Your points (1) and (2) seem like fully general counterarguments against any activity at all, other than the single most effective activity at any given time.
That’s more or less what I intended them to be. Isn’t doing only the most effective activities available to you… a good idea?
However, I’d phrase the argument in terms of degrees: Activities are good to the extent they conduce to your making better decisions for the future, bad to the extent they conduce to your making worse decisions for the future. So doing the dishes might be OK even if it’s not the Single Best Thing You Could Possibly Be Doing Right Now, provided it indirectly helps you do better things than you otherwise would. Some suboptimal things are more suboptimal than others.
However, it seems that one of the best ways to do that is to encourage others to care more for the welfare of non-human animals
Maybe? If you could give such an argument, though, it would show that my argument isn’t a fully general counterargument—vegetarianism would be an exception, precisely because it would be the optimal decision.
it makes sense from a psychological perspective to become a veg*an if you care about non-human animals.
Right. I think the disagreement is about the ethical character of vegetarianism, not about whether it’s a psychologically or aesthetically appealing life-decision (to some people). It’s possible to care about the wrong things, and it’s possible to assign moral weight to things that don’t deserve it. Ghosts, blastocysts, broccoli stalks, abstract objects....
Although I see no way to falsify this belief, I also don’t see any reason to believe that it’s true.
To assess (4) I think we’d need to look at the broader ethical and neurological theories that entail it, and assess the evidence for and against them. This is a big project. Personally, my uncertainty about the moral character of non-sapients is very large, though I think I lean in your direction. (Actually, my uncertainty and confusion about most things sapience- and sentience- related are very large.)
That’s more or less what I intended them to be. Isn’t doing only the most effective activities available to you… a good idea?
Within practical limits. It’s not effective altruism if you drive yourself crazy trying to hold yourself to unattainable standards and burn yourself out.
Practical limits are built into ‘effective’. The most effective activity for you to engage in is the most effective activity for you to engage in, not for a perfectly rational arbitrarily computationally powerful god to engage in. Going easy on yourself, to the optimal degree, is (for creatures like us) part of behaving optimally at all. If your choice (foreseeably) burns you out, and the burnout isn’t worth the gain, your choice was just wrong.
That’s more or less what I intended them to be. Isn’t doing only the most effective activities available to you… a good idea?
However, I’d phrase the argument in terms of degrees: Activities are good to the extent they conduce to your making better decisions for the future, bad to the extent they conduce to your making worse decisions for the future. So doing the dishes might be OK even if it’s not the Single Best Thing You Could Possibly Be Doing Right Now, provided it indirectly helps you do better things than you otherwise would. Some suboptimal things are more suboptimal than others.
Wouldn’t you agree that veganism is less suboptimal than say entertainment? I’m assuming you’re okay with people playing video games, going to the movies etc. even if those activities don’t accomplish any long term altruistic goals. So I don’t know what your issue with veganism is.
Wouldn’t you agree that veganism is less suboptimal than say entertainment?
Depends. For a lot of people, some measure of entertainment helps recharge their batteries and do better work, much more so than veganism probably would. I’ll agree that excessive recreational time is a much bigger waste (for otherwise productive individuals) than veganism. I’m not singling veganism out here; it just happens to be the topic of discussion for this thread. If veganism recharges altruists’ batteries in a way similar to small amounts of recreation, and nothing better could do the job in either case, then veganism is justifiable for the same reason small amounts of recreation is.
For a lot of people, some measure of entertainment helps recharge their batteries and do better work
I suspect that most people engage in much more entertainment than is necessary for recharging their batteries to do more work. I hope you don’t think that entertainment and recreation are justifiable only because they allow us to work.
and nothing better could do the job in either case
This sounds like a fully general counterargument against doing almost anything at all.
I suspect that most people engage in much more entertainment than is necessary for recharging their batteries to do more work.
Yes. I would interpret that as meaning that people spend too much time having small amounts of fun, rather than securing much larger amounts of fun for their descendants.
I hope you don’t think that entertainment and recreation are justifiable only because they allow us to work.
No, fun is intrinsically good. But it’s not so hugely intrinsically good that this good can outweigh large opportunity costs. And our ability to impact the future is large enough that small distractions, especially affecting people with a lot of power to change the world, can have big costs. I’m with Peter Singer on this one; buying a fancy suit is justifiable if it helps you save starving Kenyans, but if it comes at the expense of starving Kenyans then you’re responsible for taking that counterfactual money from them. And time, of course, is money too.
(I’m not sure this is a useful way for altruists to think about their moral obligations. It might be too stressful. But at this point I’m just discussing the obligations themselves, not the ideal heuristics for fulfilling them.)
This sounds like a fully general counterargument against doing almost anything at all.
It is, as long as you keep in mind that for every degree of utility there’s an independent argument favoring that degree over the one right below it. So it’s a fully general argument schema: ‘For any two incompatible options X and Y, if utility(X) > utility(Y), don’t choose Y if you could instead choose X.’ This makes it clear that the best option is preferable to all suboptimal options, even though somewhat suboptimal things are a lot better than direly suboptimal ones.
In that case, why are you spending time arguing against vegetarianism, instead of spending time arguing against behaviors that waste even more time and resources?
That’s more or less what I intended them to be. Isn’t doing only the most effective activities available to you… a good idea?
