1) As an EA I strongly resist any attempt to say that EA as utilitarianism as I would see doing so as harmful for the movement and it would exclude many of the non-utilitarian EAs I know.
Ea is not utilitarianism.
There is no reason why you cannot apply rationality to doing good and be an EA and believe in Christian ethics / ethical anti-realism / virtue ethics / deontolgical ethics / etc.
For example I have an EA friend who would never kill one person to save 5 people, but believes strongly that we should research and give to the very best charities and so on.
I see the above point as unequivecal, insofar as I
2.
I would or recognize as ‘EA’ actions and organizations that are ethical through ways other than producing welfare/happiness, as long as they apply rationality to doing good.
EG. if someone truly believed in some Rawlesian concept of justice and supported a charity that best lead to that idea.
HOWEVER
I have some arbitrarily ill-defined limits on what counts as good. Eg I would never except as an EA someone who believed that killing Jews is the good.
If I meet someone with a very strange view (Eg the best cause is saving snails) I would assume that they are being irrational rather than just had a different understanding of morality.
3.
I think it is bad of CEA to push OP away on utilitarian grounds.
That said I find it hard to conceive of any form of moral view that would lead someone to believe that the best action they could take would be to create a charity to promote promise-keeping, so I have some sympathy for CEA. (Also I would be interested to hear an elaboration of why a promise keeping charity is the best thing to do.)
I would or recognize as ‘EA’ actions and organizations that are ethical through ways other than producing welfare/happiness, as long as they apply rationality to doing good.
You’re a CEA employee, if I remember correctly? If so, 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 would be interested to hear an elaboration of why a promise keeping charity is the best thing to do
I’m far from certain it is. But as far as I’m aware no effort at all is put into it at present, so there could be very low hanging fruit.
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.
1) As an EA I strongly resist any attempt to say that EA as utilitarianism as I would see doing so as harmful for the movement and it would exclude many of the non-utilitarian EAs I know.
Ea is not utilitarianism. There is no reason why you cannot apply rationality to doing good and be an EA and believe in Christian ethics / ethical anti-realism / virtue ethics / deontolgical ethics / etc. For example I have an EA friend who would never kill one person to save 5 people, but believes strongly that we should research and give to the very best charities and so on. I see the above point as unequivecal, insofar as I
2. I would or recognize as ‘EA’ actions and organizations that are ethical through ways other than producing welfare/happiness, as long as they apply rationality to doing good. EG. if someone truly believed in some Rawlesian concept of justice and supported a charity that best lead to that idea. HOWEVER
I have some arbitrarily ill-defined limits on what counts as good. Eg I would never except as an EA someone who believed that killing Jews is the good.
If I meet someone with a very strange view (Eg the best cause is saving snails) I would assume that they are being irrational rather than just had a different understanding of morality.
3. I think it is bad of CEA to push OP away on utilitarian grounds. That said I find it hard to conceive of any form of moral view that would lead someone to believe that the best action they could take would be to create a charity to promote promise-keeping, so I have some sympathy for CEA. (Also I would be interested to hear an elaboration of why a promise keeping charity is the best thing to do.)
You’re a CEA employee, if I remember correctly? If so, 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’m far from certain it is. But as far as I’m aware no effort at all is put into it at present, so there could be very low hanging fruit.
Firstly could you elaborate on how what I said differs from what Will has said please. I am fairly sure we both agree with what EA is.
Incorrect although I do volunteer for them in ways that help spread EA.
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.
I see the above sentence as incomplete, and it’s not obvious what the ending would be. You might want to fix that.