Great post. EA is a mixed blessing for the many folks who tend toward anxiety. There’s always something more to be thinking about, always a career plan to sharpen, always more to donate. Guideposts like this one can help folks manage the firehose and make EA healthier & more sustainable than other social impact communities. I’m thinking of 2017ish Climate Twitter, which kept saying something like “to exist as a person is a crime against the planet.”
One question : “a person’s right to be alive is not tied to their past or future altruistic impact.” I agree with that statement but haven’t heard much of a philosophical justification for it. Do you know where I could learn more about the idea of intrinsic worth and how it relates to consequentialist morality?
I am not the best person to recommend you readings in philosophy, but I can try to elaborate on how I understand this sentence to refer to some common consequentialist perspectives. I hope I’m not repeating something that is already obvious to you.
as I understand it, from the point of utilitarianism this sentence is not true (since it describes a “right” to live and utilitarianism is not a rights-based ethical system)
but in (total hedonistic) utilitarianism, the net-positive experience of being alive and happy has value. In this sense, the person being alive and happy is intrinsically valuable, but not because it is their right to live. Seeing moral patients as “containers” of happiness is a common criticism of utilitarianism. (I have also had anxiety over “but since I’m constantly sad does utilitarianism then tell me I should remove myself from the pool of sentient beings, what if the sum of total happiness is getting lower because of me”. But realistically my life experience has not been net negative so far.)
so I do not recommend basing your (sense of) a right to existence on utilitarianism (you cannot base your right to anything on utilitarianism)
but I feel like some people who are strongly drawn to utilitarianism can benefit from reconnecting to the sense of the intrinsic value of their own happiness, not just the instrumental value of it, and I think some people in EA are almost afraid to do so out of fear that this would make them (too) egoistic/partial
Really thoughtful responses, thank you. I tend to think the idea of intrinsic worth popular in the West stems from Christian influence but haven’t found defense for it outside Christian frameworks
Great post. EA is a mixed blessing for the many folks who tend toward anxiety. There’s always something more to be thinking about, always a career plan to sharpen, always more to donate. Guideposts like this one can help folks manage the firehose and make EA healthier & more sustainable than other social impact communities. I’m thinking of 2017ish Climate Twitter, which kept saying something like “to exist as a person is a crime against the planet.”
One question : “a person’s right to be alive is not tied to their past or future altruistic impact.” I agree with that statement but haven’t heard much of a philosophical justification for it. Do you know where I could learn more about the idea of intrinsic worth and how it relates to consequentialist morality?
I am not the best person to recommend you readings in philosophy, but I can try to elaborate on how I understand this sentence to refer to some common consequentialist perspectives. I hope I’m not repeating something that is already obvious to you.
as I understand it, from the point of utilitarianism this sentence is not true (since it describes a “right” to live and utilitarianism is not a rights-based ethical system)
but in (total hedonistic) utilitarianism, the net-positive experience of being alive and happy has value. In this sense, the person being alive and happy is intrinsically valuable, but not because it is their right to live. Seeing moral patients as “containers” of happiness is a common criticism of utilitarianism. (I have also had anxiety over “but since I’m constantly sad does utilitarianism then tell me I should remove myself from the pool of sentient beings, what if the sum of total happiness is getting lower because of me”. But realistically my life experience has not been net negative so far.)
so I do not recommend basing your (sense of) a right to existence on utilitarianism (you cannot base your right to anything on utilitarianism)
but I feel like some people who are strongly drawn to utilitarianism can benefit from reconnecting to the sense of the intrinsic value of their own happiness, not just the instrumental value of it, and I think some people in EA are almost afraid to do so out of fear that this would make them (too) egoistic/partial
Really thoughtful responses, thank you. I tend to think the idea of intrinsic worth popular in the West stems from Christian influence but haven’t found defense for it outside Christian frameworks