Very eloquent argument for cause neutrality. Without picking on any one side, this really gets to the heart of the problem that I would summarize as “humans like/need to create bogeymen.” In fact, one almost has to be autistic not to have this tendency, and I say that as a compliment to the autists.
It looks like you're using "ideology" to mean historically contingent clusters of views that are not inherently aligned. But ideologies aren't just arbitrary, like teams, and they're more coherent than you're giving them credit for. A libertarian who wants to cut Medicaid and foreign aid and also isn't vegan isn't just failing to uniformly apply NAP, but is consistently showing indifference to suffering, opposing any hint of egalitarianism, and defining his circle of moral concern in an extremely narrow and selfish way.
On an unrelated note, an emphasis on Gaza over Sudan is easily explained by non-ideological motives: American support is an obvious one for Americans (and allies). When people are starving in an area that's just 7 miles across, while aid trucks are being blocked from entering, and items like wheelchairs are blocked on the grounds that they're "dual use," people will get more angry than when people are starving in the western region of Sudan amid a civil war because the suffering in the former is more easily preventable than in the latter.
The answer to the question about why more libertarians aren't vegan is very simple. Veganism is not a political decision and Libertarianism is strictly a political philosophy.
It attempts to define the minimal moral principle that we all have to agree on in order to live side by side in peace when we have many differing ideas about values and what it means to live a good or moral life. That minimal point of agreement we believe is the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP). It is sometimes humorously described as "don't hurt people and don't take their stuff". For Libertarians there is really only one true right -- the right to be free from the initiatory aggression of others.
If you want to extend the concept of rights to other beings besides humans you open up a very large can of worms. If a cow has the right to be protected from an "attack" by a human does a rabbit have a right to be protected from a fox? Personally I'm willing to extend the concept of rights to any sentient being but we haven't reached a consensus on exactly what that entails either yet.
I had a good friend who was a Wiccan. In other words she was a witch. There used to be something called the Libertarian Super Club where various luminaries were invited to expound on various topics. At one on the subject of rights and who had them, the speaker was trying to explain the sentient thing and made an offhand remark something like "Of course we can all agree that trees don't have rights" when a voice popped up from the back of the room - "Who says?". That was actually how I found out that my friend was not only a witch but a libertarian. So clearly there is even disagreement among libertarians about what entities have rights. But we all do agree that all Humans have rights.
That doesn't entirely settle the matter though as there remains disagreement on whether a fetus invitro is a full human being, but that's really getting off topic.
I *strongly* suspect that the reason so many libertarians are not vegans is because a certain personality type is more likely than average to be attracted to libertarianism than other views: the type that doesn't like being told what to do. They are less likely to find veganism attractive in principle because they don't want restrictions imposed on them.
In fact, I suspect a lot of political views are strongly influenced by these kinds of personality dispositions and what's at play here is less "the world being filtered through the lens of our ideology" as if this is something people are doing consciously, and more likely certain personalities more likely to find certain views more attractive than others.
Fwiw, I don't think utilitarianism or effective altruism is immune from this, and suspect the attractiveness of each view is somewhat less intellectual than everyone would like to believe and more has to do with certain types of people gravitating towards it for reasons having more to do with it cohering to your personal disposition rather than anything else.
Interesting post. To test your hypothesis against other theories, like selection, then other questions to "why so few vegan libertarians" may be to similarly ask "why are so many libertarians pro-choice on abortion"? or "why are so many libertarians athiest?"
There is nothing in libertarian philosophy that identifies when a fertilize egg becomes a person with independent rights worthy of state protection. There is nothing in its philosophy that settles the matter of God.
Consequently, I'm not sure ideological blindness in asessment matters is the only, or main, story. Animal rights, like abortion or god, are questions that force you to adopt a stance as a group if you're going to ask to be in power and will run a candidate for president. If you think a fetus or a shrimp is deserving of individual rights, then those beings warrant the full protection of the state. If those issues are important to you, and the political group is either silent or picks an opposing side, then you sort out of the group to belong to some others where the issue is better aligned with your preferences.
I don't think the "real" reason being corporate greed is a non-sequitur, if you consider it from the perspective of what causes government policies. Basically 5000 hula hoop dancers couldn't exist as bad regulation as no government would support it, but possibly corporations could have influence on government that causes bad regulation. I disagree with the perspective, I think it's principal-agent problems and confusion etc. all the way down, but it is at least not entirely a non-sequitur.
