Why are so many rich celebrities obsessed with animal rights, the death penalty, and climate change?
Because those issues affect them personally in some way. They gnaw at their conscience in a way that the extreme suffering of hundreds of millions of their fellow citizens does not.
Rather, I would say rich celebrities are obsessed with animal rights, the death penalty, and climate change because those ideas are fashionable among rich celebrities, not because they're relevant to rich celebrities for any fundamental (i.e. would still apply if no one knew what the celebrity believed) reason.
One doesn't have to be affected by rape to oppose it.
I can reflect that there are others whose opinions I value. And thus throw support behind issues that, if left to my own opinion in a vacuum, would be of little concern.
Empathy springs, in part, from conscience.
My hope would be that people would consider their utility vs. the utility of all those who also want something. I've certainly supported modest tax increases because my neighbors were passionately in favor where my own view would be to oppose it.
Is it too much to hope that people will consider broader societal interests and not just their own narrow ones?
Is it not a prerequisite that a wrong begin to effect your conscience before you want to do something about it?