I just want to publicly state that the whole ‘meat-eater problem’ framing makes me incredibly uncomfortable
First: why not call it the ‘meat-eating’ problem rather than ‘meat-eater’ problem? Human beliefs and behaviours are changeable and malleable. It is not a guarantee that future moral attitudes are set in stone—human history itself should be proof enough of that. Seeing other human beings as ‘problems to be solved’ is inherently dehumanising.
Second: the call on whether net human wellbeing is negated by net animal wellbeing is highly dependent on both moral weights and overall moral view. It isn’t a ‘solved’ problem in moral philosophy. There’s also a lot of empirical uncertainty people below have pointed out r.e. saving a life != increasing the population, counterfactual wild animal welfare without humans might be even more negative etc.
Third—and most importantly—this pattern matches onto very very dangerous beliefs:
Rich people in the Western World saying that poor people in Developing countries do not deserve to live/exist? bad bad bad bad bad
Belief that humanity, or a significant amount of it, ought not to exist (or the world would be better off were they to stop existing) danger danger
Like, already in the thread we’ve got examples of people considering whether murdering someone who eats meat isn’t immoral, whether they ought to Thanos snap all humans out of existence, analogising average unborn children in the developing world to baby Hitler. my alarm bells are ringing
The dangers of the above grow exponentially if proponents are incredibly morally certain about their beliefs and unlikely to change regardless of evidence shown, believe that they may only have one chance to change things, believe that otherwise unjustifiable actions are justified in their case due to moral urgency.
For clarification I think Factory Farming is a moral catastrophe and I think ending it should be a leading EA cause. I just think that the latent misanthropy in the meal-eater problem framing/worldview is also morally catastrophic.
In general, reflecting on this framing makes it ever more clear to me that I’m just not a utilitarian or a totalist.
A lot of people in animal advocacy circles (inside and outside ea) choose not to have children and report that this is because humans tend to be meat eaters. There are far larger numbers of environmentally minded (mostly non-ea) people who claim to choose not to have children because their children will contribute to global warming or general environmental harms. Most such environmentally minded people are not particularly animal-welfare focused. Further, most such people are not committed utilitarians.
I am not defending this view, nor even claiming that these reasons are true drivers of personal decisions. However the frequency with which I hear similar suggestions about how having children is a moral wrong for the planet suggests to me that this sort of idea is not directed toward poorer people in particular, nor is it the result of considering animals as moral patients nor is it idiosyncratic to EA not does it stem from any strict interpretation of utilitarianism.
For better or worse, a certain type of misanthropy runs deep in modern culture.
For the vast majority of people (including myself), there is a big difference between choosing not to have a child and choosing not to save a child who already exists. In the EA context, the meat-eating problem seems to come up in the context of the perceived downsides of saving existing lives.
There are many reasons for choosing not to have kids that are in no way similar to concerns in the poor meat eater problem.
However, I disagree that choosing not to have children specifically because you think humans are a net moral bad is so vastly different from choosing not to actively expend resources to save an existing human in terms of the logic underlying the motivation.
The two actions have different consequences but the two beliefs imply roughly the same sorts of things that JWS finds uncomfortable when followed to their logical conclusion.
My only point was that these beliefs both stem from a similar kind of misanthropy that is not unique to ea/utilitarianism/the meat eater problem/ poor people.
Some people think humans are on net bad and want to see fewer of them, future or existing. People who think that having a child is any way wrong because humans are on average a net moral bad are in my opinion pretty ideologically aligned with people who think it’s wrong to donate to human-focused charities for the same reason.
[Epistemic status: diverse moral parliament with significant deontological and virtue-ethics representation, along with concern about fair distribution of good and bad things]
Rich people in the Western World saying that poor people in Developing countries do not deserve to live/exist? bad bad bad bad bad
Relatedly, I find it concerning that the initial jump is from “increased human population may be net negative due to effects on farmed animal welfare” to “maybe we should refrain from preventing death among infants and toddlers in Africa.” I’m not advocating pro-death policies like withholding lifesaving medical care anywhere, but in a sense I would find it less objectionable if consistently applied rather than beng focused on developing countries?
That sense is coming from various places, including the interest in impartiality, the concern about powerful people furthering their objectives by forcing powerless people to bear the costs, and a distaste for free-riding (not having oneself or even one’s society share in the risk of death “needed” to achieve the objective). There are also the empirical weaknesses (e.g., that these kids aren’t nearly as likely to be eating much factory-farmed meat in the future, that failing to prevent their death may have a minimal effect on total global population) that may not be immediately discernable, but don’t need extensive reflection to see.
