It’s always valuable to bring the issue of speciesism up for discussion. If altruism refers to preventing the suffering of others, we will always depend on the truthful information provided to us about which living beings are at risk of cruel treatment. The case of shrimp is one among many. Another may be the lethal activity of predators in the wild (wolves, lions, etc.).
My contribution to the matter is that the best investment in developing altruistic activity would be to effectively participate in ensuring the psychological transformation of people from altruistic ideas to people emotionally motivated to altruism. You can save 20,000 shrimp, but if you turn 20,000 Homo sapiens into altruistic activists, you will have saved many millions more shrimp. There’s nothing more utilitarian than developing the sensitivity of hundreds, thousands, since we know that all human beings are prone to psychological altruism (based on empathy) and that such inclinations can be activated by natural stimuli.
Imagine that you pursue a career as an actor and become a big Hollywood star. You use your fame to preach universal goodness, and your money to create a foundation of psychologists and other social scientists, whom you task with designing a mass social movement capable of making altruistic behavior attractive as a lifestyle. There you have it.
It’s always valuable to bring the issue of speciesism up for discussion. If altruism refers to preventing the suffering of others, we will always depend on the truthful information provided to us about which living beings are at risk of cruel treatment. The case of shrimp is one among many. Another may be the lethal activity of predators in the wild (wolves, lions, etc.).
My contribution to the matter is that the best investment in developing altruistic activity would be to effectively participate in ensuring the psychological transformation of people from altruistic ideas to people emotionally motivated to altruism. You can save 20,000 shrimp, but if you turn 20,000 Homo sapiens into altruistic activists, you will have saved many millions more shrimp. There’s nothing more utilitarian than developing the sensitivity of hundreds, thousands, since we know that all human beings are prone to psychological altruism (based on empathy) and that such inclinations can be activated by natural stimuli.
Imagine that you pursue a career as an actor and become a big Hollywood star. You use your fame to preach universal goodness, and your money to create a foundation of psychologists and other social scientists, whom you task with designing a mass social movement capable of making altruistic behavior attractive as a lifestyle.
There you have it.