The idea that she and some other nonconsequentialist philosophers have is that if you care less about faraway people’s preferences and welfare, and care more about stuff like moral intuitions, “critical race theory” and “Marxian social theory” (her words), then it’s less abstract. But as you can see here, they’re still doing complicated ivory tower philosophy that ordinary people do not pick up. So it’s a rather particular definition of the term ‘abstract’.
Let’s be clear: you do not have to have abstract moral epistemology to be an EA. You can ignore theoretical utilitarianism, and ignore all the abstract moral epistemology in that letter, and just commit yourself to making the world better through a basic common-sense understanding of effectiveness and the collective good, and that can be EA. If anyone’s going to do philosophical gatekeeping for who can or can’t count as an EA, it’ll be EAs, not a philosopher who doesn’t even understand the movement.
The idea that she and some other nonconsequentialist philosophers have is that if you care less about faraway people’s preferences and welfare, and care more about stuff like moral intuitions, “critical race theory” and “Marxian social theory” (her words), then it’s less abstract. But as you can see here, they’re still doing complicated ivory tower philosophy that ordinary people do not pick up. So it’s a rather particular definition of the term ‘abstract’.
Let’s be clear: you do not have to have abstract moral epistemology to be an EA. You can ignore theoretical utilitarianism, and ignore all the abstract moral epistemology in that letter, and just commit yourself to making the world better through a basic common-sense understanding of effectiveness and the collective good, and that can be EA. If anyone’s going to do philosophical gatekeeping for who can or can’t count as an EA, it’ll be EAs, not a philosopher who doesn’t even understand the movement.