I’m sorry I just disagree. We are an applied ethics movement. Maybe the only one in the world. We should hold ourselves to the highest ethical standards. And yet we benefitted from a scheme that, legal or not, ruined a lot of people’s lives. Utilitarianism or not, we need to do everything we can to atone. If we don’t, it could ruin our psyches, our ethical standards, our perception and our trajectory.
We estimate that several thousands of dollars saves a life with Global Health and Development charities… Many of these grantees are exploring potentially transformative areas that EAs consider higher EV than these GH&D charities… To unnecessarily defund them is what is immoral.
These grantees did not participate in fraud. They do not need to atone. Perhaps SBF and some other actors engaged in criminal or fraudulent activity and they should be dealt with accordingly. The movement is not compromised by innocent grantees retaining benefits for important work.
We are an applied ethics movement… And the right thing to do here is not to disempower what we have identified as extremely promising efforts to make a better today and tomorrow.
I think what jeopardizes us is if we do not value the work we do. Reflexively neutering our projects without good reason is the path to a worse world.
If we’re perceived as benefiting from fraud and too accepting of instrumental harm, we may push away many people who might otherwise contribute to our community and projects, and could be looked at more skeptically when engaging politically and with institutions. We’ll lose some public trust, and perhaps rightfully so, since we’ll be less worthy of it.
I’m sorry I just disagree. We are an applied ethics movement. Maybe the only one in the world. We should hold ourselves to the highest ethical standards. And yet we benefitted from a scheme that, legal or not, ruined a lot of people’s lives. Utilitarianism or not, we need to do everything we can to atone. If we don’t, it could ruin our psyches, our ethical standards, our perception and our trajectory.
We estimate that several thousands of dollars saves a life with Global Health and Development charities… Many of these grantees are exploring potentially transformative areas that EAs consider higher EV than these GH&D charities… To unnecessarily defund them is what is immoral.
These grantees did not participate in fraud. They do not need to atone. Perhaps SBF and some other actors engaged in criminal or fraudulent activity and they should be dealt with accordingly. The movement is not compromised by innocent grantees retaining benefits for important work.
We are an applied ethics movement… And the right thing to do here is not to disempower what we have identified as extremely promising efforts to make a better today and tomorrow.
I think what jeopardizes us is if we do not value the work we do. Reflexively neutering our projects without good reason is the path to a worse world.
If we’re perceived as benefiting from fraud and too accepting of instrumental harm, we may push away many people who might otherwise contribute to our community and projects, and could be looked at more skeptically when engaging politically and with institutions. We’ll lose some public trust, and perhaps rightfully so, since we’ll be less worthy of it.