The setting? Madrid. The food? Vegan paella. The quality? Not great. And it really doesn’t take much to satisfy me when it comes to vegan food, like I’m really happy to just have options. But so I’m going to leave this place a review, because I consider reviews to be kind of a common good that I make use of a lot and want to contribute to as such, but as I’m about to post it I’m having second thoughts.
The consequentialist: What if this lowers the restaurant 0.1 stars and then causes people to choose a non-vegan option 1% of the time?
The deontologist: “Well you can’t leave a fake review, if it wasn’t good it wasn’t good”
The consequentialist: “Well what do you want me to do, not leave a review? Or well, maybe this can work out. Because what if people come here, and use this as an exemplar for vegan food, then getting the paella and deciding that vegan food is nasty and not for them?”
The rationalist: “Sure, but do you really think that’s more likely than the 1% reduction?”
The consequentialist: “Possibly. I mean it would be one thing if we were in a vegan restaurant desert, but we’re not, so the group you’re really concerned with is a subset of the original, those who are geographically constrained to a tiny area in which there would not be other vegan options, which then sounds a lot less like someone who would meticulously plan their eating by researching online and more of a go-with-the-flow sort of person who will likely eat at whatever looks best in the real world.”
The deontologist: “How much are you willing to compromise on things you enjoy because of a potential, hard to quantify, negative effect? A lot of what you’re saying feels kind of manipulatish to me, like you’re trying to think about how you can change other people’s actions not exactly by lying but by hiding the truth from view. Sure this is small, but how many times have you thought about other small actions like this? How much of how you interact with the real world has been distorted by visions of what you think it should be ?
The consequentialist: “Jesus dude it really is just a review, you really think I’m out of touch if I don’t toss another opinion into the ring? You’re not concerned with the truth, just a facade for a basic desire to do something that makes us happy, to leave a review. But why does it make us happy? Sure, in part because we now have a trove of memories, a piece of an externalized self to come back to, but it’s really to give back and help others as we have been helped so why can’t we just be sure we are actually helping others, and the world, and not blindly following rules that we have never been sure of in the first place?”
The debate goes on, without winner, so I come to consult the masses, to see what input you might have for this internal debate I’m currently having. Comments welcome at both the specific level (should I leave the review) and more general level (how do others that feel they contain both deontology and consequentalism within them adjudicate hard decisions.
Update: The review has been left (in Spanish)
When I first was looking into being veg^n, I became irritated by the inflated reviews at veg^n restaurants. It didn’t take me long to apply a veg^n tax; I started to assume the restaurant’s food was 1 star below what their average was. Made me more distrustful of veg^ns too.
I think using virtue ethics is the right call here, just be truthful.
Probably contributing to people being able to trust reviews for vegan restaurants is good from a consequentialist perspective as well.
Fostering a world of trust and honesty tends to produce the basis for happier lives. I bristle at how frequently people seem to imply utilitarianism implies dishonest actors.
I agree in the conclusion, but I do think this starts to point to a significantly worse action, which would be leaving a false, positive review. Or do you see a sort of without the truth (without external pressure, or an expectation that you have to do it) as just as bad as posting something false?
I’m a bit confused. If vegans were to leave false positive reviews personally or abstain from leaving negative reviews that they were otherwise inclined to leave, there will be artificially inflated reviews of bad vegan restaurants, with various knock-on effects that others have discussed in these comments.
I don’t think I am pointing toward false, positive reviews. Rather, I’m endorsing honesty and candor as something that generally produces good consequences. I think this vegan restaurant situation would be part of the rule, for the reasons discussed throughout the comments.
Communication misunderstanding: meant “pointing at” not as something you endorse but are critiquing. My point was that simply abstaining from leaving negative reviews seems less bad than actively leaving false, positive reviews, and just wanted to know if you view those as similarly bad or not.
Minor question with broad agreement with your comment.
This is too galaxy brained for me. When in doubt, be honest, cooperative and kind!
I think this is a heuristic I’ve leaned on more in the past, and it’s something I probably should return to more, so thank you for flagging.
But I think the reason I started using it less is because there are times when this leads me astray (or at least somewhat astray) i.e. when I see a homeless person and immediately want to give them some money so they can eat some food tonight. I don’t want to not feel compassion for them, but as a base EA thing, I do want to make sure that I make the decision to put the money into an institution that’s more likely to help them to better outcomes, or help those worse off. So when I feel this recurring tension, this doubt, I do feel like I’m having to make a slight decision away from doing what feels obviously good and right to me. That is to say, what is “kind” is not aways apparent, or rather, what is the kindest, isn’t.
I’m not sure how many stars you should leave, but I think there are ways to write a review that successfully convey both of:
This restaurant wasn’t very good
Vegan food is great and you should eat it
A very brief sketch of a review for a mediocre vegan restaurant:
“I was happy to find a vegan restaurant in AREA, and I thought it was cool they offered DISH. So I ordered that, as well as OTHER DISHES. Unfortunately, the food wasn’t great; I thought OKAY DISH was fine, but BAD DISHES had problems; DESCRIPTION OF PROBLEMS. The service was fine, ETC., ETC.
There are some much better vegan restaurants I’d recommend that aren’t too far from here; the DISH at RESTAURANT 1 is to die for, and RESTAURANT 2 has a great atmosphere for lunch dates. As for this restaurant, I’m giving two stars for food, three for service, and five for “not hurting animals”, since that’s a real advantage to this place over non-vegan options. I’ll average that to a three, but would still recommend the other vegan places I mentioned.”
This is insightful and something I’m astounded I didn’t think of before. Especially the bit on recommending another restaurant, that seems like a perfect way to provide a nearly frictionless path to another vegan meal while also being honest and straightforward about my experience.
I’ve still been unable to write the review, but I think I can write it soon now, and think I can generally use this going forward, many thanks Aaron!
If your criticism can be constructive, it’s worth passing on in some form so they might improve
If you are the type of person to leave restaurant reviews, then I’d say yeah, you probably should! Lots of non-vegan people eat at these places. Some are flexitarians, while others have been dragged along by friends. If a non-veg’s first experience at a vegan restaurant goes poorly, that’s probably a bad thing overall. In theory, negative reviews help mitigate that.
(saying first I broadly agree with this and am just picking up one small question I have that relates) how good a job do you think negative reviews do with mitigation?
Dunno, but I’d guess it would depend on the rough percentages through which you weigh the different moral stances. Myself, I tend to feel like 70% deontologist, 30% consequentialist, which means I would definitely write the negative review (I’m not vegan or vegetarian either, so it’s really a no-brainer for me here, though). Ultimately, you have to make the choice which you think is the best given the limited information available.