I think, accounting for the information you’re asking about, there are strong consequentialist and deontological reasons not to murder anyone.
First, from a consequentialist perspective, murdering someone puts yourself and the Effective Altruism community at serious legal and reputational risk. This would be irrational and irresponsible given that you have many other, more effective, ways to reduce the suffering of factory farmed animals. We also have uncertainty about the moral status of non-human animals, so we need to be careful when trading off between the lives of humans and other species.
Second, from a deontological (and perhaps virtue-ethical) standpoint, murder is simply inexcusable. Since we face moral uncertainty about which moral framework is correct, I believe we ought not to do anything that would be clearly immoral on moral views other than consequentialism.
I think, accounting for the information you’re asking about, there are strong consequentialist and deontological reasons not to murder anyone.
First, from a consequentialist perspective, murdering someone puts yourself and the Effective Altruism community at serious legal and reputational risk. This would be irrational and irresponsible given that you have many other, more effective, ways to reduce the suffering of factory farmed animals. We also have uncertainty about the moral status of non-human animals, so we need to be careful when trading off between the lives of humans and other species.
Second, from a deontological (and perhaps virtue-ethical) standpoint, murder is simply inexcusable. Since we face moral uncertainty about which moral framework is correct, I believe we ought not to do anything that would be clearly immoral on moral views other than consequentialism.
See more detailed information here (the page is about careers, but 80% of it applies to this case as well): https://​​80000hours.org/​​articles/​​harmful-career/​​