“The key is that you need to show people using an EA mindset (thinking about consequences and counterfactuals, remembering that everyone is valuable), even if they aren’t working on EA causes. Show people characters who do incredible things and invite them to contemplate the virtues of those characters, and you don’t need to hammer too hard on the philosophy.”
...so I suppose I’d say that (1) is important, but mostly when blended with (2). Rational fiction isn’t uniquely instructive; instead, it takes lessons a reader could learn in many different ways and drives them deeper into the reader’s identity than other media might be able to. There’s an element of “I didn’t know people could be like this” and an element of “this is the kind of person I want to be.”
I’d guess the second element is more important, since most people have heard about actual moral heroes outside of fiction, but they may not have a sense of how such people think about/experience the world.
I shared some thoughts on this topic on a similar thread posted last year. An excerpt:
...so I suppose I’d say that (1) is important, but mostly when blended with (2). Rational fiction isn’t uniquely instructive; instead, it takes lessons a reader could learn in many different ways and drives them deeper into the reader’s identity than other media might be able to. There’s an element of “I didn’t know people could be like this” and an element of “this is the kind of person I want to be.”
I’d guess the second element is more important, since most people have heard about actual moral heroes outside of fiction, but they may not have a sense of how such people think about/experience the world.