I partially agree here. The parts that I find easiest to agree with relate to exclusion of none utilitarians. I think it’s important that people who are not utilitarian can enter effective altruist circles and participate in discussions. I think it also might be good for effective altruists to pull back from their utilitarian frame of analysis and take a more global view of how their proposals (e.g. totalitarianism as a reducer of x-risk) might be perceived from a broader value system, if for no reason other than ensuring their research remainsbof wider societal interest. FHI would argue that they already do a lot of this, for example, in his thesis, Nick Beckstead argued that he the importance of the far future goes trough on a variety of moral theories,not just classical utilitarianism. But they have some room to improve.
I find it harder to sympathize with the view that effective altruists are collecting a a certain moral perspective unreflectively. I think most have read some ethics abd metaethics and some have read more than the average philosophy major. So the ‘naive’ and simple view can be held by a sophisticated reader.
My last suggestion is that given that the focus of effective altruism is how to do good, its only natural that its earliest adopters are consequentialist. If one thinks that different value systems converge in a lot of developing world or existential risk-related problems, then it might be appropriate to focus on the ‘how’ questions rather than trying harder to pin down a more precise notion of good. As the movement grows, one hopes that the values of its constituency will broaden.
I partially agree here. The parts that I find easiest to agree with relate to exclusion of none utilitarians. I think it’s important that people who are not utilitarian can enter effective altruist circles and participate in discussions. I think it also might be good for effective altruists to pull back from their utilitarian frame of analysis and take a more global view of how their proposals (e.g. totalitarianism as a reducer of x-risk) might be perceived from a broader value system, if for no reason other than ensuring their research remainsbof wider societal interest. FHI would argue that they already do a lot of this, for example, in his thesis, Nick Beckstead argued that he the importance of the far future goes trough on a variety of moral theories,not just classical utilitarianism. But they have some room to improve.
I find it harder to sympathize with the view that effective altruists are collecting a a certain moral perspective unreflectively. I think most have read some ethics abd metaethics and some have read more than the average philosophy major. So the ‘naive’ and simple view can be held by a sophisticated reader.
My last suggestion is that given that the focus of effective altruism is how to do good, its only natural that its earliest adopters are consequentialist. If one thinks that different value systems converge in a lot of developing world or existential risk-related problems, then it might be appropriate to focus on the ‘how’ questions rather than trying harder to pin down a more precise notion of good. As the movement grows, one hopes that the values of its constituency will broaden.