After more thought in areas of definition, I’ve come to believe that the presumption of authority can be a bit misrepresentative.
I’m all for the coming up and encouraging of definitions of Effective Altruism and other important topics, but the phrase “The definition of effective altruism” can be seen to presuppose authority and unanimity.
I’m sure that even after this definition was proposed, alternative definitions will be used.
Of course if there were to be one authority on the topic it would be William MacAskill, but I think that even if there were only one main authority, the use of pragmatic alternative definitions could only be discouraged. It would be difficult to call them incorrect or invalid. Dictionaries typically follow use, not create it.
Also, to be clear, I have this general issue with a very great deal of literature, so it’s not like I’m blaming this piece because it’s particularly bad, but rather, I’m pointing it out because this piece is particularly important.
Maybe there could be a name like the “The academic definition...”, “The technical definition”, or “The definition according to the official CEA Ontology”. Sadly these still use “The” which I’m hesitant to, but they are at least more narrow.
After more thought in areas of definition, I’ve come to believe that the presumption of authority can be a bit misrepresentative.
I’m all for the coming up and encouraging of definitions of Effective Altruism and other important topics, but the phrase “The definition of effective altruism” can be seen to presuppose authority and unanimity.
I’m sure that even after this definition was proposed, alternative definitions will be used.
Of course if there were to be one authority on the topic it would be William MacAskill, but I think that even if there were only one main authority, the use of pragmatic alternative definitions could only be discouraged. It would be difficult to call them incorrect or invalid. Dictionaries typically follow use, not create it.
Also, to be clear, I have this general issue with a very great deal of literature, so it’s not like I’m blaming this piece because it’s particularly bad, but rather, I’m pointing it out because this piece is particularly important.
Maybe there could be a name like the “The academic definition...”, “The technical definition”, or “The definition according to the official CEA Ontology”. Sadly these still use “The” which I’m hesitant to, but they are at least more narrow.