If you find this disturbing, there are a few philosophical outs:
I would like to object to framing these as “outs”: I disagree with several assumptions that aren’t stated here (that possibly existing people or fetuses have equivalent moral value to currently existing people, that we have equal moral duties to safeguard the well being of both groups, that allowing a life to come into existence is equally as good as saving a life), but it isn’t because I’m looking for an out from an inconvenient conclusion. I believe we have a duty to try and make the world a better place for future generations, and that we must avoid making it a worse one, but I don’t consider myself a longtermist and I strongly disagree that maximising the total number of people who are happier than the critical level is a worthwhile goal, as opposed to trying to maximise the median or average happiness of a smaller number of people. These are normative disagreements, and they are why I don’t find this argument compelling. Your case isn’t falling on deaf ears, I understand it and I simply disagree.
Partisanship and tribalism likely explain a majority of why it consumes so much of the public attention, including why you and I care about it so much.
I also strongly disagree with this. I did not grow up somewhere where abortion was a hot-button or partisan issue the way it is in the US, and I don’t believe that it’s a partisan or tribal issue. This may be the case for you, but I care about this issue because a) as bruce points out below, the right to have abortions is an issue that deeply affects an enormous number of people and I would very much like them, and myself, to have option to exercise my free will and bodily autonomy on issues that have huge impacts on my life, and b) I highly value rights, particularly social and positive rights, as a moral good, and this is one among many that are vitally important.
Instead of distancing yourself from EA, what’s preventing you from advocating for more “explicit countervailing frameworks prioritizing the rights and needs of already existing people?”
Again, bruce’s comment articulates my feelings on this very well. This is not the only problem I have with EA as it currently operates, but this is a major ideological one. I want to make it clear that the problem for me isn’t only “longtermist EA might be anti-abortion”, it’s how longtermist EA can be extended to reach this conclusion and the further implications of that. Overlooking or writing off the needs and rights of currently existing people in service of creating more future people is, overall, a stance that I find morally unacceptable and actively harmful. While I know that there are longtermist EAs who feel and think similarly, longtermist EA in general seems likely to tend towards (or in fact may actively be tending towards) this direction unless this is addressed in some way. That this issue exists in the first place is, to me, either indicative of willful oversight and disregard (which is possible and also obviously perfectly fine, if that is what longtermist EAs believe, but in my opinion morally bad), or a serious blindspot that is so enormous in size and implications that it lowers my regard of the intellectual rigor of longtermist EA. I’d also like to add that, in addition to asymmetrical costs and time issues, one reason why I’m not writing advocating for “maybe we should care about the human rights of currently existing people, and maybe we should care about it more than creating more people in the future” is that having to argue for caring about human rights in a social movement that is about doing the most good possible is, to me, a clear indicator that that movement is not the right place for me.
Thank you for explaining how you feel. For what it’s worth, is there anything I or others who believe this is an implication of longtermism can do which would help you or others who share your perspective or feelings about EA to feel more welcome?
(No need to answer if you feel like it would take asymmetric effort, or wouldn’t be worth it, or for any other reason.)
Thank you as well, it definitely is worth something. I’ve been thinking about this for the past couple of days and I can’t come up with a very satisfying answer, and this will likely be a bit of a digression so I apologize for that.
I think the short answer is perhaps not very much. (There may be others who are more imaginative than I who can come up with actual actionable things here.) The EA Forum in particular tends to value evidence based, well sourced and impartially argued posts. This is a good thing in many cases, but it does create trades offs in terms of being “welcoming”[1], and I think this is one of them: I recognize and respect that many people who oppose abortion do it from a place of believing that a fetus is a person and caring very deeply about the lives of unborn children, but the corollary to that is a reduction to the rights of bodily autonomy and self-determination of a huge number of people. It’s very challenging for me personally to find the desire and follow through to sit down and spend hours putting together a post that argues for respect for my rights because, to put it simply, the idea that I need to argue that my rights and the rights of roughly half the worlds population should be valued and respected in this type of format (or at all, even) in the context of a movement that values doing good is extremely disheartening and demotivating, particularly when those rights are already being eroded across the world. I imagine that there are people who are invested enough in EA and/or longtermism that the emotional and time costs of doing that will be worth it, but I don’t think I am.
Also, this is a relatively minor point and I only mention because you do seem to care about this and I in no way mean to come off as accusatory as I sincerely believe it was without malice or bad intent, but writing off people’s sincerely held beliefs and priorities as a result of partisanship or tribalism or assuming that a question will fall on deaf ears does have a chilling effect, at least for me. I have done my best to engage with this post respectfully and in good faith, even when I strongly disagree with many parts of it, and these comments make me feel like my disagreements are being treated as incorrect received knowledge rather than considered and examined beliefs that are treated with respect.
I put this in quotes because it doesn’t quite sit well with me, but I’m not sure what would work better—it’s not that I feel that a post that is of “lower quality” by these standard wouldn’t be welcome, necessarily, but that it would probably be met with a lot of questions and demands to have it conform more to those standards—which is, to some extent, fair enough, as every space is obviously allowed to have its own discursive norms, but it does come with costs in some cases.
Thanks for your reply. No worries if you feel like you weren’t able to come up with a satisfying answer—given that you’re engaging in a dialogue where you reasonably perceive your counterpart to be going after your rights, your reaction has been very understandable.
