I've been a vegetarian for over 10 years. My EA insights have made me start questioning if I should start eating meat again, at least occasionally. I'd like to share my thought process and have it challenged!
Thought 1 - Vegetarian diet vs effective charities
There are definitely much more effective ways to impact animal wellfare than being a vegetarian. Giving to the right charity has magnitudes greater impact than me not eating meat. I think everyone in this forum agrees on that, right?
Thought 2 - Just do both...
Can't I just do both? Give to the effective charities and keep a vegetarian diet? Yeah maybe, but then I learned about moral/self-licensing...
If I've got this straight, studies show that if I've done a good deed, I'm less likely to do another one. A vegetarian diet is a good deed (not the most effective, but still a good deed) when it comes to factory farming.
I don't think I'm "above" the self licensing effect just because I know of it. So I'm probably less likely to do as much of the more effective deeds because of being a vegetarian.
Thought 3 - Focus only on what's most effective
EAs pride ourselves on going "all in" on the most effective interventions. Not focusing energy/time on things that also do good, but less effectively.
So that would encourage me to go all in on the right charities and stop the less effective dietary restriction.
Thought 4 - A bit inconvenient
Keeping a vegetarian diet sacrifices some quality of life for me. Not much, but definitely some. Eating out or at friends/family adds a bit of inconvenience. Also, even if I'd likely keep to vegetarian meals most of the time, I miss some non-vegetarian dishes that I found extra tasty.
Thought 5 - The pro-vegetarian argument
The pro-vegetarian argument that resonates most with me is "if you think something is a moral atrocity, you shouldn’t participate in it, even if you offset the effects of your contribution." The deontological argument, well described in the post Some thoughts on vegetarianism and veganism.
But I find it difficult to weigh that against the 4 other ones I listed above.
Keen to read some of your thoughts on this!
I'm struggling to understand your framing of the moral licensing argument. "Moral licensing" is widely considered to be self-deceiving weakness where people [unconsciously] convince themselves that as they've done something moral they can happily make other choices with complete indifference to their moral consequences rather than a pragmatic approach to optimising altruism. In that sense, the idea that that participating in some small way in a campaign against meat alleviates any concern about about possible moral implications of eating it is a pretty pure example of moral licensing, whereas it seems non-obvious that the additional impactful pro-animal activity you would only feel able to participate in if you ate meat first actually exists. Sure, you might donate to something you identify as impactful but there's no guarantee you're not deceiving yourself far more about the counterfactual that you'd have been unable to commit to if you hadn't started eating meat. The last thing I'd consider from the starting point of worrying about my future capacity for self-deception is doing stuff I believe is bad in the hope it hacks my mindset into doing more good.
Some people hold sincere beliefs in animal welfare matters whilst eating meat they believe to be "cruelty free" is fine and if you're one of them, or feel it's impossible to avoid eating it or simply don't think it's an issue that's different,[1] but "I might need to start doing things I think are bad again because I'm concerned that otherwise I might be less capable of doing things which are good" doesn't feel like the right lesson to be learning from EA
I am not qualified to tell people to never eat meat...