OK, the title isn't exactly what I wanted to ask but I wanted something attention-grabbing. Would you date and/or have a serious long-term relationship with someone who was a meat-eater and not very philosophical in nature (not a moralizer)? I ask because I've been dating such a person and I struggle with this issue. (This is part of why I posted the Demandingness thread.) We definitely have fun together; she loves animals (in the mainstream sense of the term - dogs, cats, etc.) and is very kind and caring. There's a part of me that wants ethical ssues and promoting animal welfare to be more involved in whatever relationship I'm in. I'm thinking of how Brian said "it’s important to embed yourself in social and environmental situations that will reinforce your motivation" (http://www.effectiveanimalactivism.org/interview-brian-tomasik) and wondering if I'll be more productive if dating someone who is very interested in (and thus reinforces) my promotion of animal welfare issues. I've only briefly brought up any of the ethical issues I'm interested in - she is intelligent and will definitely listen to anything I care about but she's not really a moralizer.

I'm happy with my girlfriend. But If I wouldn't have a girlfriend, I think I wouldn't date someone who isn't interested in animal defense. I guess I wouldn't be happy.

Yes. Why limit yourself? If it’s making you unhappy, then that’s a reason not to do it - or to self-hack until you’re happy after all. That she is not utilitarian is not, ipso facto, a reason not to see her, even within strictly utilitarian reasoning – especially since male utilitarians seem outweigh female ones by something close to 10:1!

Arepo wrote:Yes. Why limit yourself? If it’s making you unhappy, then that’s a reason not to do it - or to self-hack until you’re happy after all. That she is not utilitarian is not, ipso facto, a reason not to see her, even within strictly utilitarian reasoning – especially since male utilitarians seem outweigh female ones by something close to 10:1!

Bold - just out of curiosity, why do you think that is?

It’s part of a broader trend that subgroups whose membership tends to prefer (or even entail) mathematical and logical reasoning over emotion tend to be heavily male-dominated (eg mathematicians, programmers, engineers, atheists, analytic philosophers etc).

I wouldn’t speculate on how much the trend genetic vs cultural vs other influences when so much research has been done with so contentious conclusions.

Arepo wrote:It’s part of a broader trend that subgroups whose membership tends to prefer (or even entail) mathematical and logical reasoning over emotion tend to be heavily male-dominated (eg mathematicians, programmers, engineers, atheists, analytic philosophers etc).

I wouldn’t speculate on how much the trend genetic vs cultural vs other influences when so much research has been done with so contentious conclusions.

Why do you think people who prefer mathematical/logical reasoning would be more likely to adopt utilitarianism as a normative ethical position? There's no logical or non-emotional reason to care about happiness/suffering (or preference satisfaction) or anything else, including being 'logical'. I remember reading an article claiming that you can't exercise the regions of the brain involved in compassion/empathy and impersonal logical reasoning simultaneously (or something like that) and there have been other studies showing a correlation between higher IQs and lower agreeableness. Although it's been put into context by liberal researchers, I wonder if this could be part of the reason why atheists/agnostics are less likely to donate to charity than religious people are.

Ubuntu wrote:

Arepo wrote:why atheists/agnostics and liberals are less likely to donate to charity than religious and conservative people are.

I haven't looked into that research but I'm skeptical. It's probably counting all money given to your church as charity, even though that's really just promoting your in-group.

LJM1979 wrote:I haven't looked into that research but I'm skeptical. It's probably counting all money given to your church as charity, even though that's really just promoting your in-group.

And Arthur Brooks told me that giving goes beyond their own religious organization:

"Actually, the truth is that they're giving to more than their churches," he says. "The religious Americans are more likely to give to every kind of cause and charity, including explicitly non-religious charities."

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=268 ... K-elojNnDp

There are many more articles.This one http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2012/04/ ... enerosity/ claims that religious people are less driven by compassion when donating but I'm not sure if they can accurately test for this or that it can't be put into context.

Ubuntu wrote:

LJM1979 wrote:I haven't looked into that research but I'm skeptical. It's probably counting all money given to your church as charity, even though that's really just promoting your in-group.

And Arthur Brooks told me that giving goes beyond their own religious organization:

"Actually, the truth is that they're giving to more than their churches," he says. "The religious Americans are more likely to give to every kind of cause and charity, including explicitly non-religious charities."

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=268 ... K-elojNnDp

There are many more articles.This one http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2012/04/ ... enerosity/ claims that religious people are less driven by compassion when donating but I'm not sure if they can accurately test for this or that it can't be put into context.

Interesting. Thanks.

I can believe it. It reminds me of the Weinberg quote – ‘With or without (religion) you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.’

I always thought that was probably true, but so was the converse.

The less utilitarian your significant other is, the easier it is to move her/him in that direction, if only a little bit. If you date a utilitarian, you're not going to create any new utilitarians.

That's obviously not the only consideration; you want to date someone who you like and feel comfortable with. But if you were completely selfless and just trying to create new utilitarians, you'd want to date someone who was as non-utilitarian as possible.

One approach to answering the question is to start with the (hopefully obvious) statement that you'll never find somebody 'perfect'. Then you might realize that, for example, while you might like to have deep philosophical discussions with a partner, you could find a good company of friends that will fulfill that desire. In the process of taking each trait at a time and seeing if you can find a substitute elsewhere, you might discover what is essential.

I found thinking about polyamorous relationships helpful. I didn't end up trying it, but I think one idea behind polyamory is that you may not find fulfillment of all your desires in one person; I just realized many desires can be fulfilled by carefully-picked friends.

This is a process to be done individually as we all have different preferences and different situations we can tolerate. Over time I have realized that numerous things I thought were 'essential' turned out to be at best 'preferred' and sometimes easily substituted.

In the end I got lucky and found a girlfriend that fits so many of my desires, it leaves me speechless. Of course it's not perfect, but that's too-high-a-mark to aim for

An additional semi-related thought: your concern for a non-utilitarian partner can extend to friends. It's hard to be in company of friends that consume meat, but it may be worthwhile compartmentalizing and picking your battles differently. I have found a decent group of friends with whom I enjoy spending time; losing them over dietary habits would be a significant social loss for everyone. And perhaps over a long period of time I will be able to encourage them to decrease their meat consumption.

One way to see things: whatever partner you choose, even if s/he eats meat, dumping them for someone different won't produce less suffering in the world (they'll still consume meat), it's just that you won't see it with your eyes. From the utilitarian perspective, it makes sense to pick whoever maximizes the total = makes you the most happy + you make the most happy. Good luck!

MTGandP wrote:The less utilitarian your significant other is, the easier it is to move her/him in that direction, if only a little bit. If you date a utilitarian, you're not going to create any new utilitarians.

That's obviously not the only consideration; you want to date someone who you like and feel comfortable with. But if you were completely selfless and just trying to create new utilitarians, you'd want to date someone who was as non-utilitarian as possible.

I hadn't thought about it like that. That's an interesting point.

Yes, I would be much more satisfied dating utilitarians, though. Also, seeing women does wonders for my mental health so, I wouldn't be maximizing utility if I demanded something so rare in my mates.

The less utilitarian your significant other is, the easier it is to move her/him in that direction, if only a little bit. If you date a utilitarian, you're not going to create any new utilitarians.

There's also the possibility that the person you date will cause you to become less altruistic or utilitarian. This effect might be smaller, though, since (a) utilitarians are probably more invested in their view of ethics than other people are and (b) utilitarianism is obviously superior to other moral theories…or at least to the nonsense that the man in the street believes.