Discussion Tools

Methods that can be applied to facilitate learning from each other

Moral Patient - Recipient of your Good & Bad

Constructive for:

  • Distinguishing which things deserve our care. Some beings we should consider and want to be well. Others may not need moral concern at all.

How?

  • Deciding on a distinguishing factor

    • e.g., Capacity for pain&pleasure, species, affilitation, etc.

  • Recognizing who possesses this factor

  • Adjusting one's moral actions i.e., minimizing pain & maximizing pleasure to moral patients

Example

  • Distinguishing factor: Capacity for pain & pleasure

  • Recognizing: All animals have this capacity

  • Adjusting Action: Maximizing Veganism

Comparing Priorities - ITN Framework

Constructive for:

  • Supporting in clarifying which action to prioritize due to cost-effectiveness

How?

  • Importance/Scale

    • Quantity of X produced e.g., lifes saved, migraines cured

    • The impact it will have

  • Tractability/Solvability

    • How easy it is to make progress per resource investment

  • Neglect

    • How underfunded an area is

Example (simplified)

  • Animal Welfare ITN

    • Importance: High

      • Billions of lives per year

    • Solvability: High

      • Alternative Protein, Veganism

    • Neglect: Medium

      • Research progresses

      • Strong community of activists

  • Migraine ITN

    • Importance: Medium

      • Millions of people experience pain per year

    • Solvability: High

      • Medicine, healing-practices

    • Neglect: Medium

      • Research is continiuing

      • Affects every powerful person i.e., incentive is there

  • Conclusion

    • Animal Welfare > Migraine

      • Animal Welfare = High * High *Medium = 2x High, 1x Medium

      • Migraine = Medium * High * Medium = 1x High, 2x Medium

Expected Value (EV)

Constructive for:

  • Estimating the impact of an action

  • Comparing impact of actions

How?

  • Quantity * Probability = Expected Value

Example

  • Budget allows to either produce Medicine A or Medicine B

    • Medicine A: 10 pills with a 50% success rate to cure migraine

      • 10 * 0.5 = 5 migraines cured

    • Medicine B: 20 Pills with 30% success rate to cure migraine

      • 20 * 0.3 = 6 migraines cured

  • Conclusion: Medicine B > Medicine A

Steelmate - Improving another's opinion

  • Improving the argument provided by someone helps to

    • Establish that you have understood as well as have intent to argue constructively

    • improve arguments, hence increasing the likelihood to come to better views

Example: Veganism is not perfect because it still uses resources

  • Steelmating could look like this

    • One could measure the nutritional value per resource such as water, land area, manual labor, etc.

    • I want to further add that during harvesting of vegan produce, sentient beings are being harmed such as rodents, insects, etc.

Strong Opinions, Weakly Held

Strong Opinions

  • Express your opinions despite not having complete confidence in them

  • Sharing will allow you to receive feedback from others, hence improving your opinion as well as benefiting others by inspiring them

Weakly Held

  • As with any opinion, be open to updating your opinions when receiving convincing data. This is compared to holding unto your opinion, not desiring to change it

Disagreeing is celebrated

  • Sharing of information that conflicts with an argument is celebrated because it provides the opportunity to update and improve one's opinions

  • Updating could be to either strengthen one's view or to change one's view

Answering the Why? Offering Reasons

  • Providing reasons allows yourself and others to understand the steps taken to come to a specific conclusion. One can now look at each step and agree or disagree

  • Example Veganism

    • No reason

      • I believe veganism is good.

    • With reason

      • I believe veganism is good as it reduces suffering that is not necessary for human survival.

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