GWWC in particular does not recommend any animal welfare charities, which makes me especially reluctant to donate to them or even support them at all. It seems much too specifically focused on global poverty. From the GWWC homepage:
Extreme poverty causes much of the world’s worst suffering, but when armed with the right information you can make an enormous difference.
This seems excessively limiting given that good animal welfare charities are orders of magnitude more efficient than even the best human charities; and it becomes especially concerning when we consider the poor meat-eater problem.
Just to be clear: EAA is an 80k project at the moment, but at some point it may become a fully-fledged sub-organization of CEA, like GWWC and 80k.
The segmentation by target area is deliberate: GWWC in particular is in many ways a much more conservative organization, but that correspondingly broadens its appeal to people who aren’t necessarily on board with full-on consequentialism and wouldn’t be much concerned about animal rights.
The segmentation by target area is deliberate: GWWC in particular is in many ways a much more conservative organization, but that correspondingly broadens its appeal to people who aren’t necessarily on board with full-on consequentialism and wouldn’t be much concerned about animal rights.
I agree that hard-core consequentialism and a utilitarian approach to animal welfare are alien to most people. However, I don’t think this supports GWWC’s emphasis on human suffering. Currently, members are asked to sign a pledge “to donate 10% of their income to the charities that they believe will most effectively help people living in poverty.” The pledge could instead require members “to donate 10% of their income to the charities that they believe will do good most effectively.” Such a reformulation would allow people that don’t think alleviating human suffering is the most effective way of doing good to take the pledge, without discouraging those who are willing to take the pledge in its current formulation.
It might be slightly deceptive (and thus not worth doing), but what about changing “people” to “persons”? Those who think about animal welfare more liberally would recognize “persons” as referring to both humans and non-humans, while those who are more conservative that GWWC is trying to reach will just automatically assume it means “people”.
I would prefer this to your reformulation of “do good” because it explicitly takes other types of “doing good” out of the equation. (Unless possibly there’s some reason why being more inclusive of “doing good” is worthwhile to use in such a pledge? It seems at first glance to me that specificity is important in pledges of this kind.)
It might be slightly deceptive (and thus not worth doing), but what about changing “people” to “persons”? Those who think about animal welfare more liberally would recognize “persons” as referring to both humans and non-humans, while those who are more conservative that GWWC is trying to reach will just automatically assume it means “people”.
That’d be too deceptive—people would rightly feel you’d tricked them if they got the impression all money was going to alleviate human suffering. If GWWC were to go down this route (which I don’t think it should—better for CEA to leave that to EAA), then the word ‘others’ would be more appropriate, though still a little deceptive.
Remember that the pledge is not to give money to GWWC; it’s a pledge to give to effective charities in general. So those who want to focus on just human will be giving only to human-based charities, while those who give to animal welfare charities will have their money spent on animal welfare.
Although I agree the pledge wording would be perhaps too deceptive, I do not agree that anyone would ever feel tricked, since they still individually choose where to send their money. Conservatives would probably give to the human welfare orgs GWWC recommends, while others would give to the animal welfare orgs EAA recommends.
Remember that the pledge is not to give money to GWWC; it’s a pledge to give to effective charities in general.
It’s not; the whole message of GWWC is about the strong reasons we in the relatively wealthy west have to give significant portions of our income to cost-effective global poverty charities. I completely respect those who think we have even stronger reasons to donate to cost-effective charities focused on causes like animal welfare or x-risk, but GWWC is focused on global poverty (which does earn it more mainstream credibility than, say, EAA or SingInst).
You’re correct; I was confusing the 80k pledge with the GWWC pledge. I retract all previous comments made in this thread on this point. Sorry for being stubborn earlier without rechecking the source.
It might be slightly deceptive (and thus not worth doing), but what about changing “people” to “persons”? Those who think about animal welfare more liberally would recognize “persons” as referring to both humans and non-humans, while those who are more conservative that GWWC is trying to reach will just automatically assume it means “people”.
The usage of “people” in the context seems to be referring to actors with the means and inclination to take significant altruistic action through economic leverage. If you can find some horses or dogs who have such capabilities and interests then the change may become useful.
“to donate 10% of their income to the charities that they believe will most effectively help people living in poverty”
to:
“to donate 10% of their income to the charities that they believe will most effectively help persons living in poverty”.
I don’t think the usage in this context is referring to the actors with the means and inclination to take altruistic action; the context instead is on those acted upon. (Of course, this is not a very good way of saying it, especially as there is ample evidence that money given directly to the poor in developing countries might be better than developed countries giving what they incorrectly think the poor need, but this is beside the point.)
When conservative people read “persons in poverty”, they will automatically think “humans living in poverty”, whereas those more familiar with the use of “person” being inclusive with non-humans might instead interpret “persons living in poverty” much more liberally. (I realize this is nonstandard usage of the term, but my intent here is to allow a liberal interpretation while maintaining specificity.)
