I think the harmfulness of offsetting’s focus on collectively anthropogenic sources of suffering is still being underestimated in these conversation. (I’m using “collectively anthropogenic” because there are potential sources of badness like UFAI that are anthropogenic, but only caused by a few people to the idea of offsetting would be useless to spread to most people to address the problem of UFAI. Also, offsetting the harm done by UFAI would be, uh, tricky.) I think offsetting might even reenforce a non-interventionist mindset that could prove extremely harmful for addressing problems like wild animal suffering.
One good aspect of offsetting that I think I initially underestimated is the way it can be used as a psychological tool for beginning to alieve that a cause area matters. For example, I can imagine an individual who is beginning to suspect animals suffering is important, but finds the idea of vegetarianism or veganism daunting, and shies away from it and thus doesn’t want to think more about animal suffering. For them, offsetting could be a good bridge step. I don’t think this conflicts with anything I said, but I don’t want people to feel like it’s shameful to use this tool.
I’d want to add on to:
Pro 3: If you’re just offsetting, it’s worth only as much as one additional vegan (if your numbers are right). I haven’t seen evidence that ethical offsetting leads to big regular donors. It may, and if you just meant to bring up the possibility that seems reasonable.
Pro 4: People who eat animal products can donate to animal charities even if it’s not offsetting. That’s great! But you don’t need offsetting to introduce that possibility. I think offsetting harmfully frames the discussion around them “making up” for their behavior, instead of possibly just making large donations that help lots of animals. Many vegetarians enthusiastically make large donations to animal charities, which is wonderful, without worrying about offsetting. I don’t know what happened at your last meetup but I think it’s awesome when nonvegans donate to animal charities.
Pro 6: I’m not sure how offsetting helps bridge this schism well. I can imagine some arguments about how it would help, and others about how it would hurt.
Con 5: I’m not sure how offsetting signals a willingness to defect. Could you explain that more?
Collectively anthropogenic sources of suffering: True, and that class of suffering is already broad. I wouldn’t expect people to extend their circle of compassion to even just the harm caused by all of humanity just via the idea of offsetting. The friends and family scenario is probably already the limit.
Psychological tool: Indeed. This tool is also one that can be employed without using the term “offsetting,” like “If veganism is too hard for you at this point, just reduce chicken, eggs, and fish. You can also donate to one of ACE’s top charities. That might seem too easy, but at the moment a donation of just $50 allows you to do as much good for the animals as being vegan for a year.” (Well, basically Ben’s point.)
A related problem is figuring out whether the supplements I buy are overpriced compared to an animal product plus top charity donation counterfactual. I wonder if I can just straight compare the prices or whether there are any multipliers I’m overlooking.
About pro 3: Yes, that’s what I meant, the average regular donor compared to the average vegan minus any donations they might make.
About pro 4: The framing we’ve come up with is one for older people who have a harder time changing their habits, namely that they’re donating to create a better society for the next generation. Offsetting isn’t mentioned, but you can still get nonveg*ns donating.
About pro 6: The topic of our last meetup was the threat of unfavorable social moral comparison, that some people trivialize or denigrate people or the behavior of people who they perceive as being more moral. I seem to be well filter-bubbled against such people, but studies have found that a lot of nonveg*ns are ascribing various nasty terms to veg*ns.
When animal advocacy has to fight against such strong forces as people trying to protect their identities and self-image against it, it’ll remain an uphill battle and be labeled as “controversial,” whereas, when we can invite a wide range of people into the movement, we may not be producing the best activists, but we’ll be reducing opposition. (The reducetarian movement is working on that too.) How might offsetting hurt this exact cause?
About con 5: Not compared to nonveg*ns but compared to deontological veg*ns. Then again a given nonveg*n could be assumed to be nonveg*n out of ignorance, while the same could not be assumed about an offsetter. When you’re offsetting you could be seen as defecting against some animals to save other animals (except that nonhuman animals are not really “agenty”).
For example, when a profit-oriented employer pays a person to deliver some pointless advertisement to hundreds of households, and the person does that in order to donate a portion to a charity the employer doesn’t care about, then this deal might work just fine. But when the employer sees that a potential employee has a history of defecting in such arrangements to further their moral goal, the employer may imagine that the potential employee will sell the advertisement to a company that buys scrap paper to donate even more and save time that they can use to swindle several advertisement companies in parallel. So it might hurt a person’s–or more likely, a group’s or movement’s–reputation.
