I think this kind of signal might work for high-functioning EAs, but not for your average person. It’s too complicated: “I don’t want to participate in a practice that harms animals” is much easier to understand.
By the logic you’ve expressed in the post, I think you could also consider eating leftover meat, meat that’s for free, meat that’s from someone you know… so it gets complicated. My expectation is that most people see such behaviour, and think this person kind of cares about animal welfare, but only a bit.
That all said, I think (although I’m uncertain) that reason (1) in my last comment might actually be the most important.
I agree that there is likely a trade-off between thoughtfulness and clarity, but I don’t think most EAs are going to signal much to the average person. The signalling will mostly happen within their social circle, which tend to be more educated and likely more open to complicated reasoning.
That’s fair. It would be cool if there was a way to measure this empirically. I don’t really see from my own experience that it has this effect: I’m sure I’ve alienated some people by seeming extreme, but I can also point to more people than I can easily count who have become vegetarian after talking to me about it, and I think we only got talking because I was strict—because being strict is more noticeable, and perhaps more impressive. And when I explain my reasons, I’ve never had the response “that seems overly dogmatic”.
But I’m not sure that this is even the main reason not to eat meat. Related to my point (1) above, I also don’t want to eat meat (or even want to desire it) for the sake of my own psychology: because I want to view animals similarly to humans, and I think eating dead people is gross. That might seem like less of a rational reason, but I think emotions are important motivators and reinforce our rational beliefs, at least for most humans.
I think this kind of signal might work for high-functioning EAs, but not for your average person. It’s too complicated: “I don’t want to participate in a practice that harms animals” is much easier to understand.
By the logic you’ve expressed in the post, I think you could also consider eating leftover meat, meat that’s for free, meat that’s from someone you know… so it gets complicated. My expectation is that most people see such behaviour, and think this person kind of cares about animal welfare, but only a bit.
That all said, I think (although I’m uncertain) that reason (1) in my last comment might actually be the most important.
I agree that there is likely a trade-off between thoughtfulness and clarity, but I don’t think most EAs are going to signal much to the average person. The signalling will mostly happen within their social circle, which tend to be more educated and likely more open to complicated reasoning.
That’s fair. It would be cool if there was a way to measure this empirically. I don’t really see from my own experience that it has this effect: I’m sure I’ve alienated some people by seeming extreme, but I can also point to more people than I can easily count who have become vegetarian after talking to me about it, and I think we only got talking because I was strict—because being strict is more noticeable, and perhaps more impressive. And when I explain my reasons, I’ve never had the response “that seems overly dogmatic”.
But I’m not sure that this is even the main reason not to eat meat. Related to my point (1) above, I also don’t want to eat meat (or even want to desire it) for the sake of my own psychology: because I want to view animals similarly to humans, and I think eating dead people is gross. That might seem like less of a rational reason, but I think emotions are important motivators and reinforce our rational beliefs, at least for most humans.