3 Radical Empathy

Key Points

• Impartiality

  • Helping those that need it the most, across location, time, species, etc.

• Moral Humility & Open to unusual ideas

  • Society’s consensus has been wrong about many things over history (e.g. the sun circling the earth, the morality of slavery). In order to avoid making similar mistakes, we need to be open to considering unusual ideas and moral positions, while still thinking critically about the issues and acting cooperatively with others.

• Cost-Effective Opportunity & Moral Circle Expansion

  • There are vast numbers of animals suffering in factory farms, and we have very cost-effective ways to help them.

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Prepare prior to session - Letter to the past

This exercise asks you to explore what it would take to change your mind about something important.

Imagine someone from the past who held views characteristic of that time. Also imagine, for the sake of the exercise, that this person is not too different from you - perhaps you would have been friends. Unfortunately, many people in the past were complicit in horrible things, such as slavery, sexism, racism, and homophobia, which were even more prevalent in the past than they are now. And, sadly, this historical counterpart is also complicit in some moral tragedy common to their time, perhaps not out of malevolence or ill-will, but merely through indifference or ignorance.

This exercise is to write a short letter to this historical friend arguing that they should care about a specific group that your present self values. Imagine that they are complicit in owning slaves, or in the oppression of women, people of other races, or sexual minorities.

For the sake of this exercise, imagine your historical counterpart is not malevolent or selfish, they think they are living a normal moral life, but are unaware of where they are going wrong. What could you say to them to make them realize that they’re doing wrong? What evidence are they overlooking that allows them to hold their discriminatory views? You might want to write a few paragraphs or just bullet points, and spend time reflecting on what you write.

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Moral Humility

• Looking back, can you give some examples in which the 'norm' of a Society approved to, what we now consider unjustified treatment or wrong discrimination?

  • How much unnecessary suffering could have been avoided if past societies had our current understanding of recognizing the intrinsic worth of another?

• Are you open to the possibility of the current society or you, also wrongly discriminating against others?

Moral Circle - Whom should we take into account when making decisions?

Moral Circle

Moral Circle is a tool used to visualize whom you consider moral patients and whom not.

Moral Patienthood - Whom should we take into account when making decisions?

A moral patient are those inside the moral circle.

They should be treated with moral consideration, that is, not be unnecessarily harmed such as imprisonment, slavery, death, torture. They should be cared for, maximizing their well-being such as providing health, opportunities to satisfy their preferences.

• Exercise - Who has intrinsic worth?

  • Imagine you will be reborn. However you do not know which being you are born into. Fortunately, you can now decide which being to give rights of bodily integrity

    • The right to bodily integrity: right to life and the prohibition of slavery and torture, right to not be harmed unnecessarily.

  • To which would you give the above mentioned rights and to which not?

    • Humans

      • Depending on skin color, nationality, religion, social status, intellect

    • Imprisoned terrorist

    • Non-human animals such as mammals, birds, fish, insects

    • Plants such as a tree or a rose

    • Digital Beings

    • Objects such as a table, building

    • Anything else?

• What is your deciding factor to whom to give the right to bodily integrity or not?

  • e.g., Intelligence, Species, Gender, Distance, Personal Connection, Wealth, Capacity for pain, Capacity for Happiness, Moral Goodness, etc.

Moral Weight - Whom's life to prioritize?

Moral weight assigns different values among moral patients, those within the moral circle.

• Is assigning moral weight wrong or good?

• Exercise - Moral Weight

  • Imagine having 1.000.000 to donate to a charity. . You have the following options:

    • Option 1 Human-focused Charity

      • Save a human life for every 5.000 = 200 lives

    • Option 2 Non-Human Animal focused Charity

      • Save a cow for every 50 = 20000 lives

  • Imagine programming the algorithm in automotive driving. In the case of an accident, the algorithm needs to decide in which direction to turn. Suppose that for every option, the same number of lives are involved.

    • Option 1: Towards the driver (against a wall)

    • Option 2: Towards a old person

    • Option 3: Towards a young person

    • Option 4: Towards an evil person

    • Option x: Anything you might want to add

Veganism & Animal Welfare

• Should one, from a moral perspective, have to intention to be vegan? Is it morally wrong to continue non-veganism even though there are alternatives with less suffering e.g., plants?

• Some past moral failures regarding moral patienthood are obvious to us now. Do you think we will think the same about non-veganism?

Neglect

Moral Progress

• Is there moral progress, globally or partially in regards to Moral Circle?

• How do you identify moral progress?

Solvability

• What strategies do you think are effective for improving non-human animal welfare?

  • Can we be inspired by other strategies of 'rights' movement of our past or present?

• Moral Activism

  • What attitude or approach you think are most effective in Awareness making?

    • Exercise - Letter to the past

      • Imagine you write a letter to the past in which racism is common. Suppose the person you are writing to has good-intention but is simply not aware of the wrong-doing.

        • What approach do you use to make that person aware and or convince that person of it's immorality?

Taking Ideas Seriously

• What do the ideas imply, if taken seriously?

  • How could they impact your actions?

  • How could they impact society's actions?

Self-Care

• How to best deal with being confronted with others' immorality such as not sharing your moral circle?

  • Does this approach differ when being towards others or towards yourself?

    • e.g., imagine you consider non-human animals as moral patients and you continues to consume animal products such as meat.