do you think should humans have pets

[Volenta]

Do you not agree that taking care of a dog costs tens of thousands of dollars, not agree that this only saves at best one life, or not agree that tens of thousands of dollars per animal saved is not effective charity when a hundred dollars can save thousands of animals through vegan outreach?

Well, yes, I do agree with that. But that's a different proposition. You're kind of advocating effective altruism here, and I do agree with that (at least most of it).

The question for me is: is it moral to do something good on a very small scale, while also having the option of putting your effort elsewhere that has a big scale impact? I do think that taking care of sheltered dogs is doing good on a small scale, because I think that every individual—human or non-human—is worth something, so giving it a pleasurable life instead of a miserable life means something.

I wouldn't deny that there are selfish reasons at play, but to the above question I would still say: yes, it is moral (of course only together with the vegan side notes) It's increasing a peak on the moral landscape, even though it could have been higher.

[brimstoneSalad]

The question for me is: is it moral to do something good on a very small scale, while also having the option of putting your effort elsewhere that has a big scale impact? I do think that taking care of sheltered dogs is doing good on a small scale, because I think that every individual—human or non-human—is worth something, so giving it a pleasurable life instead of a miserable life means something.

This isn't just a small scale, this is so small that it is lost in the noise of statistical insignificance and uncertainty. It's completely devoured by the error bars.

If it was something like 1:10, I'd understand it being on a list.

This is an option of a thing you can do, but this other thing is much better (ten times better), OK, sure.

But the difference in order of magnitude here isn't 10, it's not a hundred, it's not even a thousand or ten thousand. We're talking about an order of magnitude of 100,000 or more.

It doesn't belong on the list as a statistically meaningful or remotely certain way to help animals.

If the dog is vegan, the action hovers somewhere around neutrality, and it may even be slightly negative when you factor in all of the resources and unavoidable suffering involved in keeping that dog. I'm not saying it's negative, but it could be; it's within the margin of error for what we do not know.

Even if it was outside that margin of error, it wouldn't belong on the list because it is deceptive when you're dealing with that large an order of magnitude. Just because something is technically ever so marginally good, doesn't mean it should be listed prevalently as a suggestion for people along side things that are meaningfully good.

It's like a more extreme version of putting Bibles and Malaria medication on the same list of helpful things to give to people in sub-Saharan Africa.

It will confuse people, and make them think these things are comparable, or at least give them the reasonable impression that they're in the same solar system, which they are not.



So:

1. Yes, some aspects of it are ever so marginally good.
2. No, as a whole I don't believe it is good, because it lacks significance when you consider our margins of error. That doesn't mean it's bad, it means it's unknown and should probably be treated as neutral, which is all the more we can reasonably assume.
3. Even if it was proven to be certainly good, accounting for all variables, it should not be on that list, because putting it there is deceptive, and leads people to invest their limited charity in relatively useless ways and take credit for it.

I wouldn't deny that there are selfish reasons at play, but to the above question I would still say: yes, it is moral (of course only together with the vegan side notes) It's increasing a peak on the moral landscape, even though it could have been higher.

If it's a peak, it's smaller than the wavelength of an electron and undetectable to electron microscopy. The issue is the extreme that this kind of thing represents.

When we make assertions of the goodness or badness of something beyond any plausible degree of knowledge, it's done on faith, because something feels good. Yes, it feels good to rescue a dog. That doesn't mean it is in the scheme of things. It might be, but all I can say it it's within the margin of error so it can only be reasonably treated as neutral.

[brimstoneSalad]

Oh, and I didn't quite answer your question:

The question for me is: is it moral to do something good on a very small scale, while also having the option of putting your effort elsewhere that has a big scale impact?

There are several different metrics for evaluating morality (I don't mean as in opinion metrics, as per subjectivism), and you're using the naive one. And I mean naive in the technical sense, not "you're naive". That is, you're just adding the effects directly and seeing if they're North or South of neutral. That is legit, and it tells us something useful, but it's also highly limited.

In practice, will and action is relative to capacity and ability, so while naively we can say these things are harmful or helpful, how moral you were in doing them or not doing them depends on the options available and how difficult they were to do (or not do) for your circumstances. Here we deal with justification for harmful action (like, you were starving- extreme difficulty of situation), and condemnation for helpful action (this case)


To give you an example:

A hypothetically maximally sympathetic item is under threat (a puppy orphanage, or something, is on fire).
You could do nothing, and just let things play out, which would technically be neutral when the evaluation excludes your presence, because you didn't interfere.
Or you could call it in, and the fire department would come and put it out, saving billions of baby orphaned puppies. Which is in this example a great moral good.
Are you being immoral for NOT doing that, even if what you did was neutral?
Yes. Why? Because it was so incredibly easy to do.

If we are justified for doing wrongs because of difficulty, we are equally condemned for not doing rights when they are so easy.

Justification and condemnation can be difficult to normalize, but think of it like this: You're not an intangible spirit floating around the world arbitrarily acting, which would not otherwise exist. You're a mind in a flesh suit, and no reasonable and decent mind occupying that flesh suit in your stead (or other flesh suit standing on the same pavement) would not make that call. The closest you'll find to a hard standard is to compare to other people's wills.

By exercising amorality, you become a vacuum against the ambient pressure of human decency which you might otherwise be expected to possess.

When we ask, in that sense, how moral a person is, we're really dealing with a question of how short their wills fall from the ideal of pure good. It's a seemingly impossible standard, but so is 0 Kelvin.

[dwindley]

i don't agree with pets as a whole. rescued dogs especially for children and the elderly i can agree with.

but as a whole we shouldn't own pets. they have become objects and a social status.
i wont own a pet as i barely manage to look after myself at times. never mind another animal and i would hate for another being to become a burden to me and i would more than likely resent it in the end. even though i would of made the initial decision.