Hi Prabhat, I’m a bit late to responding, but that was my article and I do have some thoughts on how promoting general philosophy education compares to EA outreach.
On the one hand whilst philosophy could in theory become part of the core curriculum and be taught on a regular basis, this is unlikely to be true of EA. It is difficult for EA outreach to be made consistent for students, which might make it hard for students to stay engaged. Therefore I think that general philosophy wins on a “consistency” metric. However, having dedicated EA teachers at schools could (possibly) allow for more consistent EA outreach.
On the other hand there is the question of how direct (to EA) the teaching is. On this metric obviously EA outreach wins. Despite this, there is a question over how useful EA outreach might actually be to high-schoolers in terms of how decision-relevant it would be for them. As raised by Ben Todd in another comment, it might be that most of what we can say to students (“do technical subjects” etc.) is already fairly well known. Perhaps the best approach with younger students is instead to introduce people to a philosophical way of thinking more generally with an EA slant where possible (e.g. Singerian-style practical ethics), with a view for EA outreach further down the line. Therefore on a “usefulness” metric I’m not entirely sure which approach wins.
Overall I think both approaches have promise, but I would be very happy for people to explore further.
Another approach that targets high-schoolers that I can think of is promoting philosophy education in schools. How does EA outreach in schools compare with this?
Hi Prabhat, I’m a bit late to responding, but that was my article and I do have some thoughts on how promoting general philosophy education compares to EA outreach.
On the one hand whilst philosophy could in theory become part of the core curriculum and be taught on a regular basis, this is unlikely to be true of EA. It is difficult for EA outreach to be made consistent for students, which might make it hard for students to stay engaged. Therefore I think that general philosophy wins on a “consistency” metric. However, having dedicated EA teachers at schools could (possibly) allow for more consistent EA outreach.
On the other hand there is the question of how direct (to EA) the teaching is. On this metric obviously EA outreach wins. Despite this, there is a question over how useful EA outreach might actually be to high-schoolers in terms of how decision-relevant it would be for them. As raised by Ben Todd in another comment, it might be that most of what we can say to students (“do technical subjects” etc.) is already fairly well known. Perhaps the best approach with younger students is instead to introduce people to a philosophical way of thinking more generally with an EA slant where possible (e.g. Singerian-style practical ethics), with a view for EA outreach further down the line. Therefore on a “usefulness” metric I’m not entirely sure which approach wins.
Overall I think both approaches have promise, but I would be very happy for people to explore further.
Hey Jack, thanks for the reply. Yeah, I agree that it’s not obvious which among among the two is more promising.