Given my quick read and especially the bit below, it seems like the title is at least a bit misleading.
Quote: “To be clear: this document is not a detailed vindication of any particular class of philanthropic interventions. For example, although we think that contractualism supports a sunnier view of helping the global poor than funding x-risk projects, contractualism does not, for all our argument implies, entail that many EA-funded global poverty interventions are morally preferable to all other options (some of which are probably high-risk, high-reward longshots).”
I think a reasonable person would conclude from the title “If Contractualism, Then AMF” essentially the opposite of this more nuanced clarification.
Perhaps it’s reasonable to infer that “Then AMF” really means “then the cluster of beliefs that leads GiveWell to strongly recommend AMF are indeed true (even if ex post it turns out that deworming or something was better)” but even this doesn’t seem to be what you are arguing (given the quote above).
Thanks for this, Aaron. Fair point. A more accurate title would be something like: “If Scanlonian contractualism is true, then between Emma Curran’s work on the ex post version of the view and this post’s focus on the ex ante version, it’s probably true that when we have duties to aid distant strangers, we ought to discharge them by investing in high impact, high confidence interventions like AMF.”
[On mobile; sorry for the formatting]
Given my quick read and especially the bit below, it seems like the title is at least a bit misleading.
Quote: “To be clear: this document is not a detailed vindication of any particular class of philanthropic interventions. For example, although we think that contractualism supports a sunnier view of helping the global poor than funding x-risk projects, contractualism does not, for all our argument implies, entail that many EA-funded global poverty interventions are morally preferable to all other options (some of which are probably high-risk, high-reward longshots).”
I think a reasonable person would conclude from the title “If Contractualism, Then AMF” essentially the opposite of this more nuanced clarification.
Perhaps it’s reasonable to infer that “Then AMF” really means “then the cluster of beliefs that leads GiveWell to strongly recommend AMF are indeed true (even if ex post it turns out that deworming or something was better)” but even this doesn’t seem to be what you are arguing (given the quote above).
Thanks for this, Aaron. Fair point. A more accurate title would be something like: “If Scanlonian contractualism is true, then between Emma Curran’s work on the ex post version of the view and this post’s focus on the ex ante version, it’s probably true that when we have duties to aid distant strangers, we ought to discharge them by investing in high impact, high confidence interventions like AMF.”