What exactly is rationally unsound about responding to ‘You/80k could justify any career that way’ with ‘Actually, I/they still don’t think it justifies this career’? You might disagree with the response or prefer to just focus on the direct career in question*, but it certainly seems like a valid response.
The point still holds because you still could justify being a tobacco salesperson in this way—if the math went a little differently, if you decided charity had better flow through effects, if you decided that smoking was not as bad as the article’s assumptions, etc—then you would justify being a tobacco salesman. If you wanted to alleviate animal suffering or x-risk then your calculations could come out in favor of that. That’s the problem: people have a moral issue with the idea that it could be acceptable to harm some to donate to others.
“The key point I want to highlight is that there are very likely jobs such as this, where even considering ‘replaceability’, and even if you donate all your earnings effectively, it would not be enough to offset the direct harm done.
If you are trying to do the most good by earning to give, you will probably do better by looking for a job that both pays well, and has either neutral or positive direct impacts.”
I’m sure he means well, but it does nothing to answer the criticisms: again, just because it works out this way for this one job with this one calculation doesn’t necessarily imply anything about other jobs with a negative impact. It doesn’t answer the moral objection to the assumed framework.
“That’s the problem: people have a moral issue with the idea that it could be acceptable to harm some to donate to others.”
Oh, I see. You think I’m addressing this argument to someone coming from a non-consequentialist framework who has inherent issues with dealing small damage to A through your work in order to deliver large benefits to B through your donations. If that were the case I agree this would be an unsound or at least barely-relevant response.
But that’s not the case. I’m addressing this to people who just have a feeling that the damage you do is greater than the benefits, i.e. they don’t have a problem with the framework, they are just suspicious of the seemingly fully general nature of the earning-to-give argument. E.g. the OP in the example I gave explicitly refers to doing a ‘calculation’ for the most good. If the OP had been about the moral un-virtuousness of EtG instead, then for sure I should respond differently.
Apart from that misunderstanding I don’t have any substantive disagreement with your points.
The point still holds because you still could justify being a tobacco salesperson in this way—if the math went a little differently, if you decided charity had better flow through effects, if you decided that smoking was not as bad as the article’s assumptions, etc—then you would justify being a tobacco salesman. If you wanted to alleviate animal suffering or x-risk then your calculations could come out in favor of that. That’s the problem: people have a moral issue with the idea that it could be acceptable to harm some to donate to others.
I’m sure he means well, but it does nothing to answer the criticisms: again, just because it works out this way for this one job with this one calculation doesn’t necessarily imply anything about other jobs with a negative impact. It doesn’t answer the moral objection to the assumed framework.
“That’s the problem: people have a moral issue with the idea that it could be acceptable to harm some to donate to others.”
Oh, I see. You think I’m addressing this argument to someone coming from a non-consequentialist framework who has inherent issues with dealing small damage to A through your work in order to deliver large benefits to B through your donations. If that were the case I agree this would be an unsound or at least barely-relevant response.
But that’s not the case. I’m addressing this to people who just have a feeling that the damage you do is greater than the benefits, i.e. they don’t have a problem with the framework, they are just suspicious of the seemingly fully general nature of the earning-to-give argument. E.g. the OP in the example I gave explicitly refers to doing a ‘calculation’ for the most good. If the OP had been about the moral un-virtuousness of EtG instead, then for sure I should respond differently.
Apart from that misunderstanding I don’t have any substantive disagreement with your points.