This is a good summary of my position. I also agree that a significant part of the reason for the three major cause areas is history, but think that this answers a slightly different question from the one I’m approaching. It’s not surprising, from the outside, that people who want to good, and have interests in common with major figures like Peter Singer, are more likely to get heavily involved with the EA movement than people who want to do good and have other values/interests. However, from the inside it doesn’t give an account of why the people who do wind up involved with EA find the issue personally important, certainly the answer is unlikely to be “because it is important to Peter Singer”. I’d count myself in this category, of people who share values with major figures in the movement, were in part selected for by the movement on this basis, and also, personally, care a very great deal about factory farming, more so that even cause areas I think might be more important from an EV perspective. This is as much an account of my own feelings that I think applies to others as anything else.
This thread gets at some part of the crux of the matter—but doesn’t illuminate it completely.
As a moral philosopher, Peter Singer would have a hard time being taken seriously were he not vegetarian/vegan: too many people live in this world without consuming animals—and, culturally, there is little to sustain the practice aside from norms (most of which are quite far from any economic defensibility, to say nothing of their non-secular roots). Indeed (per the original posting’s conclusion), such a Peter Singer would have a hard time taking himself seriously—because he descends from a long line of moral philosophers (and, indeed, activists) who have all recognized the very same truth—and can see how it manifests in their world. One could suspect folks who align with EA feel much the same, i.e. that being true (perhaps just) to one’s own self is the ticket.
This is a good summary of my position. I also agree that a significant part of the reason for the three major cause areas is history, but think that this answers a slightly different question from the one I’m approaching. It’s not surprising, from the outside, that people who want to good, and have interests in common with major figures like Peter Singer, are more likely to get heavily involved with the EA movement than people who want to do good and have other values/interests. However, from the inside it doesn’t give an account of why the people who do wind up involved with EA find the issue personally important, certainly the answer is unlikely to be “because it is important to Peter Singer”. I’d count myself in this category, of people who share values with major figures in the movement, were in part selected for by the movement on this basis, and also, personally, care a very great deal about factory farming, more so that even cause areas I think might be more important from an EV perspective. This is as much an account of my own feelings that I think applies to others as anything else.
This thread gets at some part of the crux of the matter—but doesn’t illuminate it completely.
As a moral philosopher, Peter Singer would have a hard time being taken seriously were he not vegetarian/vegan: too many people live in this world without consuming animals—and, culturally, there is little to sustain the practice aside from norms (most of which are quite far from any economic defensibility, to say nothing of their non-secular roots). Indeed (per the original posting’s conclusion), such a Peter Singer would have a hard time taking himself seriously—because he descends from a long line of moral philosophers (and, indeed, activists) who have all recognized the very same truth—and can see how it manifests in their world. One could suspect folks who align with EA feel much the same, i.e. that being true (perhaps just) to one’s own self is the ticket.