I enjoy posts like these, but it seems difficult to adapt to using them when Iโm actually making a charitable donation (or taking other substantive action).
An idea along those lines: Examine the work of an EA organization that has public analysis of the benefits of various interventions (e.g. GiveWell) from the perspective of variable critical-level utilitarianism, and comment on how youโd personally change the way they calculate benefits if you had the chance.
(This may not actually be applicable to GiveWell; if no orgs fit the bill, you could also examine how donations to a particular charity might look through various utilitarian lenses. In general, Iโd love to see more concrete applications of this kind of analysis.)
Now thatโs a suggestion :-) My intention is to do academic economic research about the implications of such population ethical theories for cost-benefit analysis. My preliminary, highly uncertain guess is that a variable critical level utilitarianism results in a higher priority for avoiding current suffering (e.g. livestock farming, wild animal suffering), because it is closer to a negative utilitarianism or person affecting views, compared to e.g. total utilitarianism which prioritizes the far future (existential risk reduction). And my even more uncertain guess is that variable critical level utilitarianism is less vulnerable than total utilitarianism to counterintuitive sadistic repugnant conclusions. This means that also future generations can be inclined to be variable critical levellers instead of totalists, and that means we should discount future generations more (i.e. prioritize current generations more and focus less on existential risk reduction). But this conclusion will be very senstitive on the critical levels chosen by current and future generations.
I enjoy posts like these, but it seems difficult to adapt to using them when Iโm actually making a charitable donation (or taking other substantive action).
An idea along those lines: Examine the work of an EA organization that has public analysis of the benefits of various interventions (e.g. GiveWell) from the perspective of variable critical-level utilitarianism, and comment on how youโd personally change the way they calculate benefits if you had the chance.
(This may not actually be applicable to GiveWell; if no orgs fit the bill, you could also examine how donations to a particular charity might look through various utilitarian lenses. In general, Iโd love to see more concrete applications of this kind of analysis.)
Now thatโs a suggestion :-) My intention is to do academic economic research about the implications of such population ethical theories for cost-benefit analysis. My preliminary, highly uncertain guess is that a variable critical level utilitarianism results in a higher priority for avoiding current suffering (e.g. livestock farming, wild animal suffering), because it is closer to a negative utilitarianism or person affecting views, compared to e.g. total utilitarianism which prioritizes the far future (existential risk reduction). And my even more uncertain guess is that variable critical level utilitarianism is less vulnerable than total utilitarianism to counterintuitive sadistic repugnant conclusions. This means that also future generations can be inclined to be variable critical levellers instead of totalists, and that means we should discount future generations more (i.e. prioritize current generations more and focus less on existential risk reduction). But this conclusion will be very senstitive on the critical levels chosen by current and future generations.