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.)
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.