meant by the tradeoff values.
I differ on this point:
I think we should give Jeff the benefit of the doubt here. I don’t think his estimates are arbitrary. I think they are honest reflections of the conclusions he has come to given his experience and his understanding of the evidence.
It would be nice to hear more about Jeff’s rationale. But in terms of community norms, I’d like to keep space open for people who want to present novel arguments without having to exhaustively justify every premise.
Yeah, that’s fair—I was not charitable in my original comment RE whether or not there is a rationale behind those estimates, when perhaps I ought to assume there is one. But I guess part of my point is that because this argument entirely hinges on a rationale, not providing it just makes this seem very sketchy.
While I don’t think human experiences and animal experiences are comparable in this direct a way, as an illustration imagine me making a post that said, “I think humans in other countries are worth 1⁄10 of those in my own country, therefore it seems like more of a priority to help those in my own country”, and providing no reasoning or clarification for that discount. You would be justified in being very skeptical of the argument I was making, and to view my argument as low quality, even though there might be a variety of other good reasons to prioritize helping those in my own country. I don’t think that kind of statement is high enough quality on its own to be entertained or to support an argument. But at its core, that’s the argument in this post. I’d be interested in talking about the reasons behind those discounts, but without them, there just isn’t even a way to engage with this argument that I think is productive.
For the record, I generally don’t think it is a major wrong to not be vegan, and wouldn’t downvote / be this critical of someone voicing something along the lines of “I really like how meat tastes, so am not vegan,” etc. I am more critical here because it is an attempt to make a moral justification of not eating a vegan diet, and I think that argument not only fails, but also doesn’t attempt to defend or explain core premises and assumptions, especially when aspects of those premises seem contrary to some degree of scientific evidence / consensus, which strike me to broadly be taken seriously as part of the community norms.
That being said, I think it’s fully possible there are good justifications for having such large discounts on the moral worth of animals, and those discounts are worth discussing. But that was glossed over here, which is why I am responding more critically.