What is ethical

  I will discuss and argue over the ethical issues associated with using a platform and collecting donations for a particular cause, then lying and using the funds received to support the very opposed thing that people thought they were supporting.

To give you a quick background, Cosmic Skeptic or aka Alex O’Connor is a vegan and atheist philosopher on Youtube. Over the past five years, he has been very famous due to his efforts to raise awareness of faculty farming practices and animal treatment. 

It has been confirmed that he is no longer a vegan. 

His post can be found here:

“Hi everyone. Recently I have noticed people wondering why I’ve been so inactive, and wondering why I have not uploaded any veganism-related content. For quite some time I have been re-evaluating my ethical position on eating animals, which is something people have also noticed, but what you will not know is that I had also been struggling privately to maintain a healthy plant-based diet.

I wanted to let you know that because of this, I have for some time now been consuming animal products again (primarily but not exclusively seafood), and experimenting with how best to integrate them into my life.

I am interested in philosophy, and never enjoy sharing personal information about myself, but I can obviously see why this particular update is both necessary and relevant. It’s not my intention to go into too much detail here, as I think that will require more space and perhaps a video, but rather to let you know, with more details to follow later.

My opposition to factory farming remains unchanged, as do my views regarding the need to view nonhuman animals as morally worthy beings whose interests ethically matter. However I am no longer convinced of the appropriateness of an individual-focused boycott in responding to these problems, and am increasingly doubtful of the practicability of maintaining a healthy plant-based diet in the long-term (again, for reasons I hope to go into in more detail at a later date).

At the very least, even if I am way off-base and totally mistaken in my assessments, I do not wish to see people consuming a diet on my account if I have been unable to keep up that diet myself. Even if I am making a mistake, in other words, I want it to be known that I have made it.

I imagine that the responses to this will vary, and I understand why this might come as a huge disappointment to some of my followers. I am truly sorry for having so rigorously and at times perhaps too unforgivingly advocated for a behavior change that I myself have not been able to maintain.

I’ve changed my mind and behaviours publicly on a great many things before, but this feels the most difficult to address by a large margin. I did not want to speak about it until I was sure that I couldn’t make it practically work. Some of you will not care, some may understand; some will be angry, and others upset. Naturally, this is a quite embarrassing and humbling moment, so I also understand and accept that there will be some “I-told-you-sos”.

Whatever the case, please know that this experience has inspired a deep self-reflection and that I will be duly careful in future regarding the forthrightness of my convictions. I am especially sorry to those who are now vegan activists on account of my content, and hope that they know I will still effort with you to bring about the end of factory farming. To them and to everyone else, I appreciate your viewership and engagement always, as well as your feedback and criticisms.” 

Despite the fact that much has been left undone and left to be desired here, I will not discuss his return to funding efforts to hurt and support the killing of  animals as the main reason. I am here to discuss those ethical cases of the funding… that presumably for some time now he has been taking funds from Patreon support groups and funding the very things that they were sending him money to fight.

But first if you don’t know what Pateron is in essence, it's a membership platform that provides business tools for content creators to run subscription services. It enables creators and artists to earn a monthly income through the sharing of rewards and perks with their subscribers.

Seeing as everyone might go to immediately jump into trying to poke holes in this argument, here is what the argument is about. 

In quotes, he said

“For quite some time” and “ I have for some time now been consuming animal products again” as well as “. I did not want to speak about it until I was sure that I couldn’t make it practically work”

 

This period of time is not disclosed, but we can assume that it will require several months or close to a year, due to the significant change in views and content he does on YouTube.

 

His support of the vegan movement had ceased at that undisclosed moment, and thus his workings to end animal suffering and bring about the rights of the voiceless have also ended.

How ethical is it to take money for a cause and then use it to support the opposition?

Doing some digging, 

Alex had 505 patrons pre-announcement, 448 now. Given the unnatural nature of the drop, it is likely the announcement caused it. That's 57 patrons lost.

A total of at least 57 patrons supported him specifically because of his Animal Rights activism. Due to the nature of his announcement only being a post on the community tab of his YouTube page and not even a formal video addressing these issues, there might be others who were / still are unaware of what he was doing.

The following is what one member of the community said on Reddit and Youtube.

“I had been Alex's patron on-and-off for a long time. I was a patron when I was living off of $70/month because I thought he was doing work for the most important cause of the century. He used money given to him for animal rights advocacy to buy "seafood", i.e. cause massive rights violations. He did this without informing any of his patrons. If he wanted to use this money for the exact opposite reason for why we gave him the money, he has an ethical obligation to inform us.”

Considering his patronage, it is difficult to estimate the amount of money he earned per video, but it must have been substantial, according to my estimation. Though he has patrons who pay him $100 per video, others pay him only a few dollars, the principle remains the same, he knew that he was taking money from those in opposition to him now without their knowledge of what they were supporting.

It is possible that some may believe that these people were donating the money and that there is no legal recourse that would hold up in court, but I am not concerned about that because legality is not morality and legality is not reality.

There are ethical issues, and ethical views do not always align with the actions of government bodies.

As a vegan who occasionally donates, I am also upset, but if he were paid every video and every month, I would be furious.

Upon discovering he had been paying for animal torture, I would demand a refund. I don't think this is an impossible idea to ask. If they donated the money, it would be similar to donating to someone who was working towards a specific goal or task, only to find out they used the money to go against that goal or task.. Does this not seem like an ethical dilemma and scam? 

Does this look like a grifter to me? At the very least? I would say so.

In addition to the ad revenue anyone and all may have generated by sharing his videos, we aren't even considering advertising on the video and the sharing of his content. In light of the fact that it was part of the intention to invest your money in vegan advocacy. 

The act of receiving money for a cause and then using it to support an opponent is highly unethical. When people donate money to a cause, they expect their money to be used to support that cause, not for something that is directly opposed to it. It is possible for donated funds to be misused, which can damage the credibility and trust of the organization or individual that received the money, as well as harm the cause which was intended to be supported.

In addition to accepting donations, organizations are also responsible for using the funds in a transparent and accountable manner. The organization as well as the individuals involved can suffer serious consequences if funds are diverted for purposes other than the intended purpose. It may even be illegal to use donated funds for purposes other than those for which they were intended in some cases. Though like I said before I'm not sure in this case this would be correct but I digress.

To put it simply, it's not ethical to take money and then use it to support the opposition. 

Individuals and organizations alike that receive donated funds have a responsibility and a duty to use them honestly, transparently, and act with accountability. 

Due to the vagueness of his claims and the lack of a coherent argument, one is inclined to believe that his claims are incorrect, and his unwillingness to speak on this to any of his supporters after the post shows lack of conviction on his part. As we discussed previously, unless he literally stopped taking advantage of these supports, Tell them right away about the situation that he dropped his vegan works and told them that this was an unethical practice to continue taking money from them (which we know he didn't due to first-hand accounts of those supports). 

The fact that he is a philosophy graduate from Oxford makes this even more serious since they should have known better.

What are your guys' thoughts?