This is good. I’ll add that it’s possible governments are one of the biggest problems that need to be addressed. Maybe I’m too ideologically attached to that view, but maybe you’re too ideologically blind to it. Libertarians that do not accept the vegan position are disappointing, though. As are vegans that are not libertarian.
Because veganism is vegetarianism plus a theory of exploitation, presuming that consuming eggs, milk, or honey, no matter how humanely procured, is nevertheless morally impermissible. It’s Marxism as applied to vegetarianism, in other words.
"This is one thing I appreciate about effective altruism's cause neutrality. Rather than only working on problems that fit within some specific ideology, effective altruists try to identify the problems where they can make the biggest difference."
Do you think EA effectively maintains this commitment to cause neutrality in practice? Is the claim that EA escapes ideological filtering, or that cause neutrality is a standard EA sometimes falls short of? I'd suggest a third option: that cause neutrality is itself a lens, with its own predictable blind spots.
For example, there are very few arguments on the EA forum for socialism. Nikhil Venkatesh's "Why Not Socialism?" (https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/gm2ggniHqqiNBWWiq/why-not-socialism) is one of the few sustained attempts, and some of the most upvoted engagement betrays a pretty distorted understanding, often in the vein of "socialism = government = bad."
To be clear this is not an attempt to discredit EA! I agree with the core of what EA is trying to accomplish and I donate a substantial portion of my salary to EA-supported causes. It just seems like the movement has its own ideological blindspots, or applies its own commitments asymmetrically (similar to Thersitism's comment about libertarianism's failure to apply NAP uniformly.)
Absolutely, BB, by defining freedom as absence of government coercion, the libertarian frame builds a lens that detects state infringement while rendering other coercion, by employers, churches, or husbands over wives, nearly invisible, since those don't register as unfreedom under the libertarian or conservative definition.
Alternately, the positive-liberty tradition not only sees law and government having a role in empowerment but also in the freeing of a worker who cannot quit, a wife with no exit, or a congregant bound by economic dependence on the rest of the flock.
It is also worth noting that many if not most people join ideological movements for reasons other than ideological alignment. Yet another form of "unfreedom".
You need to consider Walter Block's argument:
1. Libertarianism doesn’t say that p.
2. Therefore, ~p.
See also: https://fakenous.substack.com/p/reply-to-walter-block-on-ethical
Greatest comment of all time.
:)
Read the whole link. Subscribed.
I consider myself quasi-libertarian :)
Very eloquent argument for cause neutrality. Without picking on any one side, this really gets to the heart of the problem that I would summarize as “humans like/need to create bogeymen.” In fact, one almost has to be autistic not to have this tendency, and I say that as a compliment to the autists.
It looks like you're using "ideology" to mean historically contingent clusters of views that are not inherently aligned. But ideologies aren't just arbitrary, like teams, and they're more coherent than you're giving them credit for. A libertarian who wants to cut Medicaid and foreign aid and also isn't vegan isn't just failing to uniformly apply NAP, but is consistently showing indifference to suffering, opposing any hint of egalitarianism, and defining his circle of moral concern in an extremely narrow and selfish way.
On an unrelated note, an emphasis on Gaza over Sudan is easily explained by non-ideological motives: American support is an obvious one for Americans (and allies). When people are starving in an area that's just 7 miles across, while aid trucks are being blocked from entering, and items like wheelchairs are blocked on the grounds that they're "dual use," people will get more angry than when people are starving in the western region of Sudan amid a civil war because the suffering in the former is more easily preventable than in the latter.
The answer to the question about why more libertarians aren't vegan is very simple. Veganism is not a political decision and Libertarianism is strictly a political philosophy.
It attempts to define the minimal moral principle that we all have to agree on in order to live side by side in peace when we have many differing ideas about values and what it means to live a good or moral life. That minimal point of agreement we believe is the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP). It is sometimes humorously described as "don't hurt people and don't take their stuff". For Libertarians there is really only one true right -- the right to be free from the initiatory aggression of others.
If you want to extend the concept of rights to other beings besides humans you open up a very large can of worms. If a cow has the right to be protected from an "attack" by a human does a rabbit have a right to be protected from a fox? Personally I'm willing to extend the concept of rights to any sentient being but we haven't reached a consensus on exactly what that entails either yet.
I had a good friend who was a Wiccan. In other words she was a witch. There used to be something called the Libertarian Super Club where various luminaries were invited to expound on various topics. At one on the subject of rights and who had them, the speaker was trying to explain the sentient thing and made an offhand remark something like "Of course we can all agree that trees don't have rights" when a voice popped up from the back of the room - "Who says?". That was actually how I found out that my friend was not only a witch but a libertarian. So clearly there is even disagreement among libertarians about what entities have rights. But we all do agree that all Humans have rights.
