Iâm a bit surprised that this is getting downvoted, rather than just disagree-voted. Itâs fine to reach a different verdict and all, but yâall really think the methodological point Iâm making here shouldnât even be said? Weird.
I didnât downvote, but if I had, it would be because I donât think itâs surely false that âthat a rational beneficent agent might just as well support the For Malaria Foundation as the Against Malaria Foundationâ, and that claim seems overconfident. (Or, rather, AMF could be no better than burning money or the Make a Wish Foundation, even if all are better than FMF, in case there is asymmetry between AMF and FMF.)
I specifically worry that AMF could be bad if and because it hurts farmed animals more than it helps people, considering also that descendants of beneficiaries will likely consume more factory farmed animal products, with increasing animal product consumption and intensification with economic development. Wild animal (invertebrate) effects could again go either way. If youâre an expectational total utilitarian or otherwise very risk-neutral wrt aggregate welfare, then you may as well ignore the near term benefits and harms and focus on the indirect effects on the far future, e.g. through how it affects the EA community and x-risks. (Probably FMF would have very bad community effects, worse than AMFâs are good relative to more direct near term effects, unless FMF quietly acts to convince people to stop donating to AMF.)
And I say this as a recurring small donor to malaria charities including AMF. I think AMF can still be a worthwhile part of a portfolio of interventions, even if it turns out to not look robustly good on its own (it could be that few things do). See my post Hedging against deep and moral uncertainty for illustration.
Since this intuition leads to the (surely false) conclusion that a rational beneficent agent might just as well support the For Malaria Foundation as the Against Malaria Foundation, it seems to me that we have very good reason to reject that theoretical intuition.
Is this a fair comparison? For readersâ context, Andreas compares the Against Malaria Foundation (AMF) with Make-A-Wish Foundation:
In comparing Make-A-Wish Foundation unfavourably to Against Malaria Foundation, Singer (2015) observes that Âłsaving a life is better than making a wish come true.´ (6) Arguably, there is a qualifier missing from this statement: Âľall else being equal. Saving a childâs life need not be better than fulfilling a childâs wish if the indirect effects of saving the childâs life are worse than those of fulfilling the wish. We have already touched on some of the potential negative indirect effects associated with the mass distribution of insecticide-treated anti-malarial bed-nets in section 2.2, but they are worth revisiting in order to make clear the depth of our uncertainty.
Firstly, there are potential effects on population. When people survive childhood in greater numbers, it is natural to expect the population to grow. The explosion in global population observed since the 17th century is arguably attributable principally to declining mortality (McKeown 1976). However, we must also account for the impact of reduced childhood mortality on family planning. When childhood mortality declines, parents in developing countries need not have as many children in 14 order to ensure that they can be supported in old age. As a result, averting child deaths may cause the rate of population growth to decline (Heer and Smith 1968). It is the position of the Gates Foundation that averting child deaths at the current margin will reduce population size (Gates and Gates 2014). Many studies confirm that the effect of reduced childhood mortality on population size is offset by reduced fertility (Schultz 1997; Conley, McCord, and Sachs 2007; Lorentzen, McMillan, and Wacziarg 2008; Murtin 2013). Others find that the reduction in births is less than one-to-one with respect to averted child deaths (Bhalotra and van Soest 2008; Herzer, Strulik, and Vollmer 2012; Bhalotra, Hollywood, and Venkataramani 2012). Unfortunately, the studies just noted are of different kinds (cross-country comparisons, panel studies, quasi-experiments, large-sample micro-studies), with different strengths and weaknesses, making it difficult to draw firm conclusions. 13
I agree increasing malaria is surely worse than decreasing malaria, but I would not say Make-A-Wish Foundation is surely worse than AMF. Given this distinction, I (lightly) downvoted your comment.
It is a fair comparison. Andreasâ relevant claim is that it isnât clear what the sign of the effect from AMF is. If AMF is negative, then its oppositeâFMFâwould presumably be positive.
If AMF is negative, then its oppositeâFMFâwould presumably be positive.