Moreover, there are also other policies and practices I would expect to see well before withholding life-saving medical care to young children were anywhere near the table:
In expectancy, the kids of EAs will likely consume more factory-farmed meat than young children in developing countries, so choosing to not have kids seems a fairly obvious step.
Although I’m not usually one for calling non-billionaires out for not donating a large fraction of their income, “this problem is grave enough that we should consider saving the lives of innocent young children as a net negative” seemingly implies “this problem is grave enough that I am morally obliged to donate at least most of my material resources to mitigating it and should be criticized for failing to do so.” If it’s not worth a 51% donation rate from me, how is it possibly worth what we would be expecting the would-be AMF beneficiaries to sacrifice for the cause?
already in the thread we’ve got examples of people considering whether murdering someone who eats meat isn’t immoral
If the question were about humans who cause an equivalent amount of harm to other humans, I would not expect to see objection to the question merely being asked or considered. When humans are at risk, this question is asked even when the price is killing (a lower number of) humans who are not causing the harm. It is true that present human culture applies such a double standard to humans versus to members of other species, but this is not morally relevant and should not influence what moral questions one allows themself to consider (though it still does, empirically. This is relevant to a principle introduced below).
I think that this question is both intuitive to ask and would be important in a neartermist frame given the animal lives at stake. It has also been discussed in at least one published philosophy paper.[1] That paper concludes (on this question) that in the current world, it is a much less effective way of reducing animal torture compared to other ways, and so shouldn’t be done in order to avoid ending up arrested and unable to help animals in far more effective ways, but that it would likely reduce more suffering than it causes.[2] That is my belief too, by which I mean that seems to be the way the world is, not that I like that the world is this way. (This is a core rationalist principle, which I believe is also violated by other of your points in the ‘pattern matches to dangerous beliefs’ section.)
The Litany of Tarski is a template to remind oneself that beliefs should stem from reality, from what actually is, as opposed to what we want, or what would be convenient. For any statement X, the litany takes the form “If X, I desire to believe that X”.
I think there are other instances of different standards being applied to how we treat extreme harm of humans versus extreme harm of members of other species throughout your comment.[3]
For example, I think that if one believes factory farming is a moral catastrophe (as you do), and if discomfort originated from that one’s morality alone, then the use of ‘meat’ over ‘animals’ or ‘animal bodies’ would cause more discomfort than the use of ‘meat eater’ over ‘meat eating’.
That’s not to say I don’t think the term ‘eating’ instead of ‘eater’ is better, or rather, more generally, that language should not have words that refer to a being by one of their malleable behaviors or attitudes. I might favor such a general linguistic change.
However, if this were a discussion of great ongoing harm being caused to humans, such as through abuse or murder, I would not expect to find comments objecting to referring to the humans causing that harm as ‘abusers’ or ‘murderers’ on the basis that they might stop in the future.[4] (I’m solely commenting on the perceived double standard here.)
There are other examples (in section three), but I can (in general) only find words matching my thoughts very slowly (this took me almost two hours to write and revise) so I’m choosing to stop here.
I think this also shows that this question is importantly two questions:
Is it right to kill someone who would otherwise continually cause animals to be harmed and killed, in isolation, i.e in a hypothetical thought-experiment-world where there’s no better way to stop this, and doing so will not prevent you from preventing greater amounts of harm?
In this case, ‘yes’ feels like the obvious answer to me.
I also think it would feel like an obvious answer for most people if present biases towards members of other species were removed, for most would say ‘yes’ to the version of this question about a human creating and killing humans.
Is it right to kill someone who would otherwise continually cause animals to be harmed and killed, in the current world, where this will lead to you being imprisoned?
In this case, ‘no’ feels like the obvious answer to me, because you could do more good just by causing two humans to go vegan for life, and even more good by following EA principles.
(To preclude certain objections: These are different standards which would not be justified by members of a given species experiencing only less suffering from 0-2 years of psychological desperation and physical torture than humans would from that same situation).
(Relatedly, after reading your comment, one thing I tried was to read it again with reference to {people eating animals} mentally replaced with reference to {people enacting moral catastrophes that are now widely opposed}, to isolate the ‘currently still supported’ variable, to see if anything in my perception or your comment would be unexpected if that variable were different, despite it not being a morally relevant variable. This, I think, is a good technique for avoiding/noticing bias.)
