The Nonlinear Library LW - Love, Reverence, and Life by Elizabeth
Dec 14, 2023
39:52
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Love, Reverence, and Life, published by Elizabeth on December 14, 2023 on LessWrong.
Vegan advocates frequently argue that compromise positions like heavily reduced but nonzero meat consumption, humane certifications, or choosing meat with a lower suffering profile are not acceptable. The usual reason given is that the compromises aren't emotionally sustainable, and people inevitably slide back into full blown omnivorism. I (Elizabeth) never found this satisfying, emotionally or logically, and follow up discussions never went anywhere useful. Recently* Tristan gave an answer I did find satisfying, and made me suspect a follow-up discussion would be highly educational.
This is that follow up discussion, and it was indeed very educational. We dove deep into what taking reverence for life as your central value might mean, and how failing to center on this might be risky or invite some degree of sterility. I (Tristan) felt able to express some views I'm not always able to convey, and deeply appreciated the continued curiosity and help forgining those views that occured throughout. And though we might still hold quite differing views at the end of the day, this feels like a further step taken in epistemic good will that will hopefully help foster more conversations like it in the future.
*Well, it was recent when we started this. Progress has been fairly slow, which is one reason we're publishing now rather than waiting for a better stopping point.
Reverence for Life
In the original comment you wrote:
Yeah sure. I would need a full post to explain myself, but basically I think that what seems to be really important when going vegan is standing in a certain sort of loving relationship to animals, one that isn't grounded in utility but instead a strong (but basic) appreciation and valuing of the other. But let me step back for a minute.
I guess the first time I thought about this was with my university EA group. We had a couple of hardcore utilitarians, and one of them brought up an interesting idea one night. He was a vegan, but he'd been offered some mac and cheese, and in similar thinking to above (that dairy generally involves less suffering than eggs or chicken for ex) he wondered if it might actually be better to take the mac and donate the money he would have spent to an animal welfare org. And when he roughed up the math, sure enough, taking the mac and donating was somewhat significantly the better option.
But he didn't do it, nor do I think he changed how he acted in the future. Why? I think it's really hard to draw a line in the sand that isn't veganism that stays stable over time.
For those who've reverted, I've seen time and again a slow path back, one where it starts with the less bad items, cheese is quite frequent, and then naturally over time one thing after another is added to the point that most wind up in some sort of reducetarian state where they're maybe 80% back to normal (I also want to note here, I'm so glad for any change, and I cast no stones at anyone trying their best to change). And I guess maybe at some point it stops being a moral thing, or becomes some really watered down moral thing like how much people consider the environment when booking a plane ticket.
I don't know if this helps make it clear, but it's like how most people feel about harm to younger kids. When it comes to just about any serious harm to younger kids, people are generally against it, like super against it, a feeling of deep caring that to me seems to be one of the strongest sentiments shared by humans universally. People will give you some reasons for this i.e. "they are helpless and we are in a position of responsibility to help them" but really it seems to ground pretty quickly in a sentiment of "it's just bad".
To have this sort of love, this commitment to preventing s...
Vegan advocates frequently argue that compromise positions like heavily reduced but nonzero meat consumption, humane certifications, or choosing meat with a lower suffering profile are not acceptable. The usual reason given is that the compromises aren't emotionally sustainable, and people inevitably slide back into full blown omnivorism. I (Elizabeth) never found this satisfying, emotionally or logically, and follow up discussions never went anywhere useful. Recently* Tristan gave an answer I did find satisfying, and made me suspect a follow-up discussion would be highly educational.
This is that follow up discussion, and it was indeed very educational. We dove deep into what taking reverence for life as your central value might mean, and how failing to center on this might be risky or invite some degree of sterility. I (Tristan) felt able to express some views I'm not always able to convey, and deeply appreciated the continued curiosity and help forgining those views that occured throughout. And though we might still hold quite differing views at the end of the day, this feels like a further step taken in epistemic good will that will hopefully help foster more conversations like it in the future.
*Well, it was recent when we started this. Progress has been fairly slow, which is one reason we're publishing now rather than waiting for a better stopping point.
Reverence for Life
In the original comment you wrote:
Yeah sure. I would need a full post to explain myself, but basically I think that what seems to be really important when going vegan is standing in a certain sort of loving relationship to animals, one that isn't grounded in utility but instead a strong (but basic) appreciation and valuing of the other. But let me step back for a minute.
I guess the first time I thought about this was with my university EA group. We had a couple of hardcore utilitarians, and one of them brought up an interesting idea one night. He was a vegan, but he'd been offered some mac and cheese, and in similar thinking to above (that dairy generally involves less suffering than eggs or chicken for ex) he wondered if it might actually be better to take the mac and donate the money he would have spent to an animal welfare org. And when he roughed up the math, sure enough, taking the mac and donating was somewhat significantly the better option.
But he didn't do it, nor do I think he changed how he acted in the future. Why? I think it's really hard to draw a line in the sand that isn't veganism that stays stable over time.
For those who've reverted, I've seen time and again a slow path back, one where it starts with the less bad items, cheese is quite frequent, and then naturally over time one thing after another is added to the point that most wind up in some sort of reducetarian state where they're maybe 80% back to normal (I also want to note here, I'm so glad for any change, and I cast no stones at anyone trying their best to change). And I guess maybe at some point it stops being a moral thing, or becomes some really watered down moral thing like how much people consider the environment when booking a plane ticket.
I don't know if this helps make it clear, but it's like how most people feel about harm to younger kids. When it comes to just about any serious harm to younger kids, people are generally against it, like super against it, a feeling of deep caring that to me seems to be one of the strongest sentiments shared by humans universally. People will give you some reasons for this i.e. "they are helpless and we are in a position of responsibility to help them" but really it seems to ground pretty quickly in a sentiment of "it's just bad".
To have this sort of love, this commitment to preventing s...