Going back to relying just on intuition and not listening to others would also seem pretty unvirtious (unwise/âimprudent) to me, but (without having read the chapter), I doubt the author would go that far, given his advice to look âfor a good way to support a project that aligns with your priorities, is well-run, and looks like it has a good chance of achieving its goalsâ. I would also guess he doesnât mean you should never question your priorities (or moral intuitions) or investigate where specific lines of moral reasoming lead.
I think heâs mostly skeptical about relying primarily on one particular system, especially any simple one, because it would be likely to miss so much of what matters and so cause harm or miss out on doing better.
Yeah that makes sense to me. My original reading was probably too uncharitable. Though when I read zchuangâs observation further up
I think the book is targeted at an imagined left-wing young person who the authors think would be âtrickedâ into EA because they misread certain claims that EA puts forward. Itâs a form of memeplex competition.
I now feel like maybe the author isnât warning readers about the perils of focusing on a particular worldview, but specifically on worldviews like EA, that often take one measure and optimise it in practice (even if the philosophy permits a pluralistic view on value).
It does seem like their approach would have the effect of making people defer less, or biases them towards their original views and beliefs, though? Hereâs the full paragraph:
First, you have more reason to trust your judgments than you assume. What motivates you to give to make things better for animals? What kinds of mistreatment of animals are you most concerned about? Of the many kinds of activities benefitting animals, which are you most drawn to? Reflect on your priorities as a starting point. Do not be tempted by claims of Effective Altruism or any other scheme to offer an objective rational basis for your decision. This is complicated stuff. It is much more complicated than any decision-making system can deal with. Your own commitments are likely to be a better initial basis for decision-making than any claimed objective system.
And on this âŚ
On virtue ethics (although to be clear, Iâve read very little about virtue ethics, so may be way off), another way we might think about this is that the virtue of charity, say, is one of the ways you capture others mattering. You express and develop the virtue of charity to help others, precisely because other people and their struggles matter. Itâs good for you, too, but itâs good for you because itâs good for others, like how satisying your other-regarding preferences is good for you. Getting others to develop the virtue of charity is also good for them, but itâs good for them because itâs good for those theyâll help.
Yeah sure, though I donât think this really gets around the objection (at least not for meâitâs based on intuition, after all). Even if you build character in this way in order to help ppl/âanimals in the future, itâs still the case that youâre not helping the animals youâre helping for their own sake, youâre doing it for some other reason. Even if that other reason is to help other animals in the future, that still feels off to me.
The argument you make against virtue ethics is also similar to an argument Iâd make against non-instrumental deontological constraints (and Iâve also read very little about deontology): such constraints seem like a preoccupation with keeping your own hands clean instead of doing whatâs better for moral patients. And helping others abide by these constraints, similar to developing othersâ virtues, seems bad if it leads to worse outcomes for others. But all of this is supposed to capture ways others matter.
I think this is a pretty solid objection, but I see two major differences between deontology and virtue ethics (disclaimer: I havenât read much about virtue ethics either so I could be strawmanning it) here:
Deontological duties are actually rooted in whatâs good/âbad for the targets of actions, whereas (in theory at least) the best way of building virtue could be totally disconnected from whatâs good for people/âanimals? (The nature of the virtue itself could not be disconnected, just the way you come by it.) E.g. maybe the best way of building moral character is to step into a character building simulator rather than going to an animal sanctuary? It feels like (and again I stress my lack of familiarity) a virtue ethicist comes up with whatâs virtuous by looking at the virtue-haver (and of course what happens to others can affect that, but what goes on inside the virtue-haver seems primary), whereas a deontologist comes up with duties by looking at whatâs good/âbad for those affected (and what goes on inside them seems primary).
Kantianism in particular has an injunction against using others as mere means, making it impossible to make moral decisions without considering those affected by the decision. (Though, yeah, I know there are trolley-like situations where you kind of privilege the first-order affected over the second-order affecteds.)
Edit: Also, with Kant, in particular, my impression is that he doesnât go, âIâve done this abstract, general reasoning and came to the conclusion that lying is categorically wrong, so therefore you should never lie in any particular instanceâ, but rather âin any particular instance, we should follow this general reasoning process (roughly, of identifying the maxim weâre acting according to, and seeing if that maxim is acceptable), and as it happens, I note that the set of maxims that involve lying all seem unacceptableâ. Not sure if Iâm communicating this clearly âŚ
I would expect that living your life in a character building simulator would itself be unvirtuous. You canât actually express most virtues in such a setting, because the stakes arenât real. Consistently avoiding situations where there are real stakes seems cowardly, imprudent, uncharitable, etc.. Spending some time in such simulators could be good, though.
