A bit more generally: I think we can look at religions as a set of Alt-EA movements.
Most religions have strong prescriptions and incentives for their members to do good. Many of them also advocate for donating a part of one’s income.
All these religions also have members that think hard about how to do the most good in a cost-effective way. Here, “good” follows the definition of the religion and might include aspects such as bringing people closer to God. However, it is usually correlated with EA notions of utility or wellbeing or freedom from suffering. And indeed one can find faith-based organizations with large positive effects: For example, AMF could not distribute its bednets without local partner organizations, and in that list are many faith-based ones like IMA or World Vision.
I’m not claiming that the effect of religion overall is robustly positive—that’s a very difficult question to answer—but that EA-like intentions, and sometimes actions, can be found in many religious people and organizations.
Yeah, I had wondered about this, as certain religious subcommunities seem the main precedents for moral ambitiousness. But of course there’s also an awful lot of parochialism and explicit demonization of outgroups inherent in many religious communities. (Evangelical Christianity in the US does not seem accurately characterized as driven by universal beneficence, for example!) Given the immense size of major religions, I’d be wary of attributing beneficentrism to religious institutions as a whole on the basis of what “can be found” amongst some (arguably non-representative) members.
But yes, I think at least some highly-specified religious sub-communities could be a good place to look here. (And I’d guess that’s precisely where “EA for Christians” outreach is most successful.)
I came to the basic idea of EA, long before I found the movement, from a Christian perspective. So I think there’s certainly the basis for it in a lot of religions. But I think at that point I was more devout than most Christians, even most of those who go to church every Sunday. This is probably a key factor.
I’m not sure how seriously most people take any of their goals, even the selfish ones. Lack of commitment is a hell of a thing, and even more so when mental effort and uncertainty are required. It kind of astounds me how often people say they want something and then don’t follow through at all on even minimal efforts. A friend wanted a job in my field, so I introduced him to a connection in his area. He never met with her. Other friends have run for office, but then not bothered talking to any voters. A relative repeats the same financial mistakes over and over and over again despite my attempts to help her with financial planning and her swearing up and down each time that next time will be different.
And all of these personal goals are a lot more straightforward to sort out than “how do I do the most good I can do?”. I could figure out a plan for all of these examples in an afternoon at most, and after years of effort I still don’t know how to be a maximally effective altruist. Most people, when they can’t round uncertainty off to “yes” or “no”, seem to have this idea that it’s uncertain so all actions are the same. I recently had a conversation with an acquaintance who accused me of “only thinking in black and white” because I believe with a high degree of confidence that donating to AMF is a better choice than randomly paying for groceries for the person behind you in line, “because maybe they need it and maybe the kindness will ripple through the world and have other effects”. And several other people witnessing this debate agreed with him!
So in addition to altruism, I think key personality traits that would be necessary for someone to be even an alt-EA are an abnormally high level of goal-commitment, and an unusually high level of comfort making decisions under uncertainty.
A bit more generally: I think we can look at religions as a set of Alt-EA movements.
Most religions have strong prescriptions and incentives for their members to do good. Many of them also advocate for donating a part of one’s income.
All these religions also have members that think hard about how to do the most good in a cost-effective way. Here, “good” follows the definition of the religion and might include aspects such as bringing people closer to God. However, it is usually correlated with EA notions of utility or wellbeing or freedom from suffering. And indeed one can find faith-based organizations with large positive effects: For example, AMF could not distribute its bednets without local partner organizations, and in that list are many faith-based ones like IMA or World Vision.
I’m not claiming that the effect of religion overall is robustly positive—that’s a very difficult question to answer—but that EA-like intentions, and sometimes actions, can be found in many religious people and organizations.
Yeah, I had wondered about this, as certain religious subcommunities seem the main precedents for moral ambitiousness. But of course there’s also an awful lot of parochialism and explicit demonization of outgroups inherent in many religious communities. (Evangelical Christianity in the US does not seem accurately characterized as driven by universal beneficence, for example!) Given the immense size of major religions, I’d be wary of attributing beneficentrism to religious institutions as a whole on the basis of what “can be found” amongst some (arguably non-representative) members.
But yes, I think at least some highly-specified religious sub-communities could be a good place to look here. (And I’d guess that’s precisely where “EA for Christians” outreach is most successful.)
I came to the basic idea of EA, long before I found the movement, from a Christian perspective. So I think there’s certainly the basis for it in a lot of religions. But I think at that point I was more devout than most Christians, even most of those who go to church every Sunday. This is probably a key factor.
I’m not sure how seriously most people take any of their goals, even the selfish ones. Lack of commitment is a hell of a thing, and even more so when mental effort and uncertainty are required. It kind of astounds me how often people say they want something and then don’t follow through at all on even minimal efforts. A friend wanted a job in my field, so I introduced him to a connection in his area. He never met with her. Other friends have run for office, but then not bothered talking to any voters. A relative repeats the same financial mistakes over and over and over again despite my attempts to help her with financial planning and her swearing up and down each time that next time will be different.
And all of these personal goals are a lot more straightforward to sort out than “how do I do the most good I can do?”. I could figure out a plan for all of these examples in an afternoon at most, and after years of effort I still don’t know how to be a maximally effective altruist. Most people, when they can’t round uncertainty off to “yes” or “no”, seem to have this idea that it’s uncertain so all actions are the same. I recently had a conversation with an acquaintance who accused me of “only thinking in black and white” because I believe with a high degree of confidence that donating to AMF is a better choice than randomly paying for groceries for the person behind you in line, “because maybe they need it and maybe the kindness will ripple through the world and have other effects”. And several other people witnessing this debate agreed with him!
So in addition to altruism, I think key personality traits that would be necessary for someone to be even an alt-EA are an abnormally high level of goal-commitment, and an unusually high level of comfort making decisions under uncertainty.