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.
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.