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.