I’m new to EA (and so effectively an outsider), and here are a few critiques that immediately come to mind, and which I have not seen mentioned elsewhere. The first two are simply aspects of EA that might render it unpalatable or too counter-intuitive for the masses:
It would seem to follow that robbing from the rich and giving to the poor is ethically required. Imagine a man eating a feast with two dozen turkeys, and right next to him is a family full of starving children. If you could steal a turkey and give it to the family without anyone noticing, shouldn’t you? If so, then EA folks should really be entering into an alliance with Anonymous.
Not only are rich people ethically compelled to give away money, but people are ethically compelled to take reasonable steps to become rich. That means that all of those Ivy league graduates who went to work in the charity industry were behaving unethically.
Assuming a set amount of money available for charities, it’s utility-maximizing for that money to come from the richest people (given the decreasing marginal utility of money). EA’s focus on students giving away a few percent of their stipend is therefore a wildly inefficient way to maximize utility. (The response, of course, is that it’s not a zero-sum game, but it is to the extent the EA movement is focusing resources on anyone but the wealthiest people.)
Imagine a man eating a feast with two dozen turkeys, and right next to him is a family full of starving children. If you could steal a turkey and give it to the family without anyone noticing, shouldn’t you?
No, because stealing is morally wrong in itself. Being an EA does not mean you have to endorse utilitarianism! (though some people do neglect the distinction). There are other aspects of morality, and respecting people’s rights is one of them.
EA is about (in part) extrapolating from what you would do in the near to what you should do in the far. The classic introduction hypothetical is the person drowning right in front of you. Most people’s moral instincts are that they should suffer some costs to save the person’s life. Ergo, they should suffer some costs to save starving people across the world.
If you were to poll the world about whether people think it’s right or wrong to steal one of the two dozen turkeys from the rich man and give it to the starving family, I suspect a sizable percentage would say it’s right—or at least not wrong. You might not, but I hardly think that would be a rare response. My point is that extrapolating from that moral premise leads you to very counter-intuitive places.
Vincent, your comment goes to the point I was trying to make. If a rich person has two options: (a) give money to charity; or (b) buy a yacht, and chooses (b), we (or at least I) don’t say he is behaving sub-optimally but that he is behaving unethically. Putting aside whether the Ivy league grad would enjoy working for a charity more than working in finance, how is her choice any different from the rich person’s choice? If she takes a job at a charity (assuming one for which she is entirely replaceable), rather than taking a job in finance and giving away half of her salary, she is effectively throwing away the money should could have made in finance rather than donating it to charity. How is that different than taking the job and buying a yacht? It seems intuitively different because her motives are different, but that’s irrelevant if you’re a consequentialist (which seems like part of EA’s fabric).
From a marketing perspective, I see why we don’t want to encourage stealing (which I still think could be done in a utility-maximizing manner) or claims that charity-minded Ivy league grads are as bad as yacht-buying millionaires, but if the only reason we don’t go there is for marketing reasons, that seems like a problem.
As to why this is a critique: I worry that the marketing strategy for EA whitewashes how radical its underlying premise truly is: that we owe the same duty to someone across the world as we do to someone right in front of us. Fully embracing that premise can lead us to extraordinarily counterintuitive (and unpalatable for many) places.
As to why this is a critique: I worry that the marketing strategy for EA whitewashes how radical its underlying premise truly is: that we owe the same duty to someone across the world as we do to someone right in front of us. Fully embracing that premise can lead us to extraordinarily counterintuitive (and unpalatable for many) places.
That I agree with. Obscuring/whitewashing it may be tactically wise however, and I think there’s been some posts here about whether EA really is consequentialist.
Hey mhpage. I think these are reasonable sorts of questions that lots of people are likely to suggest, so it’s good to tackle them straight away. My responses would be:
Do you think that stealing from the rich is likely to be effective? It seems to me that it would probably lead you to get arrested and muck up your chances of helping for decades to come. At any rate, the idea that it would be compulsory would arise if you believed in ‘utilitarianism’ or had a related view that there are no ‘supererogatory acts’. So that issue is central to those philosophies, rather than to effective altruism.
Effective altruists would be committed to the idea that it’s a good way of helping people, and they promote it. Whether there’s any ‘ethical compulsion’ is something that people will vary on depending on their philosophies.
There are still reasons to focus on students, even for the trivial reason that some of them will be wealthy later. There’s also other ways of helping than donating funds. And effective altruists are pretty interested in meeting high-net-worth individuals anyhow.
