Executive summary: Engaging with Buddhist ideas and practices, such as extending empathy to all sentient beings and recognizing the illusion of self, could benefit the effective altruism community.
Key points:
Buddhist techniques like metta meditation can help extend empathy to beings that are difficult to empathize with, such as insects or digital minds.
The Buddhist principle of the illusion of self suggests that concepts like “high impact individuals” rest on psychological delusions and could help avoid hubris.
The author’s experience suggests that the “problem of moral obligation” may not be comprehensible under a Buddhist ethical framework.
Practicing meditation and avoiding spiritual narcissism can help reduce self-concern and make people kinder.
The Buddhist nun Shih Chao-Hwei seemed to misunderstand Peter Singer’s philosophical questions about the is-ought problem and moral motivation, possibly due to differences in Western and Buddhist concepts.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, andcontact us if you have feedback.
Executive summary: Engaging with Buddhist ideas and practices, such as extending empathy to all sentient beings and recognizing the illusion of self, could benefit the effective altruism community.
Key points:
Buddhist techniques like metta meditation can help extend empathy to beings that are difficult to empathize with, such as insects or digital minds.
The Buddhist principle of the illusion of self suggests that concepts like “high impact individuals” rest on psychological delusions and could help avoid hubris.
The author’s experience suggests that the “problem of moral obligation” may not be comprehensible under a Buddhist ethical framework.
Practicing meditation and avoiding spiritual narcissism can help reduce self-concern and make people kinder.
The Buddhist nun Shih Chao-Hwei seemed to misunderstand Peter Singer’s philosophical questions about the is-ought problem and moral motivation, possibly due to differences in Western and Buddhist concepts.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.