Different people have different time preferences (preference for futures vs current satisfaction). Evidently most people don't even care what their diet does to their own health in fifty years time (given the massive rise in diet-related preventable illnesses), so I don't imagine they'd care about much about the environmental effects either. And there's nothing wrong with that; there's no "objectively correct" time preference, no objective way to say "X units of satisfaction thirty years from now is worth Y units of satisfaction today".
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Just because there's no objectively correct measure, I wouldn't say that means it isn't wrong. There's nothing objective in ethics.
In your example of people not caring about their health: the environmental impact of diet is in a different ethical class for me. If you choose to ignore your own health that's your deal, but if you make choices that negatively impact the lives of millions I think the ethics are different.
In your example of people not caring about their health: the environmental impact of diet is in a different ethical class for me. If you choose to ignore your own health that's your deal, but if you make choices that negatively impact the lives of millions I think the ethics are different.
>If you choose to ignore your own health that's your deal, but if you make choices that negatively impact the lives of millions I think the ethics are different.
The impact of any individual unit of meat consumption by an individual is incredibly marginal. The standard society generally uses to determine whether an individual has harmed another is way higher than that. The satisfaction an individual gets from eating meat might well be greater than the dissatisfaction that instance causes others, and indeed since there's no objective standard it's impossible to measure exactly.
The impact of any individual unit of meat consumption by an individual is incredibly marginal. The standard society generally uses to determine whether an individual has harmed another is way higher than that. The satisfaction an individual gets from eating meat might well be greater than the dissatisfaction that instance causes others, and indeed since there's no objective standard it's impossible to measure exactly.
I think it requires a certain mental state of almost complete lack of empathy to enjoy meat though. If you eat meat and never think about these issues, you simply don't care.
That goes for any activity that is harmful on any scale at any time frame. Smoking is obvious. Skiing? Your accident rate is higher than average, taking away health care resources from people who also need them, also nature is being negatively impacted. Watching Netflix? Have you ever thought about the power your TV needs, and the resources used to manufacture it?
That goes on and on. You may draw a line somewhere and declare "no, from here on it's nonsense", but there's no objectivity, there's no reason why the line should be exactly there, and not, say, on the other side of eating meat.
That goes on and on. You may draw a line somewhere and declare "no, from here on it's nonsense", but there's no objectivity, there's no reason why the line should be exactly there, and not, say, on the other side of eating meat.
>I think it requires a certain mental state of almost complete lack of empathy to enjoy meat though.
Empathy for who/what exactly? Eating a steak is not going to cause anybody any measurable pain. Empathy means feeling what somebody else is feeling.
Empathy for who/what exactly? Eating a steak is not going to cause anybody any measurable pain. Empathy means feeling what somebody else is feeling.
I don't care that much for my own health, but I do care about my ecological footprint. Not because of X units of satisfaction I'll take from glaciers thirty years from now, but because I don't treat the world as my property. We're guests here and should behave accordingly.
>We're guests here and should behave accordingly.
Guests of who, exactly?
Guests of who, exactly?
Looking at the lens of "who will clean this up", future generations.
Looking at "who was there before and will be after my visit", then human civilization outlives each and every one of us.
Looking at "who was there before and will be after my visit", then human civilization outlives each and every one of us.
>Looking at the lens of "who will clean this up", future generations.
And how do we weigh the satisfaction of potential future people against people currently existing? It's not easy; if we assign some value to future people, then that implies we should try to have more children, to maximise the sum total of future people's satisfaction.
>Looking at "who was there before and will be after my visit", then human civilization outlives each and every one of us.
Metaphysically speaking, it's quite possible that every moment of human experience is going to happen anyway, regardless of what we do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain.
And how do we weigh the satisfaction of potential future people against people currently existing? It's not easy; if we assign some value to future people, then that implies we should try to have more children, to maximise the sum total of future people's satisfaction.
>Looking at "who was there before and will be after my visit", then human civilization outlives each and every one of us.
Metaphysically speaking, it's quite possible that every moment of human experience is going to happen anyway, regardless of what we do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain.
> if we assign some value to future people, then that implies we should try to have more children, to maximise the sum total of future people's satisfaction.
Not quite. While it would be true (The Repugnant Conclusion) if every future person had positive quality of life, there can be a point where adding new people pushes everyone's quality of life into negative.
> Metaphysically speaking, it's quite possible that every moment of human experience is going to happen anyway, regardless of what we do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain.
My point was more that the purpose of life could be seen as sustaining the continuity of this civilization. Presumably, Boltzmann brains would not correspond to any civilization more often than any other, so they don't take anything away from the value of a life and the duty to preserve resources.
Not quite. While it would be true (The Repugnant Conclusion) if every future person had positive quality of life, there can be a point where adding new people pushes everyone's quality of life into negative.
> Metaphysically speaking, it's quite possible that every moment of human experience is going to happen anyway, regardless of what we do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain.
My point was more that the purpose of life could be seen as sustaining the continuity of this civilization. Presumably, Boltzmann brains would not correspond to any civilization more often than any other, so they don't take anything away from the value of a life and the duty to preserve resources.