I’d like to apologize for the characterization of your sincerely held views as tribalism. It wasn’t empathetic or helpful to our dialogue.
I would like to object to framing these as “outs”: I disagree with several assumptions that aren’t stated here (that possibly existing people or fetuses have equivalent moral value to currently existing people, that we have equal moral duties to safeguard the well being of both groups, that allowing a life to come into existence is equally as good as saving a life), but it isn’t because I’m looking for an out from an inconvenient conclusion. I believe we have a duty to try and make the world a better place for future generations, and that we must avoid making it a worse one, but I don’t consider myself a longtermist and I strongly disagree that maximising the total number of people who are happier than the critical level is a worthwhile goal, as opposed to trying to maximise the median or average happiness of a smaller number of people. These are normative disagreements, and they are why I don’t find this argument compelling. Your case isn’t falling on deaf ears, I understand it and I simply disagree.
I also strongly disagree with this. I did not grow up somewhere where abortion was a hot-button or partisan issue the way it is in the US, and I don’t believe that it’s a partisan or tribal issue. This may be the case for you, but I care about this issue because a) as bruce points out below, the right to have abortions is an issue that deeply affects an enormous number of people and I would very much like them, and myself, to have option to exercise my free will and bodily autonomy on issues that have huge impacts on my life, and b) I highly value rights, particularly social and positive rights, as a moral good, and this is one among many that are vitally important.
Again, bruce’s comment articulates my feelings on this very well. This is not the only problem I have with EA as it currently operates, but this is a major ideological one. I want to make it clear that the problem for me isn’t only “longtermist EA might be anti-abortion”, it’s how longtermist EA can be extended to reach this conclusion and the further implications of that. Overlooking or writing off the needs and rights of currently existing people in service of creating more future people is, overall, a stance that I find morally unacceptable and actively harmful. While I know that there are longtermist EAs who feel and think similarly, longtermist EA in general seems likely to tend towards (or in fact may actively be tending towards) this direction unless this is addressed in some way. That this issue exists in the first place is, to me, either indicative of willful oversight and disregard (which is possible and also obviously perfectly fine, if that is what longtermist EAs believe, but in my opinion morally bad), or a serious blindspot that is so enormous in size and implications that it lowers my regard of the intellectual rigor of longtermist EA. I’d also like to add that, in addition to asymmetrical costs and time issues, one reason why I’m not writing advocating for “maybe we should care about the human rights of currently existing people, and maybe we should care about it more than creating more people in the future” is that having to argue for caring about human rights in a social movement that is about doing the most good possible is, to me, a clear indicator that that movement is not the right place for me.
Thank you for explaining how you feel. For what it’s worth, is there anything I or others who believe this is an implication of longtermism can do which would help you or others who share your perspective or feelings about EA to feel more welcome?
(No need to answer if you feel like it would take asymmetric effort, or wouldn’t be worth it, or for any other reason.)
Thank you as well, it definitely is worth something. I’ve been thinking about this for the past couple of days and I can’t come up with a very satisfying answer, and this will likely be a bit of a digression so I apologize for that.
I think the short answer is perhaps not very much. (There may be others who are more imaginative than I who can come up with actual actionable things here.) The EA Forum in particular tends to value evidence based, well sourced and impartially argued posts. This is a good thing in many cases, but it does create trades offs in terms of being “welcoming”[1], and I think this is one of them: I recognize and respect that many people who oppose abortion do it from a place of believing that a fetus is a person and caring very deeply about the lives of unborn children, but the corollary to that is a reduction to the rights of bodily autonomy and self-determination of a huge number of people. It’s very challenging for me personally to find the desire and follow through to sit down and spend hours putting together a post that argues for respect for my rights because, to put it simply, the idea that I need to argue that my rights and the rights of roughly half the worlds population should be valued and respected in this type of format (or at all, even) in the context of a movement that values doing good is extremely disheartening and demotivating, particularly when those rights are already being eroded across the world. I imagine that there are people who are invested enough in EA and/or longtermism that the emotional and time costs of doing that will be worth it, but I don’t think I am.
Also, this is a relatively minor point and I only mention because you do seem to care about this and I in no way mean to come off as accusatory as I sincerely believe it was without malice or bad intent, but writing off people’s sincerely held beliefs and priorities as a result of partisanship or tribalism or assuming that a question will fall on deaf ears does have a chilling effect, at least for me. I have done my best to engage with this post respectfully and in good faith, even when I strongly disagree with many parts of it, and these comments make me feel like my disagreements are being treated as incorrect received knowledge rather than considered and examined beliefs that are treated with respect.
I put this in quotes because it doesn’t quite sit well with me, but I’m not sure what would work better—it’s not that I feel that a post that is of “lower quality” by these standard wouldn’t be welcome, necessarily, but that it would probably be met with a lot of questions and demands to have it conform more to those standards—which is, to some extent, fair enough, as every space is obviously allowed to have its own discursive norms, but it does come with costs in some cases.
Thanks for your reply. No worries if you feel like you weren’t able to come up with a satisfying answer—given that you’re engaging in a dialogue where you reasonably perceive your counterpart to be going after your rights, your reaction has been very understandable.
I’d like to apologize for the characterization of your sincerely held views as tribalism. It wasn’t empathetic or helpful to our dialogue.