I’m another effective altruist who is explicitly not a utilitarian. Having followed discussion on, e.g., the ‘Effective Altruists’ Facebook group for a long time, I’ve been part of discussions over whether effective altruism is tantamount to utilitarianism arise, and non-utilitarians come out of the wormwood. It hasn’t happened very often though.
I like the points raised from the link Josh You provided below.
If virtue ethics, and deontology, also both contain a quintessential consequentialist element, then maybe they can just be considered convoluted variants of consequentialism with other fundamental principles installed along with it. If so, perhaps effective altruism can be considered another set of (frameworks for) ethics involving consequentialism, but also valuing other things. Building a framework like that might be necessary for humans because we weren’t built to be very effective utilitarians. I believe effective altruism was started by lots of different types of utilitarians, but also non-philosophers who were affected by principles and heuristics effective altruists are designing.
I’m another effective altruist who is explicitly not a utilitarian. Having followed discussion on, e.g., the ‘Effective Altruists’ Facebook group for a long time, I’ve been part of discussions over whether effective altruism is tantamount to utilitarianism arise, and non-utilitarians come out of the wormwood. It hasn’t happened very often though.
I like the points raised from the link Josh You provided below.
If virtue ethics, and deontology, also both contain a quintessential consequentialist element, then maybe they can just be considered convoluted variants of consequentialism with other fundamental principles installed along with it. If so, perhaps effective altruism can be considered another set of (frameworks for) ethics involving consequentialism, but also valuing other things. Building a framework like that might be necessary for humans because we weren’t built to be very effective utilitarians. I believe effective altruism was started by lots of different types of utilitarians, but also non-philosophers who were affected by principles and heuristics effective altruists are designing.