Non-human animals are treated horrendously worldwide, because many humans don’t see them as worthy of moral consideration. A highly effective way to improve animal welfare in the short-term might be advocacy around moral circle expansion to animals in factory farms. At the same time, the interests of future beings are systematically ignored, because many humans don’t see them as worthy of moral consideration. An effective way of promoting their interests might be the development of plant-based meats which minimise resource use and protect the environment for the future. However, it’s not clear that a highly effective way to protect non-human animals over the long-term future is either (a) to promote the consumption of plant-based meat or (b) to promote moral circle expansion.
This seems like an important question/topic. It also has a lot of thought on it already, implicitly and explicitly.
Maybe this topic needs more thought or a new framework, but maybe it does not.
However, this presentation of “intersectionality” just seems list out basic considerations (and a subset at that). It doesn’t seem to contribute a way to resolve them, or even how to get started.
In fact, there’s a plausible argument that either policy could increase animal suffering in the long-term future, with our increased care for non-human animals and our healthier climate increasing the number of suffering wild animals.
That’s because this is an intersectional issue—we are dealing with two separate axes of disadvantage (species, time of existence) which interact in unpredictable ways, meaning that approaches which perform well on either axis won’t always perform well overall. Longtermist animal advocates might recognise this explicitly look for intersectional solutions to the problem. Perhaps EAs should abandon farmed animals altogether, and go all-in on long-term wild animal welfare? Perhaps EA should publicly espouse a suffering-focused ethics, trying to move the needle towards a world where we rid the world of animals altogether? I’m dubious about either option, but an intersectional approach is nonetheless a useful way to think about these questions in depth.
By the above, do you mean that focusing on one cause area neglects the other? If so, that observation doesn’t seem like a contribution.
Otherwise, if you meant something else, that seems like “original research” as these speculations and tradeoffs pulls on a vast range of topics. I’m skeptical that this theory helps thinking here.
There is a very large supply of framework/ideologies/worldviews.
In addition to the noise/chatter/attention demands of having to examine them, some of them have a large amount of issues/baggage/subtext.
Because of this, even if a framework produced a coherent answer (which I am unsure it does here), it’s unclear it will be useful.
Thanks for your message Charles. First, to respond to:
By the above, do you mean that focusing on one cause area neglects the other? If so, that observation doesn’t seem like a contribution.
Otherwise, if you meant something else, that seems like “original research” as these speculations and tradeoffs pulls on a vast range of topics. I’m skeptical that this theory helps thinking here.
I don’t mean that focusing on one cause area always neglects the other. Rather, I mean that some issues EAs care about could be at the intersection of two types of disadvantage, and that it is helpful to conceptualise these issues as intersectional. In the example above, the point is that just ‘working to help future people’ and ‘working to help animals’ may do little or nothing to help ‘future animals’, and that an explicitly intersectional approach can help us to spot this error.
In addition to the noise/chatter/attention demands of having to examine them, some of them have a large amount of issues/baggage/subtext.
I think this is a really great point, and by far one of the strongest considerations against using intersectionality or other ideas taken from SJ-aligned academia. Still, I’ve discussed this in a bit more detail in my comment to Jackson above, which I hope addresses this concern.
However, this presentation of “intersectionality” just seems list out basic considerations (and a subset at that). It doesn’t seem to contribute a way to resolve them, or even how to get started.
I don’t necessarily disagree with you in saying that it doesn’t contribute a way to resolve issues. However, I think that misses the point. Concepts like ‘deadweight loss’ or ‘moral foundations’ don’t contribute solutions, but they provide conceptual clarity which helps us understand and explain what is going on in economic or moral psychology. I think intersectionality can be useful on this front, without providing solutions as such.
This seems like an important question/topic. It also has a lot of thought on it already, implicitly and explicitly.
Maybe this topic needs more thought or a new framework, but maybe it does not.
However, this presentation of “intersectionality” just seems list out basic considerations (and a subset at that). It doesn’t seem to contribute a way to resolve them, or even how to get started.
By the above, do you mean that focusing on one cause area neglects the other? If so, that observation doesn’t seem like a contribution.
Otherwise, if you meant something else, that seems like “original research” as these speculations and tradeoffs pulls on a vast range of topics. I’m skeptical that this theory helps thinking here.
There is a very large supply of framework/ideologies/worldviews.
In addition to the noise/chatter/attention demands of having to examine them, some of them have a large amount of issues/baggage/subtext.
Because of this, even if a framework produced a coherent answer (which I am unsure it does here), it’s unclear it will be useful.
Thanks for your message Charles. First, to respond to:
I don’t mean that focusing on one cause area always neglects the other. Rather, I mean that some issues EAs care about could be at the intersection of two types of disadvantage, and that it is helpful to conceptualise these issues as intersectional. In the example above, the point is that just ‘working to help future people’ and ‘working to help animals’ may do little or nothing to help ‘future animals’, and that an explicitly intersectional approach can help us to spot this error.
I think this is a really great point, and by far one of the strongest considerations against using intersectionality or other ideas taken from SJ-aligned academia. Still, I’ve discussed this in a bit more detail in my comment to Jackson above, which I hope addresses this concern.
I don’t necessarily disagree with you in saying that it doesn’t contribute a way to resolve issues. However, I think that misses the point. Concepts like ‘deadweight loss’ or ‘moral foundations’ don’t contribute solutions, but they provide conceptual clarity which helps us understand and explain what is going on in economic or moral psychology. I think intersectionality can be useful on this front, without providing solutions as such.