I just want to publicly state that the whole ‘meat-eater problem’ framing makes me incredibly uncomfortable
First: why not call it the ‘meat-eating’ problem rather than ‘meat-eater’ problem? Human beliefs and behaviours are changeable and malleable. It is not a guarantee that future moral attitudes are set in stone—human history itself should be proof enough of that. Seeing other human beings as ‘problems to be solved’ is inherently dehumanising.
Second: the call on whether net human wellbeing is negated by net animal wellbeing is highly dependent on both moral weights and overall moral view. It isn’t a ‘solved’ problem in moral philosophy. There’s also a lot of empirical uncertainty people below have pointed out r.e. saving a life != increasing the population, counterfactual wild animal welfare without humans might be even more negative etc.
Third—and most importantly—this pattern matches onto very very dangerous beliefs:
Rich people in the Western World saying that poor people in Developing countries do not deserve to live/exist? bad bad bad bad bad
Belief that humanity, or a significant amount of it, ought not to exist (or the world would be better off were they to stop existing) danger danger
Like, already in the thread we’ve got examples of people considering whether murdering someone who eats meat isn’t immoral, whether they ought to Thanos snap all humans out of existence, analogising average unborn children in the developing world to baby Hitler. my alarm bells are ringing
The dangers of the above grow exponentially if proponents are incredibly morally certain about their beliefs and unlikely to change regardless of evidence shown, believe that they may only have one chance to change things, believe that otherwise unjustifiable actions are justified in their case due to moral urgency.
For clarification I think Factory Farming is a moral catastrophe and I think ending it should be a leading EA cause. I just think that the latent misanthropy in the meal-eater problem framing/worldview is also morally catastrophic.
In general, reflecting on this framing makes it ever more clear to me that I’m just not a utilitarian or a totalist.
A lot of people in animal advocacy circles (inside and outside ea) choose not to have children and report that this is because humans tend to be meat eaters. There are far larger numbers of environmentally minded (mostly non-ea) people who claim to choose not to have children because their children will contribute to global warming or general environmental harms. Most such environmentally minded people are not particularly animal-welfare focused. Further, most such people are not committed utilitarians.
I am not defending this view, nor even claiming that these reasons are true drivers of personal decisions. However the frequency with which I hear similar suggestions about how having children is a moral wrong for the planet suggests to me that this sort of idea is not directed toward poorer people in particular, nor is it the result of considering animals as moral patients nor is it idiosyncratic to EA not does it stem from any strict interpretation of utilitarianism.
For better or worse, a certain type of misanthropy runs deep in modern culture.
For the vast majority of people (including myself), there is a big difference between choosing not to have a child and choosing not to save a child who already exists. In the EA context, the meat-eating problem seems to come up in the context of the perceived downsides of saving existing lives.
There are many reasons for choosing not to have kids that are in no way similar to concerns in the poor meat eater problem.
However, I disagree that choosing not to have children specifically because you think humans are a net moral bad is so vastly different from choosing not to actively expend resources to save an existing human in terms of the logic underlying the motivation.
The two actions have different consequences but the two beliefs imply roughly the same sorts of things that JWS finds uncomfortable when followed to their logical conclusion.
My only point was that these beliefs both stem from a similar kind of misanthropy that is not unique to ea/utilitarianism/the meat eater problem/ poor people.
Some people think humans are on net bad and want to see fewer of them, future or existing. People who think that having a child is any way wrong because humans are on average a net moral bad are in my opinion pretty ideologically aligned with people who think it’s wrong to donate to human-focused charities for the same reason.
[Epistemic status: diverse moral parliament with significant deontological and virtue-ethics representation, along with concern about fair distribution of good and bad things]
Relatedly, I find it concerning that the initial jump is from “increased human population may be net negative due to effects on farmed animal welfare” to “maybe we should refrain from preventing death among infants and toddlers in Africa.” I’m not advocating pro-death policies like withholding lifesaving medical care anywhere, but in a sense I would find it less objectionable if consistently applied rather than beng focused on developing countries?
That sense is coming from various places, including the interest in impartiality, the concern about powerful people furthering their objectives by forcing powerless people to bear the costs, and a distaste for free-riding (not having oneself or even one’s society share in the risk of death “needed” to achieve the objective). There are also the empirical weaknesses (e.g., that these kids aren’t nearly as likely to be eating much factory-farmed meat in the future, that failing to prevent their death may have a minimal effect on total global population) that may not be immediately discernable, but don’t need extensive reflection to see.
