When considering a controversial political issue, an EA should also think about whether there are positions to take that differ from those typically presented in the mainstream media. There might be alternatives that EA reasoning opens up that people traditionally avoid because they, for example, stick to deontological reasoning and believe that either an act is right or it is wrong in all cases, and that these restrictions should be codified into law.
For the object level example raised in the article, the traditional framing is “abortion should be legal” vs. “abortion should be illegal”. Other alternatives to this might be, for example, performing other social interventions aimed at reducing the number of abortions within a framework where abortion is legal (ie. increasing social support offered to single mothers, so that fewer people choose to have an abortion).
When considering a controversial political issue, an EA should also think about whether there are positions to take that differ from those typically presented in the mainstream media. There might be alternatives that EA reasoning opens up that people traditionally avoid because they, for example, stick to deontological reasoning and believe that either an act is right or it is wrong in all cases, and that these restrictions should be codified into law.
For the object level example raised in the article, the traditional framing is “abortion should be legal” vs. “abortion should be illegal”. Other alternatives to this might be, for example, performing other social interventions aimed at reducing the number of abortions within a framework where abortion is legal (ie. increasing social support offered to single mothers, so that fewer people choose to have an abortion).