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Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Essay-Question Poll: Dietary Choices - Less Wrong
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This is... an interesting approach. I wonder how many opportunities for marginal improvement we miss, because to admit there's a problem at all would seem to demand complete action by the bright lines of morality and guilt.
There is definitely a cost in cycles which I glossed over. My guess is there are tons of missed opportunities for marginal improvement, but that there's just no way we have enough brain time to focus on each of them and figure out they're marginal improvements and figure out how to implement them without taking undue effort.
It's difficult to do because in the absence of a bright clear line, we experience preference reversals when close up to the decision, which we rationalize.
Alicorn's "not all therefore not some" is definitely along the right lines as a name for this failing.
Is that a named bias?
False dilemma, specifically black-and-white thinking.
Seems a bit more than False Dilemma, though. More like Can't Admit Any Problem Exists Because The Minimum "Morally" Acceptable Response Would Be Too High.
That's rather clunky; how about "blame denial" or whatever Latin is for "not all, therefore not some"? ("Non omnes, ergo non aliquot"? I have almost no Latin and filled in the gaps with an online dictionary; I probably needed to decline something.)
Found it! Perfect solution fallacy. And you'll never guess what site linked me to it...
For anyone wondering how this turned out, I haven't bought meat at the grocery store in the last two and a half months. I still order meat at restaurants.
My original analysis still holds. I just don't care (in the aggregate) about the life of one or two or ten animals. I don't think my marginal impact as a fair weather vegetarian is meaningful. Regardless, I have lost much of my taste for meat. I still have a lot of meat sitting in my freezer.
It might be easier to simply stop caring altogether than to take half-measures.