I felt like it was a bit unfair for you to use fully general counterarguments against veganism in particular. However, after your most recent reply, I can better see where you’re coming from. I think a better message to take from this essay (although I’m not sure Peter would agree) is that people in general should eat less meat, not necessarily you in particular. If you can get one other person to become a vegan in lieu of becoming one yourself, that’s just as good.
I think the disagreement is about the ethical character of vegetarianism, not about whether it’s a psychologically or aesthetically appealing life-decision (to some people).
If non-vegans are less effective at reducing suffering than vegans due to a quirk of human psychology (i.e. cognitive dissonance preventing them from caring sufficiently about non-humans), then this becomes an ethical issue and not just a psychological one.
To assess (4) I think we’d need to look at the broader ethical and neurological theories that entail it, and assess the evidence for and against them. This is a big project.
I agree with you here. I feel sufficiently confident that animal suffering matters, but the empirical evidence here is rather weak.
That’s more or less what I intended them to be. Isn’t doing only the most effective activities available to you… a good idea?
However, I’d phrase the argument in terms of degrees: Activities are good to the extent they conduce to your making better decisions for the future, bad to the extent they conduce to your making worse decisions for the future. So doing the dishes might be OK even if it’s not the Single Best Thing You Could Possibly Be Doing Right Now, provided it indirectly helps you do better things than you otherwise would. Some suboptimal things are more suboptimal than others.
Maybe? If you could give such an argument, though, it would show that my argument isn’t a fully general counterargument—vegetarianism would be an exception, precisely because it would be the optimal decision.
Right. I think the disagreement is about the ethical character of vegetarianism, not about whether it’s a psychologically or aesthetically appealing life-decision (to some people). It’s possible to care about the wrong things, and it’s possible to assign moral weight to things that don’t deserve it. Ghosts, blastocysts, broccoli stalks, abstract objects....
To assess (4) I think we’d need to look at the broader ethical and neurological theories that entail it, and assess the evidence for and against them. This is a big project. Personally, my uncertainty about the moral character of non-sapients is very large, though I think I lean in your direction. (Actually, my uncertainty and confusion about most things sapience- and sentience- related are very large.)
Within practical limits. It’s not effective altruism if you drive yourself crazy trying to hold yourself to unattainable standards and burn yourself out.
Practical limits are built into ‘effective’. The most effective activity for you to engage in is the most effective activity for you to engage in, not for a perfectly rational arbitrarily computationally powerful god to engage in. Going easy on yourself, to the optimal degree, is (for creatures like us) part of behaving optimally at all. If your choice (foreseeably) burns you out, and the burnout isn’t worth the gain, your choice was just wrong.
Wouldn’t you agree that veganism is less suboptimal than say entertainment? I’m assuming you’re okay with people playing video games, going to the movies etc. even if those activities don’t accomplish any long term altruistic goals. So I don’t know what your issue with veganism is.
Depends. For a lot of people, some measure of entertainment helps recharge their batteries and do better work, much more so than veganism probably would. I’ll agree that excessive recreational time is a much bigger waste (for otherwise productive individuals) than veganism. I’m not singling veganism out here; it just happens to be the topic of discussion for this thread. If veganism recharges altruists’ batteries in a way similar to small amounts of recreation, and nothing better could do the job in either case, then veganism is justifiable for the same reason small amounts of recreation is.
I suspect that most people engage in much more entertainment than is necessary for recharging their batteries to do more work. I hope you don’t think that entertainment and recreation are justifiable only because they allow us to work.
This sounds like a fully general counterargument against doing almost anything at all.
Yes. I would interpret that as meaning that people spend too much time having small amounts of fun, rather than securing much larger amounts of fun for their descendants.
No, fun is intrinsically good. But it’s not so hugely intrinsically good that this good can outweigh large opportunity costs. And our ability to impact the future is large enough that small distractions, especially affecting people with a lot of power to change the world, can have big costs. I’m with Peter Singer on this one; buying a fancy suit is justifiable if it helps you save starving Kenyans, but if it comes at the expense of starving Kenyans then you’re responsible for taking that counterfactual money from them. And time, of course, is money too.
(I’m not sure this is a useful way for altruists to think about their moral obligations. It might be too stressful. But at this point I’m just discussing the obligations themselves, not the ideal heuristics for fulfilling them.)
It is, as long as you keep in mind that for every degree of utility there’s an independent argument favoring that degree over the one right below it. So it’s a fully general argument schema: ‘For any two incompatible options X and Y, if utility(X) > utility(Y), don’t choose Y if you could instead choose X.’ This makes it clear that the best option is preferable to all suboptimal options, even though somewhat suboptimal things are a lot better than direly suboptimal ones.
In that case, why are you spending time arguing against vegetarianism, instead of spending time arguing against behaviors that waste even more time and resources?
I felt like it was a bit unfair for you to use fully general counterarguments against veganism in particular. However, after your most recent reply, I can better see where you’re coming from. I think a better message to take from this essay (although I’m not sure Peter would agree) is that people in general should eat less meat, not necessarily you in particular. If you can get one other person to become a vegan in lieu of becoming one yourself, that’s just as good.
If non-vegans are less effective at reducing suffering than vegans due to a quirk of human psychology (i.e. cognitive dissonance preventing them from caring sufficiently about non-humans), then this becomes an ethical issue and not just a psychological one.
I agree with you here. I feel sufficiently confident that animal suffering matters, but the empirical evidence here is rather weak.