On Kantianism, would trying to persuade people to not harm animals or to help animals mean using those people as mere means? Or, as long as they arenât harmed, itâs fine? Or, as long as youâre not misleading them, youâre helping them make more informed decisions, which respects and even promotes their agency (even if your goal is actually not this, but just helping animals, and you just avoid misleading in your afvocacy). Could showing people factory farm or slaughterhouse footage be too emotionally manipulative, whether or not that footage is respresentative? Should we add the disclaimer to our advocacy that any individual abstaining from animal products almost certainly has no âdirectâ impact on animals through this? Should we be more upfront about the health risks of veganism (if done poorly, which seems easy to do)? And add various other disclaimers and objections to give a less biased/âmisleading picture of things?
Could it be required that we include these issues with all advocacy, to ensure no one is misled into going vegan or becoming an advocate in the first place?
I would expect that living your life in a character building simulator would itself be unvirtuous. You canât actually express most virtues in such a setting, because the stakes arenât real. Consistently avoiding situations where there are real stakes seems cowardly, imprudent, uncharitable, etc.. Spending some time in such simulators could be good, though.
Yes, I imagined spending some time in a simulator. I guess Iâm making the claim that, in some cases at least, virtue ethics may identify a right action but seemingly without giving a good (IMO) account of whatâs right or praiseworthy about it.
On Kantianism, âŚ
There are degrees of coercion, and Iâm not sure whether to think of that as âthere are two distinct categories of action, the coercive and the non-coercive, but we donât know exactly where to draw the line between themâ or âcoerciveness is a continuous property of actions; there can be more or less of itâ. (I mean by âcoercivenessâ here something like âtaking someoneâs decision out of their own handsâ, and IMO taking it as important means prioritising, to some degree, respect for peopleâs (and animalsâ) right to make their own decisions over their well-being.)
So my answer to these questions is: It depends on the details, but I expect that Iâd judge some things to be clearly coercive, others to be clearly fine, and to be unsure about some borderline cases. More specifically (just giving my quick impressions here):
On Kantianism, would trying to persuade people to not harm animals or to help animals mean using those people as mere means? Or, as long as they arenât harmed, itâs fine? Or, as long as youâre not misleading them, youâre helping them make more informed decisions, which respects and even promotes their agency (even if your goal is actually not this, but just helping animals, and you just avoid misleading in your advocacy).
I think it depends on whether you also have the personâs interests in mind. If you do it e.g. intending to help them make a more informed or reasoned decision, in accordance with their will, then thatâs fine. If you do it trying to make them act against their will (for example, by threatening or blackmailing them, or by lying or withholding information, such that they make a different decision than had they known the full picture), then thatâs using as a mere means. (A maxim always contains its ends, i.e. the agentâs intention.)
Could showing people factory farm or slaughterhouse footage be too emotionally manipulative, whether or not that footage is representative?
Yeah, I think it could, but I also think it could importantly inform people of the realities of factory farms. Hard to say whether this is too coercive, it probably depends on the details again (what you show, in which context, how you frame it, etc.).
Should we add the disclaimer to our advocacy that any individual abstaining from animal products almost certainly has no âdirectâ impact on animals through this?
Time for a caveat: Iâd never have the audacity to tell people (such as yourself) in the effective animal advocacy space whatâs best to do there, and anyway give some substantial weight to utilitarianism. So what precedes and follows this paragraph arenât recommendations or anything, nor is it my all-things-considered view, just what I think one Kantian view might entail.
By âdirect impactâ, you mean you wonât save any specific animal by e.g. going vegan, youâre just likely preventing some future sufferingâsomething like that? Interesting, Iâd guess not disclosing this is fine, due to a combination of (1) people probably donât really care that much about this distinction, and think preventing future suffering is ~just as good, (2) people are usually already aware of something like this (at least upon reflection), and (3) people might have lots of other motivations to do the thing anyway, e.g. not wanting to contribute to an intensively suffering-causing system, which make this difference irrelevant. But Iâm definitely open to changing my mind here.
Should we be more upfront about the health risks of veganism (if done poorly, which seems easy to do)?
I hadnât thought about it, but it seems reasonable to me to guide people to health resources for vegans when presenting arguments in favour of veganism, given the potentially substantial negative effects of doing veganism without knowing how to do it well.
Btw, Iâd be really curious to hear your take on all these questions.
What I have in mind for direct impact is causal inefficacy. Markets are very unlikely to respond to your purchase decisions, but we have this threshold argument that the expected value is good (maybe in line with elasticities), because in the unlikely event that they do respond, the impact is very large. But most people probably wouldnât find the EV argument compelling, given how unlikely the impact is in large markets.
