But more importantly, donors should be aware of how questions of population ethics affect the expected value of different interventions.
Thank you for emphasizing this—I think it’s very important.
I’ve realized lately that my views on questions of population ethics are very underdeveloped, which is problematic because it leaves me very uncertain about the relative importance of different causes and the expected value of different interventions, which leads me to postpone donating more until I have better information (and also possibly leads me to not engage in direct-impact work that I possibly should be engaging in due to not knowing what that work that I should be engaging in is).
Note that because questions of population ethics can change the expected value of possible interventions from positive to negative (or vice versa) and by orders of magnitude rather than just a few percentage points, my lack of confident answers to questions of population ethics seems to be a good reason to postpone making any further donations until I have better information on my views on those questions.
If donors understood these assumptions, I expect that many of them would prioritize their donations differently.
I wonder… To what extent it is true that donor ignorance about their views on questions of population ethics (and related questions about their values) leads donors to confidently choose one charity or intervention over another when in fact if they understood their views on population ethics correctly then they would have chosen the other charity or intervention?
I used to think that I knew what I valued well enough to choose where to donate, but now I realize that I have to think more on certain questions of population ethics to at least figure out what approximate probability I would assign to each possible way of valuing things before I can know which cause and intervention I believe has the highest expected value and is worth donating to.
Thank you for emphasizing this—I think it’s very important.
I’ve realized lately that my views on questions of population ethics are very underdeveloped, which is problematic because it leaves me very uncertain about the relative importance of different causes and the expected value of different interventions, which leads me to postpone donating more until I have better information (and also possibly leads me to not engage in direct-impact work that I possibly should be engaging in due to not knowing what that work that I should be engaging in is).
Note that because questions of population ethics can change the expected value of possible interventions from positive to negative (or vice versa) and by orders of magnitude rather than just a few percentage points, my lack of confident answers to questions of population ethics seems to be a good reason to postpone making any further donations until I have better information on my views on those questions.
I wonder… To what extent it is true that donor ignorance about their views on questions of population ethics (and related questions about their values) leads donors to confidently choose one charity or intervention over another when in fact if they understood their views on population ethics correctly then they would have chosen the other charity or intervention?
I used to think that I knew what I valued well enough to choose where to donate, but now I realize that I have to think more on certain questions of population ethics to at least figure out what approximate probability I would assign to each possible way of valuing things before I can know which cause and intervention I believe has the highest expected value and is worth donating to.