Moreover, there are also other policies and practices I would expect to see well before withholding life-saving medical care to young children were anywhere near the table:
In expectancy, the kids of EAs will likely consume more factory-farmed meat than young children in developing countries, so choosing to not have kids seems a fairly obvious step.
Although I’m not usually one for calling non-billionaires out for not donating a large fraction of their income, “this problem is grave enough that we should consider saving the lives of innocent young children as a net negative” seemingly implies “this problem is grave enough that I am morally obliged to donate at least most of my material resources to mitigating it and should be criticized for failing to do so.” If it’s not worth a 51% donation rate from me, how is it possibly worth what we would be expecting the would-be AMF beneficiaries to sacrifice for the cause?
If the question were about humans who cause an equivalent amount of harm to other humans, I would not expect to see objection to the question merely being asked or considered. When humans are at risk, this question is asked even when the price is killing (a lower number of) humans who are not causing the harm. It is true that present human culture applies such a double standard to humans versus to members of other species, but this is not morally relevant and should not influence what moral questions one allows themself to consider (though it still does, empirically. This is relevant to a principle introduced below).
I think that this question is both intuitive to ask and would be important in a neartermist frame given the animal lives at stake. It has also been discussed in at least one published philosophy paper.[1] That paper concludes (on this question) that in the current world, it is a much less effective way of reducing animal torture compared to other ways, and so shouldn’t be done in order to avoid ending up arrested and unable to help animals in far more effective ways, but that it would likely reduce more suffering than it causes.[2] That is my belief too, by which I mean that seems to be the way the world is, not that I like that the world is this way. (This is a core rationalist principle, which I believe is also violated by other of your points in the ‘pattern matches to dangerous beliefs’ section.)
I think there are other instances of different standards being applied to how we treat extreme harm of humans versus extreme harm of members of other species throughout your comment.[3]
For example, I think that if one believes factory farming is a moral catastrophe (as you do), and if discomfort originated from that one’s morality alone, then the use of ‘meat’ over ‘animals’ or ‘animal bodies’ would cause more discomfort than the use of ‘meat eater’ over ‘meat eating’.
That’s not to say I don’t think the term ‘eating’ instead of ‘eater’ is better, or rather, more generally, that language should not have words that refer to a being by one of their malleable behaviors or attitudes. I might favor such a general linguistic change.
However, if this were a discussion of great ongoing harm being caused to humans, such as through abuse or murder, I would not expect to find comments objecting to referring to the humans causing that harm as ‘abusers’ or ‘murderers’ on the basis that they might stop in the future.[4] (I’m solely commenting on the perceived double standard here.)
There are other examples (in section three), but I can (in general) only find words matching my thoughts very slowly (this took me almost two hours to write and revise) so I’m choosing to stop here.
https://journalofcontroversialideas.org/article/2/2/206
In the Journal of Controversial Ideas, co-founded by Peter Singer. (wikipedia)
I think this also shows that this question is importantly two questions:
Is it right to kill someone who would otherwise continually cause animals to be harmed and killed, in isolation, i.e in a hypothetical thought-experiment-world where there’s no better way to stop this, and doing so will not prevent you from preventing greater amounts of harm?
In this case, ‘yes’ feels like the obvious answer to me.
I also think it would feel like an obvious answer for most people if present biases towards members of other species were removed, for most would say ‘yes’ to the version of this question about a human creating and killing humans.
Is it right to kill someone who would otherwise continually cause animals to be harmed and killed, in the current world, where this will lead to you being imprisoned?
In this case, ‘no’ feels like the obvious answer to me, because you could do more good just by causing two humans to go vegan for life, and even more good by following EA principles.
(To preclude certain objections: These are different standards which would not be justified by members of a given species experiencing only less suffering from 0-2 years of psychological desperation and physical torture than humans would from that same situation).
(Relatedly, after reading your comment, one thing I tried was to read it again with reference to {people eating animals} mentally replaced with reference to {people enacting moral catastrophes that are now widely opposed}, to isolate the ‘currently still supported’ variable, to see if anything in my perception or your comment would be unexpected if that variable were different, despite it not being a morally relevant variable. This, I think, is a good technique for avoiding/noticing bias.)
great reply
Takes a long time to read to ! Nice work its really interesting :)