I basically agree with the core case for âanimal welfare offsettingâ, and discuss some related ideas in Confessions of a Cheeseburger Ethicist. The main points of resistance Iâd flag are just:
For some people, there may not be any âtradeoffâ between going vegan and donating. If you can easily do both, all the better! So itâs worth being clear that the argument isnât really against veganism so much as against investing too much moral effort into becoming vegan (if it would require significant willpower).
As Jeff notes, there may be better second-order effects from going vegan. Presumably a sufficiently large extra donation could balance those out, but itâs very hard to guess what would be sufficient. (I do think thereâs also value to omnivores like us being public about valuing animal welfare and donating accordingly. That might help reach some different audiences, for example. But I still think itâs worth esteeming veganism as a laudatory practice, even if it shouldnât be everyoneâs top priority.)
I think @Richard Y Chappellđ¸ is right. Iâd add that lots of my non-EA peers care about hypocrisy (ie, they would be unwilling to entertain arguments in favour of veganism or donating to animal welfare coming from a non-vegan).
I care a lot about spreading the cause of veganism (and effective altruism more generally), and I think that by eating vegan I hold a certain amount of moral legitimacy in the eyes of others that I donât want to give up because it might help me convince them about animal welfare or EA one day. (Being vegan also provides some reflective moral legitimacy or satisfaction to the irrational part of me that also cares about hypocrisy.)
My question for you is why do you promote AW donation AND veganism. Do you think you can increase your EU by only advocating for AW donations? Do you care that others abide by deontological side-contraints?
I donât care about deontic constraints as such (that goes for me and my peers). But insofar as many people (especially non-EAs) care about weird deontic things like personal proximity to a cause and hypocrisy, I think advocating veganism is worthwhile, and perhaps has a higher EV than advocating for AW donations.
I doubt many people who arenât vegan donate to AW (beside some EAs, like yourself). A lot of people would clearly prefer to donate lots of money than go vegan, but I think the main thing stopping people from caring about veganism and animal welfare is motivated reasoning; ie, they donât want to admit to themselves that their diet is immoral. And so Iâm not sure Iâd be able to convince many people that animal welfare matters and that they should donate to it but donât have to go vegan. I could be wrong, and if I am that bodes well because getting lots of people to donate to AW would be great!
As to why I advocate both AW and veganism, see what I wrote above about why I myself am vegan. I think it is communicatively powerful and lends you a certain kind of moral legitimacy that other people (especially non-EAs) tend to care about. The few times I have tried to convince my family members about veganism, theyâve almost immediately started in on hypocrisy. For example, they would mention things like when I took a bite of my sisterâs meal that had meat in it, how I used to not be vegan, how I still fly on planes even though I care about the environment, etc. I think all these objections are insane (esp. the one about flying), but they go to show how non-EAs put a lot of emphasis on hypocrisy as something thatâs morally relevant.
I think there needs to be a general cultural shift toward caring about animals such that weâd view killing them instrumentally as repulsive in the same way that many people intuitively feel killing humans for the greater good is still wrong (I really liked what you wrote about this here). And to achieve this cultural shift, we probably shouldnât be hypocrites because the people weâre trying to convince really donât like being lectured by hypocrites.
I basically agree with the core case for âanimal welfare offsettingâ, and discuss some related ideas in Confessions of a Cheeseburger Ethicist. The main points of resistance Iâd flag are just:
For some people, there may not be any âtradeoffâ between going vegan and donating. If you can easily do both, all the better! So itâs worth being clear that the argument isnât really against veganism so much as against investing too much moral effort into becoming vegan (if it would require significant willpower).
As Jeff notes, there may be better second-order effects from going vegan. Presumably a sufficiently large extra donation could balance those out, but itâs very hard to guess what would be sufficient. (I do think thereâs also value to omnivores like us being public about valuing animal welfare and donating accordingly. That might help reach some different audiences, for example. But I still think itâs worth esteeming veganism as a laudatory practice, even if it shouldnât be everyoneâs top priority.)
I think @Richard Y Chappellđ¸ is right. Iâd add that lots of my non-EA peers care about hypocrisy (ie, they would be unwilling to entertain arguments in favour of veganism or donating to animal welfare coming from a non-vegan).
I care a lot about spreading the cause of veganism (and effective altruism more generally), and I think that by eating vegan I hold a certain amount of moral legitimacy in the eyes of others that I donât want to give up because it might help me convince them about animal welfare or EA one day. (Being vegan also provides some reflective moral legitimacy or satisfaction to the irrational part of me that also cares about hypocrisy.)
My question for you is why do you promote AW donation AND veganism. Do you think you can increase your EU by only advocating for AW donations? Do you care that others abide by deontological side-contraints?
I donât care about deontic constraints as such (that goes for me and my peers). But insofar as many people (especially non-EAs) care about weird deontic things like personal proximity to a cause and hypocrisy, I think advocating veganism is worthwhile, and perhaps has a higher EV than advocating for AW donations.
I doubt many people who arenât vegan donate to AW (beside some EAs, like yourself). A lot of people would clearly prefer to donate lots of money than go vegan, but I think the main thing stopping people from caring about veganism and animal welfare is motivated reasoning; ie, they donât want to admit to themselves that their diet is immoral. And so Iâm not sure Iâd be able to convince many people that animal welfare matters and that they should donate to it but donât have to go vegan. I could be wrong, and if I am that bodes well because getting lots of people to donate to AW would be great!
As to why I advocate both AW and veganism, see what I wrote above about why I myself am vegan. I think it is communicatively powerful and lends you a certain kind of moral legitimacy that other people (especially non-EAs) tend to care about. The few times I have tried to convince my family members about veganism, theyâve almost immediately started in on hypocrisy. For example, they would mention things like when I took a bite of my sisterâs meal that had meat in it, how I used to not be vegan, how I still fly on planes even though I care about the environment, etc. I think all these objections are insane (esp. the one about flying), but they go to show how non-EAs put a lot of emphasis on hypocrisy as something thatâs morally relevant.
I think there needs to be a general cultural shift toward caring about animals such that weâd view killing them instrumentally as repulsive in the same way that many people intuitively feel killing humans for the greater good is still wrong (I really liked what you wrote about this here). And to achieve this cultural shift, we probably shouldnât be hypocrites because the people weâre trying to convince really donât like being lectured by hypocrites.
Your reasoning is solid to me. great response.