I think offsetting makes sense when seen as a form of moral trade with other people (or even possibly other factions within your own brain’s moral parliament).
Regarding objection #1 about reference classes, the answer can be that you can choose a reference class that’s acceptable to your trading partner. For example, suppose you do something that makes the global poor slightly worse off. Suppose that a large faction of society doesn’t care much about non-human animals but does care about the global poor. Then donating to an animal charity wouldn’t offset this harm in their eyes, but donating to a developing-world charity would.
Regarding objection #2, trade by its nature involves spending resources on things that you think are suboptimal because someone else wants you to.
An objection to this perspective can be that in most offsetting situations, the trading partner isn’t paying enough attention or caring enough to actually reciprocate with you in ways that make the trade positive-sum for both sides. (For trade within your own brain, reciprocation seems more likely.)
I think offsetting makes sense when seen as a form of moral trade with other people (or even possibly other factions within your own brain’s moral parliament).
Regarding objection #1 about reference classes, the answer can be that you can choose a reference class that’s acceptable to your trading partner. For example, suppose you do something that makes the global poor slightly worse off. Suppose that a large faction of society doesn’t care much about non-human animals but does care about the global poor. Then donating to an animal charity wouldn’t offset this harm in their eyes, but donating to a developing-world charity would.
Regarding objection #2, trade by its nature involves spending resources on things that you think are suboptimal because someone else wants you to.
An objection to this perspective can be that in most offsetting situations, the trading partner isn’t paying enough attention or caring enough to actually reciprocate with you in ways that make the trade positive-sum for both sides. (For trade within your own brain, reciprocation seems more likely.)