Imagine someone who believes that eating meat is morally wrong, but who nevertheless eats meat and ‘offsets’ their meat-eating through donations to effective animal charities.
Imagine someone who believes slavery is morally wrong, but who nevertheless owns slaves and ‘offsets’ their slave-owning through donations to the abolitionist movement.
An argument for 1 goes: “The impact of me not eating meat is negligible. The personal cost to me of not eating meat is appreciable. Time, money and effort spent following a restrictive diet may limit my effectiveness to do good elsewhere. My donation is the optimal path to reducing animal suffering”.
And an argument for 2 goes: “My slave-owning is very modest, and is a drop in the ocean in the big picture. I can effectively use the economic surplus generated by my slaves to end slavery sooner. If I free my slaves I’ll be poorer and will have less money to donate, and so I’d do less good overall.”
Whilst the situations are not symmetric, they are similar enough that I feel like I want to say “If you care about animals, you should support animal charities AND go vegan” in the same way I want to say “If you care about slaves, you should support abolition AND free your slaves”.
Imagine someone who believes that eating meat is morally wrong, but who nevertheless eats meat and ‘offsets’ their meat-eating through donations to effective animal charities.
Imagine someone who believes slavery is morally wrong, but who nevertheless owns slaves and ‘offsets’ their slave-owning through donations to the abolitionist movement.
An argument for 1 goes: “The impact of me not eating meat is negligible. The personal cost to me of not eating meat is appreciable. Time, money and effort spent following a restrictive diet may limit my effectiveness to do good elsewhere. My donation is the optimal path to reducing animal suffering”.
And an argument for 2 goes: “My slave-owning is very modest, and is a drop in the ocean in the big picture. I can effectively use the economic surplus generated by my slaves to end slavery sooner. If I free my slaves I’ll be poorer and will have less money to donate, and so I’d do less good overall.”
Whilst the situations are not symmetric, they are similar enough that I feel like I want to say “If you care about animals, you should support animal charities AND go vegan” in the same way I want to say “If you care about slaves, you should support abolition AND free your slaves”.