I don’t believe in complete impartiality. I think we have a stronger moral obligation to those who are closer to us—be it family, friends, or co-nationals. The vast majority of my donations have gone to global health simply because it is much much more cost-effective to help the poorest in the world.
I’m not sure I understand: on one side, we have a stronger obligation to those close to us, but on another side, it is good to help strangers that are thousands of kilometers away? I’m also not sure why you draw the line at animals.
I personally think that it is good to help strangers thousands of kilometers away—and it is good that you do so (congrats, by the way!). I also understand that helping our family or friends is important—which is why I help them too.
The argument often put forward is not that you shouldn’t help people in your country, but that it’s much more tractable to help people in poor countries. You can help more people for the same amount of resources. The same goes for animals.
I also read sections of your link and skimmed through the rest, but I don’t see any justification that relates to the idea that helping animals is misguided. It says that moral values can regress/progress, and this depends on the physical and cultural context (which is true). The conclusion is that we shouldn’t just expect moral values to change automatically—but that just means that we should devote our efforts to actions that don’t rely on this assumption. For instance, supporting alternative proteins that are cheaper and tastier can reduce the cost of acting morally.
I also read sections of your link and skimmed through the rest, but I don’t see any justification that relates to the idea that helping animals is misguided.
The argument of the link is that moral progress has sometimes meant correctly regarding some previous moral concern as unnecessary or based on false belief. I think the relevance here is to resist the idea that moral concern for animals must be correct by a “more moral concern is always better” heuristic.
(I think it’s a useful argument to have in mind, but I think we have much better reasons to be morally concerned about animals.)
I’m not sure I understand: on one side, we have a stronger obligation to those close to us, but on another side, it is good to help strangers that are thousands of kilometers away
I don’t see how this is contradictory? For example, you might prefer saving 10 American lives to saving 11 non-American lives, but prefer saving 100 non-American lives to 5 American lives.
That and the anti-expanding moral circle argument suggests that it’s OK (and in fact, in my opinion, good) to assign different weights to different entities.
But in that case, if scale is a very important metric, shouldn’t helping animals also be a good idea? It’s possible to help thousands of them for a fraction of the cost required to save one non-Amerian life.
I don’t believe in complete impartiality. I think we have a stronger moral obligation to those who are closer to us—be it family, friends, or co-nationals. The vast majority of my donations have gone to global health simply because it is much much more cost-effective to help the poorest in the world.
I also think that a blind push to expand the moral circle is misguided. See: https://gwern.net/narrowing-circle.
I’m not sure I understand: on one side, we have a stronger obligation to those close to us, but on another side, it is good to help strangers that are thousands of kilometers away? I’m also not sure why you draw the line at animals.
I personally think that it is good to help strangers thousands of kilometers away—and it is good that you do so (congrats, by the way!). I also understand that helping our family or friends is important—which is why I help them too.
The argument often put forward is not that you shouldn’t help people in your country, but that it’s much more tractable to help people in poor countries. You can help more people for the same amount of resources. The same goes for animals.
I also read sections of your link and skimmed through the rest, but I don’t see any justification that relates to the idea that helping animals is misguided.
It says that moral values can regress/progress, and this depends on the physical and cultural context (which is true). The conclusion is that we shouldn’t just expect moral values to change automatically—but that just means that we should devote our efforts to actions that don’t rely on this assumption. For instance, supporting alternative proteins that are cheaper and tastier can reduce the cost of acting morally.
The argument of the link is that moral progress has sometimes meant correctly regarding some previous moral concern as unnecessary or based on false belief. I think the relevance here is to resist the idea that moral concern for animals must be correct by a “more moral concern is always better” heuristic.
(I think it’s a useful argument to have in mind, but I think we have much better reasons to be morally concerned about animals.)
Okay, I see. In that case, I tend to agree with your (Ben’s) position on that topic.
I don’t see how this is contradictory? For example, you might prefer saving 10 American lives to saving 11 non-American lives, but prefer saving 100 non-American lives to 5 American lives.
That and the anti-expanding moral circle argument suggests that it’s OK (and in fact, in my opinion, good) to assign different weights to different entities.
Oh, ok, I see.
But in that case, if scale is a very important metric, shouldn’t helping animals also be a good idea? It’s possible to help thousands of them for a fraction of the cost required to save one non-Amerian life.