In your position, my response to the question “why spend so much on this one dog?” would be “because I wanted to lol”. You don’t have to justify yourself to anyone, and you don’t have to reconstruct some post-hoc justification as to why you did it.
I understand that’s not a satisfying solution, in that it doesn’t preclude a slippery slope into “all of my money goes into arbitrary things that tug my heartstrings and none of it goes to the most effective causes”. You may be seeking guardrails against that possibility. There are none. Which is okay, because you probably don’t need them! You identify as EA for a reason. I’m going to guess it’s because the suffering of people and animals tugs at your heartstrings, even when you don’t see them. As long as that’s true, it seems extremely unlikely that you will fall off this slippery slope.
Moreover, I don’t think it’s healthy to try to justify all your life choices on EA grounds, a point made best here.
In your position, my response to the question “why spend so much on this one dog?” would be “because I wanted to lol”. You don’t have to justify yourself to anyone, and you don’t have to reconstruct some post-hoc justification as to why you did it.
I understand that’s not a satisfying solution, in that it doesn’t preclude a slippery slope into “all of my money goes into arbitrary things that tug my heartstrings and none of it goes to the most effective causes”. You may be seeking guardrails against that possibility. There are none. Which is okay, because you probably don’t need them! You identify as EA for a reason. I’m going to guess it’s because the suffering of people and animals tugs at your heartstrings, even when you don’t see them. As long as that’s true, it seems extremely unlikely that you will fall off this slippery slope.
Moreover, I don’t think it’s healthy to try to justify all your life choices on EA grounds, a point made best here.