I am not sure about this. I think Andreasâ claim is that AMF may be negative due to indirect effects. So, conditional on AMF being negative, one should expect the indirect effects would dominate the direct ones. This means a good candidare for âMinus AMFâ, an organisation whose value is symmetric to that of AMF, would have both direct and indirect effects symmetric to those of AMF.
The name For Malaria Foundation (FMF) suggested to me an organisation whose interventions have direct effects with similar magnitude, but opposite sign of those of AMF. However, the negative indirect effects of intentionally increasing malaria deaths seem worse than the negative of the positive indirect effects of decreasing malaria deaths[1]. So, AMF being negative would imply FMF having positive direct effects, but in this case I would expect FMFâs indirect effects to be sufficiently negative for it to be overall net negative.
If youâre worried that a real-life FMF would not be truly symmetrical to AMF in its effects, just mentally replace it with âMinus AMFâ in my original comment. (Or imagine stipulating away any such differences.) It doesnât affect the essential point.
Iâm a bit surprised that this is getting downvoted, rather than just disagree-voted. Itâs fine to reach a different verdict and all, but yâall really think the methodological point Iâm making here shouldnât even be said? Weird.
I didnât downvote, but if I had, it would be because I donât think itâs surely false that âthat a rational beneficent agent might just as well support the For Malaria Foundation as the Against Malaria Foundationâ, and that claim seems overconfident. (Or, rather, AMF could be no better than burning money or the Make a Wish Foundation, even if all are better than FMF, in case there is asymmetry between AMF and FMF.)
I specifically worry that AMF could be bad if and because it hurts farmed animals more than it helps people, considering also that descendants of beneficiaries will likely consume more factory farmed animal products, with increasing animal product consumption and intensification with economic development. Wild animal (invertebrate) effects could again go either way. If youâre an expectational total utilitarian or otherwise very risk-neutral wrt aggregate welfare, then you may as well ignore the near term benefits and harms and focus on the indirect effects on the far future, e.g. through how it affects the EA community and x-risks. (Probably FMF would have very bad community effects, worse than AMFâs are good relative to more direct near term effects, unless FMF quietly acts to convince people to stop donating to AMF.)
And I say this as a recurring small donor to malaria charities including AMF. I think AMF can still be a worthwhile part of a portfolio of interventions, even if it turns out to not look robustly good on its own (it could be that few things do). See my post Hedging against deep and moral uncertainty for illustration.
Hi Richard,
Is this a fair comparison? For readersâ context, Andreas compares the Against Malaria Foundation (AMF) with Make-A-Wish Foundation:
I agree increasing malaria is surely worse than decreasing malaria, but I would not say Make-A-Wish Foundation is surely worse than AMF. Given this distinction, I (lightly) downvoted your comment.
Thanks for explaining!
It is a fair comparison. Andreasâ relevant claim is that it isnât clear what the sign of the effect from AMF is. If AMF is negative, then its oppositeâFMFâwould presumably be positive.
Thanks for following up!
I am not sure about this. I think Andreasâ claim is that AMF may be negative due to indirect effects. So, conditional on AMF being negative, one should expect the indirect effects would dominate the direct ones. This means a good candidare for âMinus AMFâ, an organisation whose value is symmetric to that of AMF, would have both direct and indirect effects symmetric to those of AMF.
The name For Malaria Foundation (FMF) suggested to me an organisation whose interventions have direct effects with similar magnitude, but opposite sign of those of AMF. However, the negative indirect effects of intentionally increasing malaria deaths seem worse than the negative of the positive indirect effects of decreasing malaria deaths[1]. So, AMF being negative would imply FMF having positive direct effects, but in this case I would expect FMFâs indirect effects to be sufficiently negative for it to be overall net negative.
I am utilitarian, but recognise saving a life, and abstaining from saving a live can have different indirect consequences.
If youâre worried that a real-life FMF would not be truly symmetrical to AMF in its effects, just mentally replace it with âMinus AMFâ in my original comment. (Or imagine stipulating away any such differences.) It doesnât affect the essential point.