I think itâs probably good to promote health resources to new vegans and reach them pretty early with these, but Iâd worry that if we pair this information with all the advocacy we do, we could undermine ourselves. We could share links to resources, like Challenge22 (they have nutritionists and dieticians), VeganHealth and studies with our advocacy, and maybe even say being vegan can take some effort to do healthfully and for some people it doesnât really work or could be somewhat worse than other diets for them (but itâs worth finding out for yourself, given how important this is), and that seems fine. But I wouldnât want to emphasize reasons not to go vegan or the challenges with being vegan when people are being exposed to reasons to go vegan, especially for the first time. EDIT: people are often looking for reasons not to go vegan, so many will overweight them, or use confirmation bias when assessing the evidence.
I guess the other side is that deception or misleading (even by omission) in this case could be like lying to the axe murderer, and any reasonable Kantian should endorse lying in that case, and in general should sometimes endorse instrumental harm to prevent someone from harming another, including the use of force, imprisonment, etc. as long as itâs proportionate and no better alternatives are available to achieve the same goal. What the Health, Cowspiracy and some other documentaries might be better examples of deception (although the writers themselves may actually believe what theyâre pushing) and a lot of people have probably gone vegan because of them.
Misleasing/âdeception could also be counterproductive, though, by giving others the impression that vegans are dishonest, or having lots of people leave because they didnât get resources to manage their diets well, which could even give the overall impression that veganism is unhealthy.
Yeah that makes sense to me. My original reading was probably too uncharitable. Though when I read zchuangâs observation further up
I now feel like maybe the author isnât warning readers about the perils of focusing on a particular worldview, but specifically on worldviews like EA, that often take one measure and optimise it in practice (even if the philosophy permits a pluralistic view on value).
It does seem like their approach would have the effect of making people defer less, or biases them towards their original views and beliefs, though? Hereâs the full paragraph:
And on this âŚ
Yeah sure, though I donât think this really gets around the objection (at least not for meâitâs based on intuition, after all). Even if you build character in this way in order to help ppl/âanimals in the future, itâs still the case that youâre not helping the animals youâre helping for their own sake, youâre doing it for some other reason. Even if that other reason is to help other animals in the future, that still feels off to me.
I think this is a pretty solid objection, but I see two major differences between deontology and virtue ethics (disclaimer: I havenât read much about virtue ethics either so I could be strawmanning it) here:
Deontological duties are actually rooted in whatâs good/âbad for the targets of actions, whereas (in theory at least) the best way of building virtue could be totally disconnected from whatâs good for people/âanimals? (The nature of the virtue itself could not be disconnected, just the way you come by it.) E.g. maybe the best way of building moral character is to step into a character building simulator rather than going to an animal sanctuary? It feels like (and again I stress my lack of familiarity) a virtue ethicist comes up with whatâs virtuous by looking at the virtue-haver (and of course what happens to others can affect that, but what goes on inside the virtue-haver seems primary), whereas a deontologist comes up with duties by looking at whatâs good/âbad for those affected (and what goes on inside them seems primary).
Kantianism in particular has an injunction against using others as mere means, making it impossible to make moral decisions without considering those affected by the decision. (Though, yeah, I know there are trolley-like situations where you kind of privilege the first-order affected over the second-order affecteds.)
Edit: Also, with Kant, in particular, my impression is that he doesnât go, âIâve done this abstract, general reasoning and came to the conclusion that lying is categorically wrong, so therefore you should never lie in any particular instanceâ, but rather âin any particular instance, we should follow this general reasoning process (roughly, of identifying the maxim weâre acting according to, and seeing if that maxim is acceptable), and as it happens, I note that the set of maxims that involve lying all seem unacceptableâ. Not sure if Iâm communicating this clearly âŚ
I would expect that living your life in a character building simulator would itself be unvirtuous. You canât actually express most virtues in such a setting, because the stakes arenât real. Consistently avoiding situations where there are real stakes seems cowardly, imprudent, uncharitable, etc.. Spending some time in such simulators could be good, though.
On Kantianism, would trying to persuade people to not harm animals or to help animals mean using those people as mere means? Or, as long as they arenât harmed, itâs fine? Or, as long as youâre not misleading them, youâre helping them make more informed decisions, which respects and even promotes their agency (even if your goal is actually not this, but just helping animals, and you just avoid misleading in your afvocacy). Could showing people factory farm or slaughterhouse footage be too emotionally manipulative, whether or not that footage is respresentative? Should we add the disclaimer to our advocacy that any individual abstaining from animal products almost certainly has no âdirectâ impact on animals through this? Should we be more upfront about the health risks of veganism (if done poorly, which seems easy to do)? And add various other disclaimers and objections to give a less biased/âmisleading picture of things?
