Regarding willpower: If you maintain a vegan diet for a few months, it will probably stop requiring willpower since you will stop thinking of animal products as an option that you have available. This has been my experience and the experience of lots of other vegans, although it’s probably not universal.
Does it take willpower for you to be vegetarian? If not, then it probably won’t take willpower for you to be vegan either once you get used to it. (It will certainly still take willpower while you’re still transitioning.)
Regarding time: In some ways veganism takes more time because sometimes you have to look harder to find products you can eat, but it some ways it takes less time because decisions are easier when you have fewer options. For me personally it’s probably about a wash. (The biggest time loss is talking about it on the internet a lot.)
I think Katja’s argument about willpower proves too much, because it says you should not do anything that requires time/willpower that you could be expending on EA activities. It seems to imply that you should stop exercising and start eating unhealthy food whenever you want because that will leave you more time and willpower for more effective pursuits. The way people apply this argument to veganism but not to anything else looks suspiciously like motivated reasoning. (Although it’s possible that people just tend to be more reflective when considering veganism but they don’t put the same level of thought into most other decisions, so this argument doesn’t come up.)
Both of these arguments are based on quantitative details—how much benefit do you get per unit of personal cost? It’s not a general argument against doing hard things. I think the tradeoffs look more favorable for exercise.
Thanks Jeff! You make a good point there—people do apply this sort of argument in a lot of cases, and lots of times they’re right to do so. It looks like I fell prey to the “failure to think of examples implies no examples exist” fallacy.
Regarding willpower: If you maintain a vegan diet for a few months, it will probably stop requiring willpower since you will stop thinking of animal products as an option that you have available. This has been my experience and the experience of lots of other vegans, although it’s probably not universal.
Yeah, my experience previously has been that the willpower required mostly decreases over time—there was definitely a time a while ago when the thought of buying and eating eggs was kind of absurd to me. This was slightly counterbalanced by sometimes getting odd cravings for animal products, though. I think that if I put conscious effort into developing negative associations around animal products, though, I could probably end up in a situation where it took zero willpower. That would obviously take effort though.
Does it take willpower for you to be vegetarian? If not, then it probably won’t take willpower for you to be vegan either once you get used to it.
No, being vegetarian takes zero willpower for me, but I was raised vegetarian, so I have hardly eaten any meat in my entire life, so I have very little desire to eat it—and even an aversive reaction to a lot of meat. (Which I’m very grateful to my parents for!)
The trade-off argument is right as far as it goes, but that might not be as far as we think: the metaphor of the “will power points” seems problematic. As MichaelDickens and Jess note, many lifestyle changes have initial start-up costs but no ongoing costs. And many things we think will have ongoing costs do not (see, e.g., studies showing more money and more things don’t on average make us happier; conversely, less money and fewer things might not make us less happy). An earning-to-give investment banker might use the trade-off logic to explain why she is not selling her sports car for a Honda Civic, and while that might be right in some cases, I think more often it would be wrong. Point being, it would be a shame if we used the trade-off argument to avoid trying lifestyle changes that, long term, might have no (or small) ongoing costs to our quality of life.
More generally, diet is not a binary choice. Avoid animal products when it’s convenient; don’t when it’s inconvenient. Over time, you might learn it’s not as inconvenient as you thought.
″ (see, e.g., studies showing more money and more things don’t on average make us happier;”
The studies do show having more money does make people feel happier. See RCTs of cash transfers like GiveDirectly’s, and household data within and between countries. You get less happiness per dollar as you have more, but an n% fall or rise in income still has happiness effects in the same ballpark.
Regarding willpower: If you maintain a vegan diet for a few months, it will probably stop requiring willpower since you will stop thinking of animal products as an option that you have available. This has been my experience and the experience of lots of other vegans, although it’s probably not universal.
Does it take willpower for you to be vegetarian? If not, then it probably won’t take willpower for you to be vegan either once you get used to it. (It will certainly still take willpower while you’re still transitioning.)
Regarding time: In some ways veganism takes more time because sometimes you have to look harder to find products you can eat, but it some ways it takes less time because decisions are easier when you have fewer options. For me personally it’s probably about a wash. (The biggest time loss is talking about it on the internet a lot.)
I think Katja’s argument about willpower proves too much, because it says you should not do anything that requires time/willpower that you could be expending on EA activities. It seems to imply that you should stop exercising and start eating unhealthy food whenever you want because that will leave you more time and willpower for more effective pursuits. The way people apply this argument to veganism but not to anything else looks suspiciously like motivated reasoning. (Although it’s possible that people just tend to be more reflective when considering veganism but they don’t put the same level of thought into most other decisions, so this argument doesn’t come up.)
I endorse this argument and apply it across the board. Is there some place in particular you think people fail to apply it?
Note that the argument against exercising is quantitatively much weaker than the argument against veganism.
What do you mean “quantitatively” weaker?
Both of these arguments are based on quantitative details—how much benefit do you get per unit of personal cost? It’s not a general argument against doing hard things. I think the tradeoffs look more favorable for exercise.
I wrote a comment, the commenting system ate it, so I rewrote my response as a blog post: http://www.jefftk.com/p/applying-the-best-tradeoff-argument-generally
Thanks Jeff! You make a good point there—people do apply this sort of argument in a lot of cases, and lots of times they’re right to do so. It looks like I fell prey to the “failure to think of examples implies no examples exist” fallacy.
Yeah, my experience previously has been that the willpower required mostly decreases over time—there was definitely a time a while ago when the thought of buying and eating eggs was kind of absurd to me. This was slightly counterbalanced by sometimes getting odd cravings for animal products, though. I think that if I put conscious effort into developing negative associations around animal products, though, I could probably end up in a situation where it took zero willpower. That would obviously take effort though.
No, being vegetarian takes zero willpower for me, but I was raised vegetarian, so I have hardly eaten any meat in my entire life, so I have very little desire to eat it—and even an aversive reaction to a lot of meat. (Which I’m very grateful to my parents for!)
The trade-off argument is right as far as it goes, but that might not be as far as we think: the metaphor of the “will power points” seems problematic. As MichaelDickens and Jess note, many lifestyle changes have initial start-up costs but no ongoing costs. And many things we think will have ongoing costs do not (see, e.g., studies showing more money and more things don’t on average make us happier; conversely, less money and fewer things might not make us less happy). An earning-to-give investment banker might use the trade-off logic to explain why she is not selling her sports car for a Honda Civic, and while that might be right in some cases, I think more often it would be wrong. Point being, it would be a shame if we used the trade-off argument to avoid trying lifestyle changes that, long term, might have no (or small) ongoing costs to our quality of life.
More generally, diet is not a binary choice. Avoid animal products when it’s convenient; don’t when it’s inconvenient. Over time, you might learn it’s not as inconvenient as you thought.
″ (see, e.g., studies showing more money and more things don’t on average make us happier;”
The studies do show having more money does make people feel happier. See RCTs of cash transfers like GiveDirectly’s, and household data within and between countries. You get less happiness per dollar as you have more, but an n% fall or rise in income still has happiness effects in the same ballpark.