What seems to matter is (1) that such a focus was chosen because interventions in that area are believed to be the most impactful, and (2) that this belief was reached from (a) welfarist premises and (b) rigorous reasoning of the sort one generally associates with EA.
This seems like a thin concept of EA. I know there are organizations who choose to pursue interventions based on them being in an area they believe to be (among) the most impactful, and based on welfarist premises and rigorous reasoning. Yet they don’t identify as EA organizations. That would be because they disagree with the consensus in EA about what constitutes ‘the most impactful,’ ‘the greatest welfare,’ and/or ‘rigorous reasoning.’ So, the consensus position(s) in EA of how to interpret all those notions could be thought of as the thick concept of EA.
Also, this definition seems to be a prescriptive definition of “EA organizations,” as opposed to being a descriptive definition. That is, all the features you mentioned seem necessary to define EA-aligned organizations as they exist, but I’m not convinced they’re sufficient to capture all the characteristics of the typical EA-aligned organization. If they were sufficient, any NPO that could identify as an EA-aligned organization would do so. Yet there are some that aren’t. An example of a typical feature of EA-aligned NPOs that is superficial but describes them in practice would be if they receive most of their funding from sources also aligned with EA (e.g., the Open Philanthropy Project, the EA Funds, EA-aligned donors, etc.).
That would be because they disagree with the consensus in EA about what constitutes ‘the most impactful,’ ‘the greatest welfare,’ and/or ‘rigorous reasoning.’
I said that the belief must be reached from welfarist premises and rigorous reasoning, not from what the organization believes are welfarist premises and rigorous reasoning.
If they were sufficient, any NPO that could identify as an EA-aligned organization would do so.
I’m not sure what you mean by this. And it seems clear to me that lots of nonprofit orgs would not classify as EA orgs given my proposed criterion (note the clarification above).
This seems like a thin concept of EA. I know there are organizations who choose to pursue interventions based on them being in an area they believe to be (among) the most impactful, and based on welfarist premises and rigorous reasoning. Yet they don’t identify as EA organizations. That would be because they disagree with the consensus in EA about what constitutes ‘the most impactful,’ ‘the greatest welfare,’ and/or ‘rigorous reasoning.’ So, the consensus position(s) in EA of how to interpret all those notions could be thought of as the thick concept of EA.
Also, this definition seems to be a prescriptive definition of “EA organizations,” as opposed to being a descriptive definition. That is, all the features you mentioned seem necessary to define EA-aligned organizations as they exist, but I’m not convinced they’re sufficient to capture all the characteristics of the typical EA-aligned organization. If they were sufficient, any NPO that could identify as an EA-aligned organization would do so. Yet there are some that aren’t. An example of a typical feature of EA-aligned NPOs that is superficial but describes them in practice would be if they receive most of their funding from sources also aligned with EA (e.g., the Open Philanthropy Project, the EA Funds, EA-aligned donors, etc.).
I said that the belief must be reached from welfarist premises and rigorous reasoning, not from what the organization believes are welfarist premises and rigorous reasoning.
I’m not sure what you mean by this. And it seems clear to me that lots of nonprofit orgs would not classify as EA orgs given my proposed criterion (note the clarification above).