your account of effective altruism seems rather different from Will’s: “Maybe you want to do other things effectively, but >then it’s not effective altruism”. This sort of mixed messaging is exactly what I was objecting too.
I think you’ve revised the post since you initially wrote it? If so, you might want to highlight that in the italics at the start, as otherwise it makes some of the comments look weirdly off-base. In particular, I took the initial post to aim at the conclusion:
EA is utilitarianism in disguise
which I think is demonstrably false.
But now the post reads more like the main conclusion is:
EA is vague on a crucial issue, which is whether the effective pursuit of non-welfarist goods counts as effective altruism.
which is a much more reasonable thing to say.
I think you’ve revised the post since you initially wrote it? If so, you might want to highlight that in the italics at the start, as otherwise it makes some of the comments look weirdly off-base. In particular, I took the initial post to aim at the conclusion:
EA is utilitarianism in disguise which I think is demonstrably false.
But now the post reads more like the main conclusion is:
EA is vague on a crucial issue, which is whether the effective pursuit of non-welfarist goods counts as effective altruism. which is a much more reasonable thing to say.
I haven’t revised the post subsequent to anyone commenting. I did make a ninja edit to clear up some formatting immediately after submitting.