I just want to give some more comments / counterpoints:
Firstly, I think this post may be somewhat exaggerating the actual magnitude by which these diets differ in taste pleasure (on average). My intuition would be that it’s actually quite small (at least after an initial adjustment period) and relatively insignificant compared to other changes people could potentially implement to make themselves ‘happier’ on an everyday level. (Note that this is ignoring considerations of convenience since they aren’t mentioned much in your argument but I’d be happy to comment on that as well.)
Also, I don’t find myself convinced that one’s preferences can’t change in this case. This is related to the adjustment period I mentioned above. From personal and anecdotal experience I think many things tend to ‘grow on you’ over time, including foods, and this effect seems much more important than ‘consciously deciding’ to change your preferences. Indeed, it does seem pretty implausible that the latter would work in isolation, but I think other factors (like adjustment) are relevant here.
Yeah I don’t disagree that preferences cannot change, but I hold that as true with the important caveat that they cannot change without costs, which I think you acknowledge in your sentence about an initial adjustment period. As for the magnitude of the difference, I don’t really think it matters: it could be 5%, it could be .1%, it could be .01%. What’s important is that it will be forever laundered into more utility by other humans, while this is not true of utils to animal welfare. So if you accept that meat is a preference (even small) and that fufillling preferences makes people work even a little bit harder/better, then eventually, it will always outgrow the animal welfare utils in the long-term. Like I said, I dont know if this conflict should downgrade longtermism or veganism, but I just thought it needed pointing out, as it confused me.
Ah yes, I see now that your argument rests on less premises than I thought.
Firstly I would echo what Devin said above about this being a flaw of “bullet-biting strong deontic longtermism”. One could seemingly justify basically any action that marginally increases productivity on those grounds (even for a very temporary period of time). That being said, I think there are probably significant positive flow-on effects from veganism too. For one thing, it may increase societal moral progress in expectation. Similarly, there is evidence to suggest that at an individual level it reduces cognitive biases related to speciesism and increases one’s moral consideration for non-humans (as Michael noted above). Compounding benefits from effects like these may well outweigh those of productivity increases.
Also, it’s very unclear to me that being vegan would actually reliably decrease the average person’s productivity, even if it is initially a revealed preference. Obviously this is ultimately an empirical question. However one could make a priori arguments in the other direction too. E.g. perhaps by reducing cognitive dissonance, people tend to feel more happy, and therefore are more productive. Or perhaps caring about a cause like animal welfare increases motivation and feelings of purpose marginally throughout one’s life. This is not to say I agree with any of those speculations, but just to point out that they could be made.
Finally, I think there are probably sound deontological reasons to be vegan, which are important under moral uncertainty, but I won’t get into that too much in this comment. Naturally the same would apply for a lot of the other counterintuitive implications that this form of longtermism would have.
I just want to give some more comments / counterpoints:
Firstly, I think this post may be somewhat exaggerating the actual magnitude by which these diets differ in taste pleasure (on average). My intuition would be that it’s actually quite small (at least after an initial adjustment period) and relatively insignificant compared to other changes people could potentially implement to make themselves ‘happier’ on an everyday level.
(Note that this is ignoring considerations of convenience since they aren’t mentioned much in your argument but I’d be happy to comment on that as well.)
Also, I don’t find myself convinced that one’s preferences can’t change in this case. This is related to the adjustment period I mentioned above. From personal and anecdotal experience I think many things tend to ‘grow on you’ over time, including foods, and this effect seems much more important than ‘consciously deciding’ to change your preferences. Indeed, it does seem pretty implausible that the latter would work in isolation, but I think other factors (like adjustment) are relevant here.
Yeah I don’t disagree that preferences cannot change, but I hold that as true with the important caveat that they cannot change without costs, which I think you acknowledge in your sentence about an initial adjustment period. As for the magnitude of the difference, I don’t really think it matters: it could be 5%, it could be .1%, it could be .01%. What’s important is that it will be forever laundered into more utility by other humans, while this is not true of utils to animal welfare. So if you accept that meat is a preference (even small) and that fufillling preferences makes people work even a little bit harder/better, then eventually, it will always outgrow the animal welfare utils in the long-term. Like I said, I dont know if this conflict should downgrade longtermism or veganism, but I just thought it needed pointing out, as it confused me.
Ah yes, I see now that your argument rests on less premises than I thought.
Firstly I would echo what Devin said above about this being a flaw of “bullet-biting strong deontic longtermism”. One could seemingly justify basically any action that marginally increases productivity on those grounds (even for a very temporary period of time). That being said, I think there are probably significant positive flow-on effects from veganism too. For one thing, it may increase societal moral progress in expectation. Similarly, there is evidence to suggest that at an individual level it reduces cognitive biases related to speciesism and increases one’s moral consideration for non-humans (as Michael noted above). Compounding benefits from effects like these may well outweigh those of productivity increases.
Also, it’s very unclear to me that being vegan would actually reliably decrease the average person’s productivity, even if it is initially a revealed preference. Obviously this is ultimately an empirical question. However one could make a priori arguments in the other direction too. E.g. perhaps by reducing cognitive dissonance, people tend to feel more happy, and therefore are more productive. Or perhaps caring about a cause like animal welfare increases motivation and feelings of purpose marginally throughout one’s life. This is not to say I agree with any of those speculations, but just to point out that they could be made.
Finally, I think there are probably sound deontological reasons to be vegan, which are important under moral uncertainty, but I won’t get into that too much in this comment. Naturally the same would apply for a lot of the other counterintuitive implications that this form of longtermism would have.