Thanks, Ryan. The distinction between EA and utilitarianism is not one I’ve sufficiently focused on, and it’s a useful one to bear in mind. (With that said, I do think there are effective ways certain people could steal from the rich and give to the poor—e.g., hackers.)
I’m new to EA (and so effectively an outsider), and here are a few critiques that immediately come to mind, and which I have not seen mentioned elsewhere. The first two are simply aspects of EA that might render it unpalatable or too counter-intuitive for the masses:
It would seem to follow that robbing from the rich and giving to the poor is ethically required. Imagine a man eating a feast with two dozen turkeys, and right next to him is a family full of starving children. If you could steal a turkey and give it to the family without anyone noticing, shouldn’t you? If so, then EA folks should really be entering into an alliance with Anonymous.
Not only are rich people ethically compelled to give away money, but people are ethically compelled to take reasonable steps to become rich. That means that all of those Ivy league graduates who went to work in the charity industry were behaving unethically.
Assuming a set amount of money available for charities, it’s utility-maximizing for that money to come from the richest people (given the decreasing marginal utility of money). EA’s focus on students giving away a few percent of their stipend is therefore a wildly inefficient way to maximize utility. (The response, of course, is that it’s not a zero-sum game, but it is to the extent the EA movement is focusing resources on anyone but the wealthiest people.)
No, because stealing is morally wrong in itself. Being an EA does not mean you have to endorse utilitarianism! (though some people do neglect the distinction). There are other aspects of morality, and respecting people’s rights is one of them.
EA is about (in part) extrapolating from what you would do in the near to what you should do in the far. The classic introduction hypothetical is the person drowning right in front of you. Most people’s moral instincts are that they should suffer some costs to save the person’s life. Ergo, they should suffer some costs to save starving people across the world.
If you were to poll the world about whether people think it’s right or wrong to steal one of the two dozen turkeys from the rich man and give it to the starving family, I suspect a sizable percentage would say it’s right—or at least not wrong. You might not, but I hardly think that would be a rare response. My point is that extrapolating from that moral premise leads you to very counter-intuitive places.
It’s better to say they were behaving suboptimally.
Vincent, your comment goes to the point I was trying to make. If a rich person has two options: (a) give money to charity; or (b) buy a yacht, and chooses (b), we (or at least I) don’t say he is behaving sub-optimally but that he is behaving unethically. Putting aside whether the Ivy league grad would enjoy working for a charity more than working in finance, how is her choice any different from the rich person’s choice? If she takes a job at a charity (assuming one for which she is entirely replaceable), rather than taking a job in finance and giving away half of her salary, she is effectively throwing away the money should could have made in finance rather than donating it to charity. How is that different than taking the job and buying a yacht? It seems intuitively different because her motives are different, but that’s irrelevant if you’re a consequentialist (which seems like part of EA’s fabric).
From a marketing perspective, I see why we don’t want to encourage stealing (which I still think could be done in a utility-maximizing manner) or claims that charity-minded Ivy league grads are as bad as yacht-buying millionaires, but if the only reason we don’t go there is for marketing reasons, that seems like a problem.
As to why this is a critique: I worry that the marketing strategy for EA whitewashes how radical its underlying premise truly is: that we owe the same duty to someone across the world as we do to someone right in front of us. Fully embracing that premise can lead us to extraordinarily counterintuitive (and unpalatable for many) places.
That I agree with. Obscuring/whitewashing it may be tactically wise however, and I think there’s been some posts here about whether EA really is consequentialist.
Hey mhpage. I think these are reasonable sorts of questions that lots of people are likely to suggest, so it’s good to tackle them straight away. My responses would be:
Do you think that stealing from the rich is likely to be effective? It seems to me that it would probably lead you to get arrested and muck up your chances of helping for decades to come. At any rate, the idea that it would be compulsory would arise if you believed in ‘utilitarianism’ or had a related view that there are no ‘supererogatory acts’. So that issue is central to those philosophies, rather than to effective altruism.
Effective altruists would be committed to the idea that it’s a good way of helping people, and they promote it. Whether there’s any ‘ethical compulsion’ is something that people will vary on depending on their philosophies.
There are still reasons to focus on students, even for the trivial reason that some of them will be wealthy later. There’s also other ways of helping than donating funds. And effective altruists are pretty interested in meeting high-net-worth individuals anyhow.
Thanks, Ryan. The distinction between EA and utilitarianism is not one I’ve sufficiently focused on, and it’s a useful one to bear in mind. (With that said, I do think there are effective ways certain people could steal from the rich and give to the poor—e.g., hackers.)
If there were I’d expect them to be well-researched and discussed by non-altruists. I haven’t heard of any, and would expect to have.