Someone needs to steel man Crary’s critique for me, because as it stands I find it very weak. The way I understand this article:
The institutional critique—Basically claims 2 things: a) EA’s are searching for their keys only under the lamppost. This is a great warning for anyone doing quantitate research and evaluation. EA’s are well aware of it and try to overcome the problem as much as possible; b) EA is addressing symptoms rather than underlying causes, i.e. distributing bed-nets instead of overthrowing corrupt governments. This is fair as far as it goes, but the move to tackling underlying causes does not necessarily require abandoning the quantitative methods EA champions, and it is not at all clear that we shouldn’t attempt to alleviate symptoms as well as causes.
The philosophical critique—Essentially amounts to arguing that there are people critical of consequentialism and abstract conceptions of reason. More power to them, but that fact in itself does not defeat consequentialism, so in so far as EA relies on consequentialism, it can continue to do so. A deeper dive is required to understand the criticisms in question, but there is little reason for me to assume at this point that they will defeat, or even greatly weaken, consequentialist theories of ethics. Crary actually admits that in academic circles they fail to convince many, but dismisses this because in her opinion it is “a function of ideological factors independent of [the arguments’] philosophical credentials”.
The composite critique—adds nothing substantial except to pit EA against woke ideology. I don’t believe these two movements are necessarily at odds, but there is a power struggle going on in academia right now, and it is clear which side Crary is on.
EA’s moral corruption—EA is corrupt because it supports global capitalism. I am guilty as charged on that count, even as I see capitalism’s many, many flaws and the need to make some drastic changes. Still, just like democracy, it is the best of evils until we come up with something better. Working within this system to improve the lives of others and solve some pressing worldwide problems seems perfectly reasonable to me.
As an aside I will mention that attacking “earning to give” without mentioning the concept of replicability is attacking nothing at all. When doing good try to be irreplaceable, when earning money on Wall Street, make sure you are completely replaceable, you might earn a little less but you will minimize your harm.
Finally, it is telling that Crary does not once deal with longtermist ideas.
I am responding to the newer version of this critique found [here] (https://www.radicalphilosophy.com/article/against-effective-altruism).
Someone needs to steel man Crary’s critique for me, because as it stands I find it very weak. The way I understand this article:
The institutional critique—Basically claims 2 things: a) EA’s are searching for their keys only under the lamppost. This is a great warning for anyone doing quantitate research and evaluation. EA’s are well aware of it and try to overcome the problem as much as possible; b) EA is addressing symptoms rather than underlying causes, i.e. distributing bed-nets instead of overthrowing corrupt governments. This is fair as far as it goes, but the move to tackling underlying causes does not necessarily require abandoning the quantitative methods EA champions, and it is not at all clear that we shouldn’t attempt to alleviate symptoms as well as causes.
The philosophical critique—Essentially amounts to arguing that there are people critical of consequentialism and abstract conceptions of reason. More power to them, but that fact in itself does not defeat consequentialism, so in so far as EA relies on consequentialism, it can continue to do so. A deeper dive is required to understand the criticisms in question, but there is little reason for me to assume at this point that they will defeat, or even greatly weaken, consequentialist theories of ethics. Crary actually admits that in academic circles they fail to convince many, but dismisses this because in her opinion it is “a function of ideological factors independent of [the arguments’] philosophical credentials”.
The composite critique—adds nothing substantial except to pit EA against woke ideology. I don’t believe these two movements are necessarily at odds, but there is a power struggle going on in academia right now, and it is clear which side Crary is on.
EA’s moral corruption—EA is corrupt because it supports global capitalism. I am guilty as charged on that count, even as I see capitalism’s many, many flaws and the need to make some drastic changes. Still, just like democracy, it is the best of evils until we come up with something better. Working within this system to improve the lives of others and solve some pressing worldwide problems seems perfectly reasonable to me.
As an aside I will mention that attacking “earning to give” without mentioning the concept of replicability is attacking nothing at all. When doing good try to be irreplaceable, when earning money on Wall Street, make sure you are completely replaceable, you might earn a little less but you will minimize your harm.
Finally, it is telling that Crary does not once deal with longtermist ideas.