Again: if your social movement “works in principle” but practical implementation has too many problems, then it’s not really working in principle, either. The quality “we are able to do this effectively in practice” is an important (implicit) in-principle quality.
I think this is an important point.
This is a really big problem for EA. When you have people taking seriously such an overarching principle, you end up with stressed, nervous people, people anxious that they are living wrongly. The correct critique of this situation isn’t the one Singer makes: that it prevents them from doing the most good. The critique is that it is the wrong way to live.
In practice, it is unclear to me how different the 2 critiques are. I would say doing the most good is most likely not compatible with “living in a wrong way”, because too much stress etc. are not good (for yourself or other).
Furthermore, the notion of a single “the” good is also suspect. There are many plural goods, which are fundamentally immeasurable and incommensurate and cannot be combined.
“The” good is a very complex function of reality, but why would it be fundamentally immeasurable and incommensurate?
Indeed, the more illegibility you conquer, the more illegibility springs up, and the greater the need for such work.
I am not sure I fully understand the concept of illegibility, but it does not seem to be much different from knowledge about the unknow. As our knowledge about what was previously unknown increases, knowledge about what is still unknown also increases. Why is this problematic?
(I have crossposted the comments below here.)
Thanks for this article! Below are some comments.
Note there are some external evaluations of EA-aligned organisations and recommendations made by them. Some examples:
2018-2019 Long-Term Future Fund Grantees: How did they do?.
Shallow evaluations of longtermist organizations.
A Critical Review of Open Philanthropy’s Bet On Criminal Justice Reform.
Type Checking GiveWell’s GiveDirectly Cost Effective Analysis.
Quantifying Uncertainty in GiveWell’s GiveDirectly Cost-Effectiveness Analysis.
I think this is an important point.
In practice, it is unclear to me how different the 2 critiques are. I would say doing the most good is most likely not compatible with “living in a wrong way”, because too much stress etc. are not good (for yourself or other).
“The” good is a very complex function of reality, but why would it be fundamentally immeasurable and incommensurate?
I am not sure I fully understand the concept of illegibility, but it does not seem to be much different from knowledge about the unknow. As our knowledge about what was previously unknown increases, knowledge about what is still unknown also increases. Why is this problematic?