Agree—it’s worth pointing out that ‘meat offsetting’ isn’t obviously morally OK unless you’re a consequentialist. It’s analogous to a case where you kill one person then pay someone else not to kill a different person—and you’d only have to donate $3500 to AMF per person killed, bargain!
(unlike CO2 offsetting, where the overall level of CO2 is reduced and fewer ppl are harmed).
Ben, actually CO2 offsetting suffers from some similar problems, but obscures the fact. When you emit carbon dioxide those emissions will go on to harm particular people. When you buy offsets that will avert emissions that would have harmed different people.
So it’s analogous in that way to shooting randomly into a crowd, and then offsetting by paying others not to shoot into the crowd. Some reasons we react differently for CO2 are that the victims are distant, aren’t identifiable, and the mechanism is further from direct physical force.
When you emit carbon dioxide those emissions will go on to harm particular people. When you buy offsets that will avert emissions that would have harmed different people.
That only seems to show that emissions do harm. Not that the harm is so finely individuated.
fwiw there are reasons to doubt the butterfly effect works in the same way given quantum mechanics
CO2 offsetting is an ex ante pareto improvement, whereas killing one person then paying someone else not to kill more than 1 person isn’t. I was trying to say the meat offsetting example could be seen as more like the second. You could think both are problematic though.
Interesting. Nonetheless, people buying carbon offsets don’t think that their pollution is seriously harming certain people which they’re making up for by helping otherwise. So they see buying carbon offsets as very different from buying the sort of ‘murder offsets’ that Ben mentions.
For the consequentialist, offsetting is a bad perspective anyway—unless you have an odd arbitrary setpoint above which consequences don’t matter, you should neither kill someone nor ever refrain from donating to save lives.
Meat consumption is different because it can actually affect the extent to which one is able to be ethically productive.
It would be neat if people could engage in discussion instead of downvoting, but whatever...
Perhaps you could further describe
1) Why you think that offsetting meat consumption is different from offsetting killing a person
2) How meat consumption can “affect the extent to which one is able to be ethically productive”
For me, these kinds of discussions suggest that most self-declared consequentialists are not consequentialists, but deontologists using consequentalist decision making in certain aspects of their lives. I think acknowledging this fact would be a step towards greater intellectual honesty.
“Perhaps you could further describe 1) Why you think that offsetting meat consumption is different from offsetting killing a person”
Because meat consumption has the potential to save money and/or time for the average person, which murder doesn’t.
“2) How meat consumption can “affect the extent to which one is able to be ethically productive”
As the OP, Katja Grace, and others have pointed out, if being vegetarian incurs any social or monetary costs in the range of under, say, $100 a year, then it’s far more inefficient than donations simply to animal charities, while human poverty charities and existential risk charities could do even better. Personally, I save $100 a month by living in an apartment without a kitchen where I can’t cook meat substitutes, I save an additional $10 or so per week on groceries (based on comparison between my expenses when I was living vegetarian and now), I spend less of my time cooking, and my diet is more complete.
Agree—it’s worth pointing out that ‘meat offsetting’ isn’t obviously morally OK unless you’re a consequentialist. It’s analogous to a case where you kill one person then pay someone else not to kill a different person—and you’d only have to donate $3500 to AMF per person killed, bargain!
(unlike CO2 offsetting, where the overall level of CO2 is reduced and fewer ppl are harmed).
Ben, actually CO2 offsetting suffers from some similar problems, but obscures the fact. When you emit carbon dioxide those emissions will go on to harm particular people. When you buy offsets that will avert emissions that would have harmed different people.
So it’s analogous in that way to shooting randomly into a crowd, and then offsetting by paying others not to shoot into the crowd. Some reasons we react differently for CO2 are that the victims are distant, aren’t identifiable, and the mechanism is further from direct physical force.
What’s this claim based on?
Harm from weather events: heat stroke, storms, crop damage. Plus the butterfly effect.
That only seems to show that emissions do harm. Not that the harm is so finely individuated. fwiw there are reasons to doubt the butterfly effect works in the same way given quantum mechanics
I’d be interested to hear Carl’s response, since this is an interesting test case for the harm-avoidance moral principles at issue.
CO2 offsetting is an ex ante pareto improvement, whereas killing one person then paying someone else not to kill more than 1 person isn’t. I was trying to say the meat offsetting example could be seen as more like the second. You could think both are problematic though.
Interesting. Nonetheless, people buying carbon offsets don’t think that their pollution is seriously harming certain people which they’re making up for by helping otherwise. So they see buying carbon offsets as very different from buying the sort of ‘murder offsets’ that Ben mentions.
For the consequentialist, offsetting is a bad perspective anyway—unless you have an odd arbitrary setpoint above which consequences don’t matter, you should neither kill someone nor ever refrain from donating to save lives.
Meat consumption is different because it can actually affect the extent to which one is able to be ethically productive.
It would be neat if people could engage in discussion instead of downvoting, but whatever...
Perhaps you could further describe 1) Why you think that offsetting meat consumption is different from offsetting killing a person 2) How meat consumption can “affect the extent to which one is able to be ethically productive”
For me, these kinds of discussions suggest that most self-declared consequentialists are not consequentialists, but deontologists using consequentalist decision making in certain aspects of their lives. I think acknowledging this fact would be a step towards greater intellectual honesty.
Many EAs don’t self-declare as consequentialists. And even if you think consequentialism is the best guess moral theory, due to moral uncertainty, you should still care about what other perspectives might say. https://80000hours.org/2012/01/practical-ethics-given-moral-uncertainty/
“Perhaps you could further describe 1) Why you think that offsetting meat consumption is different from offsetting killing a person”
Because meat consumption has the potential to save money and/or time for the average person, which murder doesn’t.
“2) How meat consumption can “affect the extent to which one is able to be ethically productive”
As the OP, Katja Grace, and others have pointed out, if being vegetarian incurs any social or monetary costs in the range of under, say, $100 a year, then it’s far more inefficient than donations simply to animal charities, while human poverty charities and existential risk charities could do even better. Personally, I save $100 a month by living in an apartment without a kitchen where I can’t cook meat substitutes, I save an additional $10 or so per week on groceries (based on comparison between my expenses when I was living vegetarian and now), I spend less of my time cooking, and my diet is more complete.
Well, too bad, because I am a consequentialist. <<
To clarify, this remark was not directed towards you, but referred to others further up in the thread who argued against moral offsetting.
Oh, right. Yes that’s true, sorry for misunderstanding.