These feel like classic arguments. Such arguments hold some weight. But (in agreement with Derek Shiller) I think they are more an argument against a very strong form of longtermism where you are actively sacrificing everything else we care about in order to make the future better. Such lines of reasoning seem bad-in-general because errors in reasoning magnify tremendously. Instead, we should mix lots of different worldviews into our moral strategy, preferring actions which are robustly good across many worldviews.
I also have noticed (in the process of eating less animal products myself) that there’s a second-order effect in how my brain thinks about ethics and altruism when it’s not doing cognitive dissonance three times a day. I feel like a more pure-hearted person, able to think more clearly about what to do in the world, when not eating animal products. So far, that effect has been quite positive and has swamped the first-order annoyance of having to change my diet. (This works for recycling as well—I decided that even though recycling is largely useless for the environment, it helps my sense of being a moral person to recycle and thus I keep doing it. Contrapositively, buying offsets doesn’t work for me very well.)
The second paragraph really hits on the nose how I feel, without having ever been able to put it into words—regarding both eating less animal products and recycling.
And offsets too FWIW. Something about avoiding doing something bad makes me feel like a good person, in a way that doing something bad and then making up for it by doing something good just doesn’t.
I’m not sure if the two events are just too far apart in time, or if my EA/rational side just kicks in and I can’t feel good about donating to offset a particular thing instead of to the most effective thing. Or maybe I just can’t emotionally get over my sense of “can’t undo the bad thing”.
These feel like classic arguments. Such arguments hold some weight. But (in agreement with Derek Shiller) I think they are more an argument against a very strong form of longtermism where you are actively sacrificing everything else we care about in order to make the future better. Such lines of reasoning seem bad-in-general because errors in reasoning magnify tremendously. Instead, we should mix lots of different worldviews into our moral strategy, preferring actions which are robustly good across many worldviews.
I also have noticed (in the process of eating less animal products myself) that there’s a second-order effect in how my brain thinks about ethics and altruism when it’s not doing cognitive dissonance three times a day. I feel like a more pure-hearted person, able to think more clearly about what to do in the world, when not eating animal products. So far, that effect has been quite positive and has swamped the first-order annoyance of having to change my diet. (This works for recycling as well—I decided that even though recycling is largely useless for the environment, it helps my sense of being a moral person to recycle and thus I keep doing it. Contrapositively, buying offsets doesn’t work for me very well.)
The second paragraph really hits on the nose how I feel, without having ever been able to put it into words—regarding both eating less animal products and recycling.
And offsets too FWIW. Something about avoiding doing something bad makes me feel like a good person, in a way that doing something bad and then making up for it by doing something good just doesn’t.
I’m not sure if the two events are just too far apart in time, or if my EA/rational side just kicks in and I can’t feel good about donating to offset a particular thing instead of to the most effective thing. Or maybe I just can’t emotionally get over my sense of “can’t undo the bad thing”.