You can easily say that Effective Altruism answers a question. The question is, “What should I do with my life?” and the answer is, “As much good as possible (or at least a decent step in that direction).” Only if you take that answer as a starting premise can you then say that EA asks the question, “How do I do the most good?”
Conversely, you can just as easily say that feminism doesn’t ask whether men and women should be equal (that they should be is the starting premise), it asks how society is structurally unequal and how we might re-make society so that it becomes equal.
So I don’t see EA as necessarily in some different category than the (other) ideologies that you list.
In part one, I just… don’t really see a big issue with -ism versus -ist, at least not one any near as large as you’re claiming exists. “Can I [x] and still be a member of the Effective Altruism movement?” seems about as natural a question to ask as “Can I [x] and still be an Effective Altruist?” As long as there’s an EA movement that’s in any way demanding of its followers, it provokes the same sort of questions regardless of whether we call ourselves followers of Effective Altruism or Effective Altruists. Insofar as there’s a problem, I think it’s the “impudence” that you mention of calling this movement Effective Altruism in the first place.
(If someone comes up with a better term for EA followers, I’ll be happy to adopt it—I don’t see it as a big issue. In the meantime I’ll occasionally call myself an “EA” if it makes sense to do so in context.)
Alternative descriptors include “aspiring effective altruist”, “interested in Effective Altruism”, “member of the Effective Altruism movement”… What do you think of those options?
“Aspiring effective altruist” doesn’t describe me: I don’t aspire to anything more than what I’m currently doing, which is donating a decent-sized fraction of my salary to charity. I plateaued in my journey towards an idealised EA several years ago.
“Interested in Effective Altruism” is far too weak.
“Member of the Effective Altruism movement” is something I’d happy to call myself.
You can easily say that Effective Altruism answers a question. The question is, “What should I do with my life?” and the answer is, “As much good as possible (or at least a decent step in that direction).”
I think this is the key part of our disagreement—I don’t think this is the case—and I’ve answered more fully in my comment in reply to Kerry. Would love to hear your thoughts there.
“Aspiring effective altruist” doesn’t describe me: I don’t aspire to anything more than what I’m currently doing, which is donating a decent-sized fraction of my salary to charity.
Do you aspire to find donation targets that are more effective?
Pretty passively.… Like I’ll send some money GiveWell’s way later this year to help find effective giving opportunities, but it doesn’t feel inside of me as though I’m aspiring to something here. The GiveWell staff might aspire to find those better giving opportunities; I merely help them a bit and hope that they succeed.
I also think that describing ourselves primarily as having a never-ending aspiration is selling us short if we’re actually achieving stuff.
I think it’s fair to say that “aspiring” doesn’t quite fit for you. The point of that word being there is to reduce the strength of the claim: you’re focused on being effective, you’re trying hard to be effective, but to say that you are effective is different.
Maybe the slightly poor epistemology doesn’t matter enough to make up for the much clearer name… I’m not sure.
The point of that word being there is to reduce the strength of the claim: you’re focused on being effective, you’re trying hard to be effective, but to say that you are effective is different.
I don’t really want to reduce the strength of my claim though[1] -- if I have to be pedantic, I’ll talk about being effective in probabilistic expectation-value terms. If donating to our best guesses of the most cost-effective charities we can find today doesn’t qualify as “effective”, then I don’t think there’s much use in the word, either to describe an -ism or an -ist. It’d be more accurate to call it “hopefully effective altruism”, but I don’t think it’s much of a sacrifice to drop the “hopefully”.
[1] At an emotional level, I have a bit of a I’ve donated a quarter of my salary to the best charities I could find for the last five years, stop trying to take my noun phrase away reaction as well.
I disagree with a bit of the intro and part one.
You can easily say that Effective Altruism answers a question. The question is, “What should I do with my life?” and the answer is, “As much good as possible (or at least a decent step in that direction).” Only if you take that answer as a starting premise can you then say that EA asks the question, “How do I do the most good?”
Conversely, you can just as easily say that feminism doesn’t ask whether men and women should be equal (that they should be is the starting premise), it asks how society is structurally unequal and how we might re-make society so that it becomes equal.
So I don’t see EA as necessarily in some different category than the (other) ideologies that you list.
In part one, I just… don’t really see a big issue with -ism versus -ist, at least not one any near as large as you’re claiming exists. “Can I [x] and still be a member of the Effective Altruism movement?” seems about as natural a question to ask as “Can I [x] and still be an Effective Altruist?” As long as there’s an EA movement that’s in any way demanding of its followers, it provokes the same sort of questions regardless of whether we call ourselves followers of Effective Altruism or Effective Altruists. Insofar as there’s a problem, I think it’s the “impudence” that you mention of calling this movement Effective Altruism in the first place.
(If someone comes up with a better term for EA followers, I’ll be happy to adopt it—I don’t see it as a big issue. In the meantime I’ll occasionally call myself an “EA” if it makes sense to do so in context.)
“Aspiring effective altruist” doesn’t describe me: I don’t aspire to anything more than what I’m currently doing, which is donating a decent-sized fraction of my salary to charity. I plateaued in my journey towards an idealised EA several years ago.
“Interested in Effective Altruism” is far too weak.
“Member of the Effective Altruism movement” is something I’d happy to call myself.
I think this is the key part of our disagreement—I don’t think this is the case—and I’ve answered more fully in my comment in reply to Kerry. Would love to hear your thoughts there.
Do you aspire to find donation targets that are more effective?
Pretty passively.… Like I’ll send some money GiveWell’s way later this year to help find effective giving opportunities, but it doesn’t feel inside of me as though I’m aspiring to something here. The GiveWell staff might aspire to find those better giving opportunities; I merely help them a bit and hope that they succeed.
I also think that describing ourselves primarily as having a never-ending aspiration is selling us short if we’re actually achieving stuff.
I think it’s fair to say that “aspiring” doesn’t quite fit for you. The point of that word being there is to reduce the strength of the claim: you’re focused on being effective, you’re trying hard to be effective, but to say that you are effective is different.
Maybe the slightly poor epistemology doesn’t matter enough to make up for the much clearer name… I’m not sure.
I don’t really want to reduce the strength of my claim though[1] -- if I have to be pedantic, I’ll talk about being effective in probabilistic expectation-value terms. If donating to our best guesses of the most cost-effective charities we can find today doesn’t qualify as “effective”, then I don’t think there’s much use in the word, either to describe an -ism or an -ist. It’d be more accurate to call it “hopefully effective altruism”, but I don’t think it’s much of a sacrifice to drop the “hopefully”.
[1] At an emotional level, I have a bit of a I’ve donated a quarter of my salary to the best charities I could find for the last five years, stop trying to take my noun phrase away reaction as well.