I don’t get the impression that EAs are particularly motivated by morality. Rather, they are motivated to produce things they see as good. Some moral theories, like contractualism, see producing a lot of good things (within the bounds of our other moral duties) as morally optional. You’re not doing wrong by living a normal decent life. It seems perfectly aligned with EA to hold one of those theories and still personally aim to do as much good as possible.
A moral theory is more important in what it tells you you can’t do in pursuit of the good. Generally what is practical to do if you’re trying to effectively pursue the good and abiding by the standard moral rules of society (e.g. don’t steal money to give to charity) go hand in hand, so I would expect to see less discussion of this on the forum. Where they come apart, it is probably a significant reputational risk to discuss them.
So this depends if you take EA to be more fundamentally interested in theories of beneficence (roughly what ought you do to positively help others) or in theories of axiology (roughly what makes a world better or worse). I’m suspicious of most theories that pull these apart, but importantly Scanlon’s work is really interested in trying to separate the two, and basically ditch the direct relevance of axiology altogether. Certainly he goes beyond telling people what they ought not to do. If EA is fundamentally about beneficence, Scanlon is very relevant, if it’s more about axiology, he’s more or less silent.
I don’t get the impression that EAs are particularly motivated by morality. Rather, they are motivated to produce things they see as good. Some moral theories, like contractualism, see producing a lot of good things (within the bounds of our other moral duties) as morally optional. You’re not doing wrong by living a normal decent life. It seems perfectly aligned with EA to hold one of those theories and still personally aim to do as much good as possible.
A moral theory is more important in what it tells you you can’t do in pursuit of the good. Generally what is practical to do if you’re trying to effectively pursue the good and abiding by the standard moral rules of society (e.g. don’t steal money to give to charity) go hand in hand, so I would expect to see less discussion of this on the forum. Where they come apart, it is probably a significant reputational risk to discuss them.
So this depends if you take EA to be more fundamentally interested in theories of beneficence (roughly what ought you do to positively help others) or in theories of axiology (roughly what makes a world better or worse). I’m suspicious of most theories that pull these apart, but importantly Scanlon’s work is really interested in trying to separate the two, and basically ditch the direct relevance of axiology altogether. Certainly he goes beyond telling people what they ought not to do. If EA is fundamentally about beneficence, Scanlon is very relevant, if it’s more about axiology, he’s more or less silent.