That doesn't entirely settle the matter though as there remains disagreement on whether a fetus invitro is a full human being, but that's really getting off topic.
I *strongly* suspect that the reason so many libertarians are not vegans is because a certain personality type is more likely than average to be attracted to libertarianism than other views: the type that doesn't like being told what to do. They are less likely to find veganism attractive in principle because they don't want restrictions imposed on them.
In fact, I suspect a lot of political views are strongly influenced by these kinds of personality dispositions and what's at play here is less "the world being filtered through the lens of our ideology" as if this is something people are doing consciously, and more likely certain personalities more likely to find certain views more attractive than others.
Fwiw, I don't think utilitarianism or effective altruism is immune from this, and suspect the attractiveness of each view is somewhat less intellectual than everyone would like to believe and more has to do with certain types of people gravitating towards it for reasons having more to do with it cohering to your personal disposition rather than anything else.
I’m a Rothbardian anarcho capitalist vegan (I’m not like the other girls)
Interesting post. To test your hypothesis against other theories, like selection, then other questions to "why so few vegan libertarians" may be to similarly ask "why are so many libertarians pro-choice on abortion"? or "why are so many libertarians athiest?"
There is nothing in libertarian philosophy that identifies when a fertilize egg becomes a person with independent rights worthy of state protection. There is nothing in its philosophy that settles the matter of God.
Consequently, I'm not sure ideological blindness in asessment matters is the only, or main, story. Animal rights, like abortion or god, are questions that force you to adopt a stance as a group if you're going to ask to be in power and will run a candidate for president. If you think a fetus or a shrimp is deserving of individual rights, then those beings warrant the full protection of the state. If those issues are important to you, and the political group is either silent or picks an opposing side, then you sort out of the group to belong to some others where the issue is better aligned with your preferences.
I don't think the "real" reason being corporate greed is a non-sequitur, if you consider it from the perspective of what causes government policies. Basically 5000 hula hoop dancers couldn't exist as bad regulation as no government would support it, but possibly corporations could have influence on government that causes bad regulation. I disagree with the perspective, I think it's principal-agent problems and confusion etc. all the way down, but it is at least not entirely a non-sequitur.
This is good. I’ll add that it’s possible governments are one of the biggest problems that need to be addressed. Maybe I’m too ideologically attached to that view, but maybe you’re too ideologically blind to it. Libertarians that do not accept the vegan position are disappointing, though. As are vegans that are not libertarian.
Because veganism is vegetarianism plus a theory of exploitation, presuming that consuming eggs, milk, or honey, no matter how humanely procured, is nevertheless morally impermissible. It’s Marxism as applied to vegetarianism, in other words.
"This is one thing I appreciate about effective altruism's cause neutrality. Rather than only working on problems that fit within some specific ideology, effective altruists try to identify the problems where they can make the biggest difference."
Do you think EA effectively maintains this commitment to cause neutrality in practice? Is the claim that EA escapes ideological filtering, or that cause neutrality is a standard EA sometimes falls short of? I'd suggest a third option: that cause neutrality is itself a lens, with its own predictable blind spots.
For example, there are very few arguments on the EA forum for socialism. Nikhil Venkatesh's "Why Not Socialism?" (https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/gm2ggniHqqiNBWWiq/why-not-socialism) is one of the few sustained attempts, and some of the most upvoted engagement betrays a pretty distorted understanding, often in the vein of "socialism = government = bad."
To be clear this is not an attempt to discredit EA! I agree with the core of what EA is trying to accomplish and I donate a substantial portion of my salary to EA-supported causes. It just seems like the movement has its own ideological blindspots, or applies its own commitments asymmetrically (similar to Thersitism's comment about libertarianism's failure to apply NAP uniformly.)
Absolutely, BB, by defining freedom as absence of government coercion, the libertarian frame builds a lens that detects state infringement while rendering other coercion, by employers, churches, or husbands over wives, nearly invisible, since those don't register as unfreedom under the libertarian or conservative definition.
Alternately, the positive-liberty tradition not only sees law and government having a role in empowerment but also in the freeing of a worker who cannot quit, a wife with no exit, or a congregant bound by economic dependence on the rest of the flock.
It is also worth noting that many if not most people join ideological movements for reasons other than ideological alignment. Yet another form of "unfreedom".