Cool, this mostly seems right.
I think the harmfulness of offsetting’s focus on collectively anthropogenic sources of suffering is still being underestimated in these conversation. (I’m using “collectively anthropogenic” because there are potential sources of badness like UFAI that are anthropogenic, but only caused by a few people to the idea of offsetting would be useless to spread to most people to address the problem of UFAI. Also, offsetting the harm done by UFAI would be, uh, tricky.) I think offsetting might even reenforce a non-interventionist mindset that could prove extremely harmful for addressing problems like wild animal suffering.
One good aspect of offsetting that I think I initially underestimated is the way it can be used as a psychological tool for beginning to alieve that a cause area matters. For example, I can imagine an individual who is beginning to suspect animals suffering is important, but finds the idea of vegetarianism or veganism daunting, and shies away from it and thus doesn’t want to think more about animal suffering. For them, offsetting could be a good bridge step. I don’t think this conflicts with anything I said, but I don’t want people to feel like it’s shameful to use this tool.
I’d want to add on to:
Pro 3: If you’re just offsetting, it’s worth only as much as one additional vegan (if your numbers are right). I haven’t seen evidence that ethical offsetting leads to big regular donors. It may, and if you just meant to bring up the possibility that seems reasonable.
Pro 4: People who eat animal products can donate to animal charities even if it’s not offsetting. That’s great! But you don’t need offsetting to introduce that possibility. I think offsetting harmfully frames the discussion around them “making up” for their behavior, instead of possibly just making large donations that help lots of animals. Many vegetarians enthusiastically make large donations to animal charities, which is wonderful, without worrying about offsetting. I don’t know what happened at your last meetup but I think it’s awesome when nonvegans donate to animal charities. Pro 6: I’m not sure how offsetting helps bridge this schism well. I can imagine some arguments about how it would help, and others about how it would hurt.
Con 5: I’m not sure how offsetting signals a willingness to defect. Could you explain that more?
Collectively anthropogenic sources of suffering: True, and that class of suffering is already broad. I wouldn’t expect people to extend their circle of compassion to even just the harm caused by all of humanity just via the idea of offsetting. The friends and family scenario is probably already the limit.
Psychological tool: Indeed. This tool is also one that can be employed without using the term “offsetting,” like “If veganism is too hard for you at this point, just reduce chicken, eggs, and fish. You can also donate to one of ACE’s top charities. That might seem too easy, but at the moment a donation of just $50 allows you to do as much good for the animals as being vegan for a year.” (Well, basically Ben’s point.)
A related problem is figuring out whether the supplements I buy are overpriced compared to an animal product plus top charity donation counterfactual. I wonder if I can just straight compare the prices or whether there are any multipliers I’m overlooking.
About pro 3: Yes, that’s what I meant, the average regular donor compared to the average vegan minus any donations they might make.
About pro 4: The framing we’ve come up with is one for older people who have a harder time changing their habits, namely that they’re donating to create a better society for the next generation. Offsetting isn’t mentioned, but you can still get nonveg*ns donating.
About pro 6: The topic of our last meetup was the threat of unfavorable social moral comparison, that some people trivialize or denigrate people or the behavior of people who they perceive as being more moral. I seem to be well filter-bubbled against such people, but studies have found that a lot of nonveg*ns are ascribing various nasty terms to veg*ns.
When animal advocacy has to fight against such strong forces as people trying to protect their identities and self-image against it, it’ll remain an uphill battle and be labeled as “controversial,” whereas, when we can invite a wide range of people into the movement, we may not be producing the best activists, but we’ll be reducing opposition. (The reducetarian movement is working on that too.) How might offsetting hurt this exact cause?
About con 5: Not compared to nonveg*ns but compared to deontological veg*ns. Then again a given nonveg*n could be assumed to be nonveg*n out of ignorance, while the same could not be assumed about an offsetter. When you’re offsetting you could be seen as defecting against some animals to save other animals (except that nonhuman animals are not really “agenty”).
For example, when a profit-oriented employer pays a person to deliver some pointless advertisement to hundreds of households, and the person does that in order to donate a portion to a charity the employer doesn’t care about, then this deal might work just fine. But when the employer sees that a potential employee has a history of defecting in such arrangements to further their moral goal, the employer may imagine that the potential employee will sell the advertisement to a company that buys scrap paper to donate even more and save time that they can use to swindle several advertisement companies in parallel. So it might hurt a person’s–or more likely, a group’s or movement’s–reputation.