I want to slightly push back against this post in two ways:
I do not think longtermism is any sort of higher form of care or empathy. Many longtermist EAs are motivated by empathy, but they are also driven by a desire for philosophical consistency, beneficentrism and scope-sensitivity that is uncommon among the general public. Many are also not motivated by empathy—I think empathy plays some role for me but is not the primary motivator? Cold utilitarianism is more important but not the primary motivator either [1]. I feel much more caring when I cook dinner for my friends than when I do CS research, and it is only because I internalize scope sensitivity more than >99% of people that I can turn empathy into any motivation whatsoever to work on longtermist projects. I think that for most longtermists, it is not more empathy, nor a better form of empathy, but the interaction of many normal (often non-empathy) altruistic motivators and other personality traits that makes them longtermists.
Longtermists make tradeoffs between other common values and helping vast future populations that most people disagree with, and without ideosyncratic EA values there is no reason that a caring person should make the same tradeoffs as longtermists. I think the EA value of “doing a lot more good matters a lot more” is really important, but it is still trading off against other values.
Helping people closer to you / in your community: many people think this has inherent value
Beneficentrism: most people think there is inherent value in being directly involved in helping people. Habitat for Humanity is extremely popular among caring and empathic people, and they would mostly not think it is better to make more of an overall difference by e.g. subsidizing eyeglasses in Bangladesh.
Justice: most people think it is more important to help one human trafficking victim than one tuberculosis victim or one victim of omnicidal AI if you create the same welfare, because they place inherent value on justice. Both longtermists and GiveWell think they’re similarly good modulo secondary consequences and decision theory.
Discount rate, risk aversion, etc.: There is no reason that having a 10% chance of saving 100 lives in 6,000 years is better than a 40% chance of saving 5 lives tomorrow, if you don’t already believe in zero-discount expected value as the metric to optimize. The reason to believe in zero-discount expected value is a thought experiment involving the veil of ignorance, or maybe the VNM theorem. It is not caring doing the work here because both can be very caring acts, it is your belief in the thought experiment connecting your caring to the expected value.
In conclusion, I think that while care and empathy can be an important motivator to longtermists, and it is valid for us to think of longtermist actions as the ultimate act of care, we are motivated by a conjunction of empathy/care and other attributes, and it is the other attributes that are by far more important. For someone who has empathy/care and values beneficentrism and scope-sensitivity, preventing an extinction-level pandemic is an important act of care; for someone like me or a utilitarian, pandemic prevention is also an important act. But for someone who values justice more, applying more care does not make them prioritize pandemic prevention over helping a sex trafficking victim, and in the larger altruistically-inclined population, I think a greater focus on care and empathy conflict with longtermist values more than they contribute.
[1] More important for me are: feeling moral obligation to make others’ lives better rather than worse, wanting to do my best when it matters, wanting future glory and social status for producing so much utility.
Thanks for this reply — it does resonate with me. It actually got me thinking back to Paul Bloom’s Against Empathy book, and how when I read that I thought something like: “oh yeah empathy really isn’t the best guide to acting morally,” and whether that view contradicts what I was expressing in my quick take above.
I think I probably should have framed the post more as “longtermism need not be totally cold and utilitarian,” and that there’s an emotional, caring psychological relationship we can have to hypothetical future people because we can imaginatively put ourselves in their shoes. And that it might even incorporate elements of justice or fairness if we consider them a disenfranchised group without representation in today’s decision making who we are potentially throwing under the bus for our own benefit, or something like that. So justice and empathy can easily be folded into longtermist thinking. This sounds like what you are saying here, except maybe I do want to stand by the fact that EA values aren’t necessarily trading off against justice, depending on how you define it.
I want to slightly push back against this post in two ways:
I do not think longtermism is any sort of higher form of care or empathy. Many longtermist EAs are motivated by empathy, but they are also driven by a desire for philosophical consistency, beneficentrism and scope-sensitivity that is uncommon among the general public. Many are also not motivated by empathy—I think empathy plays some role for me but is not the primary motivator? Cold utilitarianism is more important but not the primary motivator either [1]. I feel much more caring when I cook dinner for my friends than when I do CS research, and it is only because I internalize scope sensitivity more than >99% of people that I can turn empathy into any motivation whatsoever to work on longtermist projects. I think that for most longtermists, it is not more empathy, nor a better form of empathy, but the interaction of many normal (often non-empathy) altruistic motivators and other personality traits that makes them longtermists.
Longtermists make tradeoffs between other common values and helping vast future populations that most people disagree with, and without ideosyncratic EA values there is no reason that a caring person should make the same tradeoffs as longtermists. I think the EA value of “doing a lot more good matters a lot more” is really important, but it is still trading off against other values.
Helping people closer to you / in your community: many people think this has inherent value
Beneficentrism: most people think there is inherent value in being directly involved in helping people. Habitat for Humanity is extremely popular among caring and empathic people, and they would mostly not think it is better to make more of an overall difference by e.g. subsidizing eyeglasses in Bangladesh.
Justice: most people think it is more important to help one human trafficking victim than one tuberculosis victim or one victim of omnicidal AI if you create the same welfare, because they place inherent value on justice. Both longtermists and GiveWell think they’re similarly good modulo secondary consequences and decision theory.
Discount rate, risk aversion, etc.: There is no reason that having a 10% chance of saving 100 lives in 6,000 years is better than a 40% chance of saving 5 lives tomorrow, if you don’t already believe in zero-discount expected value as the metric to optimize. The reason to believe in zero-discount expected value is a thought experiment involving the veil of ignorance, or maybe the VNM theorem. It is not caring doing the work here because both can be very caring acts, it is your belief in the thought experiment connecting your caring to the expected value.
In conclusion, I think that while care and empathy can be an important motivator to longtermists, and it is valid for us to think of longtermist actions as the ultimate act of care, we are motivated by a conjunction of empathy/care and other attributes, and it is the other attributes that are by far more important. For someone who has empathy/care and values beneficentrism and scope-sensitivity, preventing an extinction-level pandemic is an important act of care; for someone like me or a utilitarian, pandemic prevention is also an important act. But for someone who values justice more, applying more care does not make them prioritize pandemic prevention over helping a sex trafficking victim, and in the larger altruistically-inclined population, I think a greater focus on care and empathy conflict with longtermist values more than they contribute.
[1] More important for me are: feeling moral obligation to make others’ lives better rather than worse, wanting to do my best when it matters, wanting future glory and social status for producing so much utility.
Thanks for this reply — it does resonate with me. It actually got me thinking back to Paul Bloom’s Against Empathy book, and how when I read that I thought something like: “oh yeah empathy really isn’t the best guide to acting morally,” and whether that view contradicts what I was expressing in my quick take above.
I think I probably should have framed the post more as “longtermism need not be totally cold and utilitarian,” and that there’s an emotional, caring psychological relationship we can have to hypothetical future people because we can imaginatively put ourselves in their shoes. And that it might even incorporate elements of justice or fairness if we consider them a disenfranchised group without representation in today’s decision making who we are potentially throwing under the bus for our own benefit, or something like that. So justice and empathy can easily be folded into longtermist thinking. This sounds like what you are saying here, except maybe I do want to stand by the fact that EA values aren’t necessarily trading off against justice, depending on how you define it.