I am glad you’ve come to a decision here, even though it sounds like a painful one! I really appreciated being able to read this, thank you for sharing!
I think animal welfare work is more likely to be recommended by my all-things-considered normative views than what I’ve been doing, though I’m not confident that cluelessness doesn’t undermine this, too.
@JesseClifton I’d be really curious to hear your thoughts on why animal welfare work seems better under your normative beliefs, if you’re open to sharing. (Not sharing my views because I don’t want to anchor you.) Someone I’m close to is trying to figure out what they believe about cluelessness, and I thought they might benefit from hearing someone else think through this!
Some reasons why animal welfare work seems better:
I put some weight on a view which says: “When doing consequentialist decision-making, we should set the net weight of the reasons we have no idea how to weigh up (e.g., long-run flowthrough effects) to zero.” This probably implies restricting attention to near-term consequences, and animal welfare interventions seem best for that. (I just made a post that discusses this approach to decision-making.)
I think this kind of view is hard to make theoretically satisfying, but it does a good enough job of capturing intuitions relative to alternatives that I currently want to give it some weight.
Non-consequentialist considerations might push towards fighting the worst ongoing atrocities / injustices, which also suggests animal-related work.
I am glad you’ve come to a decision here, even though it sounds like a painful one! I really appreciated being able to read this, thank you for sharing!
@JesseClifton I’d be really curious to hear your thoughts on why animal welfare work seems better under your normative beliefs, if you’re open to sharing. (Not sharing my views because I don’t want to anchor you.) Someone I’m close to is trying to figure out what they believe about cluelessness, and I thought they might benefit from hearing someone else think through this!
Some reasons why animal welfare work seems better:
I put some weight on a view which says: “When doing consequentialist decision-making, we should set the net weight of the reasons we have no idea how to weigh up (e.g., long-run flowthrough effects) to zero.” This probably implies restricting attention to near-term consequences, and animal welfare interventions seem best for that. (I just made a post that discusses this approach to decision-making.)
I think this kind of view is hard to make theoretically satisfying, but it does a good enough job of capturing intuitions relative to alternatives that I currently want to give it some weight.
Non-consequentialist considerations might push towards fighting the worst ongoing atrocities / injustices, which also suggests animal-related work.
(Thanks! Haven’t forgotten about this, will try to respond soon.)