GWWC in particular does not recommend any animal welfare charities, which makes me especially reluctant to donate to them or even support them at all. It seems much too specifically focused on global poverty.
I agree. As I made clear to the folks at GWWC, I am reluctant to take the pledge precisely because of their focus on human suffering.
Effective Animal Activism is a meta-charity that evaluates animal welfare charities. They do not accept donations and instead recommend that you give directly to their top charities.
They do take donations. I know this because I have personally given to them recently, and intend to give again over the coming months. (The donation is formally made to the Centre for Effective Altruism, but is earmarked for EAA.)
GWWC in particular does not recommend any animal welfare charities, which makes me especially reluctant to donate to them or even support them at all. It seems much too specifically focused on global poverty. From the GWWC homepage:
This seems excessively limiting given that good animal welfare charities are orders of magnitude more efficient than even the best human charities; and it becomes especially concerning when we consider the poor meat-eater problem.
Effective Animal Activism is a meta-charity that evaluates animal welfare charities. They do not accept donations and instead recommend that you give directly to their top charities.
Just to be clear: EAA is an 80k project at the moment, but at some point it may become a fully-fledged sub-organization of CEA, like GWWC and 80k.
The segmentation by target area is deliberate: GWWC in particular is in many ways a much more conservative organization, but that correspondingly broadens its appeal to people who aren’t necessarily on board with full-on consequentialism and wouldn’t be much concerned about animal rights.
I agree that hard-core consequentialism and a utilitarian approach to animal welfare are alien to most people. However, I don’t think this supports GWWC’s emphasis on human suffering. Currently, members are asked to sign a pledge “to donate 10% of their income to the charities that they believe will most effectively help people living in poverty.” The pledge could instead require members “to donate 10% of their income to the charities that they believe will do good most effectively.” Such a reformulation would allow people that don’t think alleviating human suffering is the most effective way of doing good to take the pledge, without discouraging those who are willing to take the pledge in its current formulation.
It might be slightly deceptive (and thus not worth doing), but what about changing “people” to “persons”? Those who think about animal welfare more liberally would recognize “persons” as referring to both humans and non-humans, while those who are more conservative that GWWC is trying to reach will just automatically assume it means “people”.
I would prefer this to your reformulation of “do good” because it explicitly takes other types of “doing good” out of the equation. (Unless possibly there’s some reason why being more inclusive of “doing good” is worthwhile to use in such a pledge? It seems at first glance to me that specificity is important in pledges of this kind.)
That’d be too deceptive—people would rightly feel you’d tricked them if they got the impression all money was going to alleviate human suffering. If GWWC were to go down this route (which I don’t think it should—better for CEA to leave that to EAA), then the word ‘others’ would be more appropriate, though still a little deceptive.
Remember that the pledge is not to give money to GWWC; it’s a pledge to give to effective charities in general. So those who want to focus on just human will be giving only to human-based charities, while those who give to animal welfare charities will have their money spent on animal welfare.
Although I agree the pledge wording would be perhaps too deceptive, I do not agree that anyone would ever feel tricked, since they still individually choose where to send their money. Conservatives would probably give to the human welfare orgs GWWC recommends, while others would give to the animal welfare orgs EAA recommends.
It’s not; the whole message of GWWC is about the strong reasons we in the relatively wealthy west have to give significant portions of our income to cost-effective global poverty charities. I completely respect those who think we have even stronger reasons to donate to cost-effective charities focused on causes like animal welfare or x-risk, but GWWC is focused on global poverty (which does earn it more mainstream credibility than, say, EAA or SingInst).
You’re correct; I was confusing the 80k pledge with the GWWC pledge. I retract all previous comments made in this thread on this point. Sorry for being stubborn earlier without rechecking the source.
The usage of “people” in the context seems to be referring to actors with the means and inclination to take significant altruistic action through economic leverage. If you can find some horses or dogs who have such capabilities and interests then the change may become useful.
To clarify I meant changing the pledge from:
to:
I don’t think the usage in this context is referring to the actors with the means and inclination to take altruistic action; the context instead is on those acted upon. (Of course, this is not a very good way of saying it, especially as there is ample evidence that money given directly to the poor in developing countries might be better than developed countries giving what they incorrectly think the poor need, but this is beside the point.)
When conservative people read “persons in poverty”, they will automatically think “humans living in poverty”, whereas those more familiar with the use of “person” being inclusive with non-humans might instead interpret “persons living in poverty” much more liberally. (I realize this is nonstandard usage of the term, but my intent here is to allow a liberal interpretation while maintaining specificity.)
That being the case I agree with your previous comment. (The proposal is clever but a little on the deceptive side!)
I agree. As I made clear to the folks at GWWC, I am reluctant to take the pledge precisely because of their focus on human suffering.
They do take donations. I know this because I have personally given to them recently, and intend to give again over the coming months. (The donation is formally made to the Centre for Effective Altruism, but is earmarked for EAA.)