I don’t think enjoyment and suffering are arbitrary or unimportant. But I do think they’re nebulous. They don’t have crisp, definable, generally agreed-upon properties. We have to deal with them anyway.
I don’t reason about animal ethics; I just follow standard American cultural standards. And I think ethics matters because it helps us live a virtuous and rewarding life.
You would suppose wrong! My wife and I belong to a group of a couple of dozen people that investigates charities, picks the best ones, and sends them big checks. I used to participate more, but now I outsource all the effort to my wife. I wasn’t contributing much to the choosing process. I just earn the money 🙂.
What does this have to do with my camp#1 intuitions?
Now I am confused. Do you care about animal ethics as part of your commitment to effective altruism? If so, how can you do that without reasoning about it? Or do you just ignore the animals?
My charity extends no further than the human race. Once in a while I think about animal ethics and decide that no, I still don’t care enough to make an effort.
A basic commitment of my charity group from the beginning: no money that benefits things other than people. We don’t donate to benefit political groups, organizations, arts, animals, or the natural world. I’m good with that. Members of the group may of course donate elsewhere, and generally do.
We’ve been doing this since 1998, decades before Effective Altruism was a thing. I don’t have a commitment to Effective Altruism the movement, just to altruism which is effective.
Thanks for the response.
You make it sound as though enjoyment and suffering are just arbitrary and unimportant shorthands to describe certain mechanistic processes.
From that perspective, how do you reason about animal ethics? For that matter, why does any ethics matter at all?
I don’t think enjoyment and suffering are arbitrary or unimportant. But I do think they’re nebulous. They don’t have crisp, definable, generally agreed-upon properties. We have to deal with them anyway.
I don’t reason about animal ethics; I just follow standard American cultural standards. And I think ethics matters because it helps us live a virtuous and rewarding life.
Is that helpful?
Thanks for the response.
I suppose you do not have any interest in effective altruism either?
You would suppose wrong! My wife and I belong to a group of a couple of dozen people that investigates charities, picks the best ones, and sends them big checks. I used to participate more, but now I outsource all the effort to my wife. I wasn’t contributing much to the choosing process. I just earn the money 🙂.
What does this have to do with my camp#1 intuitions?
Now I am confused. Do you care about animal ethics as part of your commitment to effective altruism? If so, how can you do that without reasoning about it? Or do you just ignore the animals?
My charity extends no further than the human race. Once in a while I think about animal ethics and decide that no, I still don’t care enough to make an effort.
A basic commitment of my charity group from the beginning: no money that benefits things other than people. We don’t donate to benefit political groups, organizations, arts, animals, or the natural world. I’m good with that. Members of the group may of course donate elsewhere, and generally do.
We’ve been doing this since 1998, decades before Effective Altruism was a thing. I don’t have a commitment to Effective Altruism the movement, just to altruism which is effective.