It seems like many of the disagreements in the comments comes from disagreements about the moral status of animals.
In an expected value calculation, it is fine to offset greenhouse gas emissions with true counterfactual offsets because there isn’t a clear case of one moral actor causing harm to a moral patient, and the harm can be completely compensated for. But most people would object to the idea of killing someone, selling their organs on the black market, and then donating the money to prevent other people from dying from easily preventable diseases. Here there is a clear case of a specific moral actor causing specific, serious harm to a moral patient. The harm can’t be undone. While the first greenhouse gas example doesn’t have a clear justice angle, the second organ harvesting one does.
Vegans tend to see a strong justice case involved when eating animals—there is clearly a specific moral patient being harmed (eaten). Non-vegans may grant that animals can suffer, but don’t fully elevate them to a moral status where justice concerns matter. If there isn’t a justice angle, then expected value logic applies and the desire to reduce suffering can be fluidly traded off against perceived inconvenience. The moral severity of taking a life doesn’t register.
The exclusion of justice considerations is speciesist (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciesism), and we should be cautious about denying full moral consideration simply based on species membership. If we are broadly worried about reducing suffering and moral circle expansion, keeping justice concerns for animals at the forefront of conversations about eating meat is important.
Vegans tend to see a strong justice case involved when eating animals—there is clearly a specific moral patient being harmed (eaten).
But being eaten is not harmful for an already dead animal, it’s the life and killing before, which your current purchase almost certainly didn’t affect, unless you’re buying live animals or the animals are slaughtered at your request for your purchase. Your purchasing behaviour mostly affects animals not yet born in expectation (although with very low probability does it affect any at all). You could in principle offset your impact on the market before the market could take your individual purchasing behaviour into account separately from things you do which reduce consumption in others. For example, instead abstaining from a specific animal product in one instance, you convince someone else in the same region to do so, if they wouldn’t have otherwise. This kind of offsetting seems much harder and expensive, though, since it needs to be particularly targeted.
It seems like many of the disagreements in the comments comes from disagreements about the moral status of animals.
In an expected value calculation, it is fine to offset greenhouse gas emissions with true counterfactual offsets because there isn’t a clear case of one moral actor causing harm to a moral patient, and the harm can be completely compensated for. But most people would object to the idea of killing someone, selling their organs on the black market, and then donating the money to prevent other people from dying from easily preventable diseases. Here there is a clear case of a specific moral actor causing specific, serious harm to a moral patient. The harm can’t be undone. While the first greenhouse gas example doesn’t have a clear justice angle, the second organ harvesting one does.
Vegans tend to see a strong justice case involved when eating animals—there is clearly a specific moral patient being harmed (eaten). Non-vegans may grant that animals can suffer, but don’t fully elevate them to a moral status where justice concerns matter. If there isn’t a justice angle, then expected value logic applies and the desire to reduce suffering can be fluidly traded off against perceived inconvenience. The moral severity of taking a life doesn’t register.
The exclusion of justice considerations is speciesist (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciesism), and we should be cautious about denying full moral consideration simply based on species membership. If we are broadly worried about reducing suffering and moral circle expansion, keeping justice concerns for animals at the forefront of conversations about eating meat is important.
But being eaten is not harmful for an already dead animal, it’s the life and killing before, which your current purchase almost certainly didn’t affect, unless you’re buying live animals or the animals are slaughtered at your request for your purchase. Your purchasing behaviour mostly affects animals not yet born in expectation (although with very low probability does it affect any at all). You could in principle offset your impact on the market before the market could take your individual purchasing behaviour into account separately from things you do which reduce consumption in others. For example, instead abstaining from a specific animal product in one instance, you convince someone else in the same region to do so, if they wouldn’t have otherwise. This kind of offsetting seems much harder and expensive, though, since it needs to be particularly targeted.
I have vegan friend who does not eat meat but eats seafood like fish/calamari. Her logic I still do not understand tbh