Could it be required that we include these issues with all advocacy, to ensure no one is misled into going vegan or becoming an advocate in the first place?
Yes, I imagined spending some time in a simulator. I guess Iâm making the claim that, in some cases at least, virtue ethics may identify a right action but seemingly without giving a good (IMO) account of whatâs right or praiseworthy about it.
There are degrees of coercion, and Iâm not sure whether to think of that as âthere are two distinct categories of action, the coercive and the non-coercive, but we donât know exactly where to draw the line between themâ or âcoerciveness is a continuous property of actions; there can be more or less of itâ. (I mean by âcoercivenessâ here something like âtaking someoneâs decision out of their own handsâ, and IMO taking it as important means prioritising, to some degree, respect for peopleâs (and animalsâ) right to make their own decisions over their well-being.)
So my answer to these questions is: It depends on the details, but I expect that Iâd judge some things to be clearly coercive, others to be clearly fine, and to be unsure about some borderline cases. More specifically (just giving my quick impressions here):
I think it depends on whether you also have the personâs interests in mind. If you do it e.g. intending to help them make a more informed or reasoned decision, in accordance with their will, then thatâs fine. If you do it trying to make them act against their will (for example, by threatening or blackmailing them, or by lying or withholding information, such that they make a different decision than had they known the full picture), then thatâs using as a mere means. (A maxim always contains its ends, i.e. the agentâs intention.)
Yeah, I think it could, but I also think it could importantly inform people of the realities of factory farms. Hard to say whether this is too coercive, it probably depends on the details again (what you show, in which context, how you frame it, etc.).
Time for a caveat: Iâd never have the audacity to tell people (such as yourself) in the effective animal advocacy space whatâs best to do there, and anyway give some substantial weight to utilitarianism. So what precedes and follows this paragraph arenât recommendations or anything, nor is it my all-things-considered view, just what I think one Kantian view might entail.
By âdirect impactâ, you mean you wonât save any specific animal by e.g. going vegan, youâre just likely preventing some future sufferingâsomething like that? Interesting, Iâd guess not disclosing this is fine, due to a combination of (1) people probably donât really care that much about this distinction, and think preventing future suffering is ~just as good, (2) people are usually already aware of something like this (at least upon reflection), and (3) people might have lots of other motivations to do the thing anyway, e.g. not wanting to contribute to an intensively suffering-causing system, which make this difference irrelevant. But Iâm definitely open to changing my mind here.
I hadnât thought about it, but it seems reasonable to me to guide people to health resources for vegans when presenting arguments in favour of veganism, given the potentially substantial negative effects of doing veganism without knowing how to do it well.
Btw, Iâd be really curious to hear your take on all these questions.
What I have in mind for direct impact is causal inefficacy. Markets are very unlikely to respond to your purchase decisions, but we have this threshold argument that the expected value is good (maybe in line with elasticities), because in the unlikely event that they do respond, the impact is very large. But most people probably wouldnât find the EV argument compelling, given how unlikely the impact is in large markets.
I think itâs probably good to promote health resources to new vegans and reach them pretty early with these, but Iâd worry that if we pair this information with all the advocacy we do, we could undermine ourselves. We could share links to resources, like Challenge22 (they have nutritionists and dieticians), VeganHealth and studies with our advocacy, and maybe even say being vegan can take some effort to do healthfully and for some people it doesnât really work or could be somewhat worse than other diets for them (but itâs worth finding out for yourself, given how important this is), and that seems fine. But I wouldnât want to emphasize reasons not to go vegan or the challenges with being vegan when people are being exposed to reasons to go vegan, especially for the first time. EDIT: people are often looking for reasons not to go vegan, so many will overweight them, or use confirmation bias when assessing the evidence.
I guess the other side is that deception or misleading (even by omission) in this case could be like lying to the axe murderer, and any reasonable Kantian should endorse lying in that case, and in general should sometimes endorse instrumental harm to prevent someone from harming another, including the use of force, imprisonment, etc. as long as itâs proportionate and no better alternatives are available to achieve the same goal. What the Health, Cowspiracy and some other documentaries might be better examples of deception (although the writers themselves may actually believe what theyâre pushing) and a lot of people have probably gone vegan because of them.
Misleasing/âdeception could also be counterproductive, though, by giving others the impression that vegans are dishonest, or having lots of people leave because they didnât get resources to manage their diets well, which could even give the overall impression that veganism is unhealthy.