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 think the question is how much you view being vegetarian as a burden/a good deed that you are doing vs just a feature of your everyday life. For me, I don't even think about it, so I don't believe that I have the "good deed offset" issue you mentioned. But others may be different!
A second question is how much weight you give to a deontological moral system being correct - e.g. you probably wouldn't eat factory farmed humans regardless of how that might affect your other actions because that seems immoral.
A third question is what would the replacement activity for being vegetarian be? Would you realistically replace that with something as comparably high impact (e.g. - eating a serving of chicken requires ~4 hours of ~torturing the chicken to get you the food - do you think whatever you would replace that with would be worth torturing a chicken for four hours? If you aren't spending the extra time donating more to effective animal charities that seems like a high bar to clear.)
Lastly, you can avoid much of the negative impact of meat eating if you eat from places here you are highly confident in the good treatment of animals (difficult to do but possible) or just eat beef and bivalves (much easier). So if you do change I'd recommend being thoughtful about it like you would with all other decisions!
Thanks, a lot of great things to reflect on for me.
"how much you view being vegetarian as a burden/a good deed that you are doing vs just a feature of your everyday life"
I think that if someone asked me what I think of factory farming, I'd reply I think it's terrible. Then if they asked if I do anything about it I'd instantly say "yeah I don't eat meat". So I definitely see it as a good deed. Even though it's not something I think about everyday.
"you probably wouldn't eat factory farmed humans regardless of how that might affect your othe... (read more)