There are millions of people around the world who live paycheck to paycheck, and run the risk of becoming homeless if they quit their jobs. We don’t have the resources to help all of those people, and I’m not immediately seeing how deontology helps us figure out how to allocate our limited resources between this and various other obligations we may have. [Edit: maybe this section was obtuse on my part—see Yonatan’s reply below.]
I think it is really valuable for people in EA to feel comfortable pushing back against their boss. (I see strong consequentialist arguments for this. Those arguments are why I will focus on people in EA, rather than non-EAs living paycheck to paycheck, for the rest of this comment.) I think there are ways to achieve this cost-effectively. For example:
When possible, have employee housing arrangements made directly with a landlord or similar person, rather than routing through someone they have a working relationship with.
Agree in advance that any employee who lives for free in employer-provided housing gets to continue living there for, say, 3 months if they quit/get fired.
Build things like Basefund to the point where no EA thinks it is very hard to quit their job. (For example, a hypothetical Basefund+ could guarantee that EA employees who quit/get fired always receive a generous severance package. This idea might seem costly at first, but because the money is going to an EA instead of a landlord, it is much more likely to e.g. be donated to an effective charity.)
Encourage EAs to live with non-EAs when all else is equal.
When I wrote about deontology, I didn’t mean “we must help all people who are stuck in their jobs”. I meant “we must not hire people who will be stuck in their job while arguing that it’s ok to do so for the greater good”
There are millions of people around the world who live paycheck to paycheck, and run the risk of becoming homeless if they quit their jobs. We don’t have the resources to help all of those people, and I’m not immediately seeing how deontology helps us figure out how to allocate our limited resources between this and various other obligations we may have. [Edit: maybe this section was obtuse on my part—see Yonatan’s reply below.]
I think it is really valuable for people in EA to feel comfortable pushing back against their boss. (I see strong consequentialist arguments for this. Those arguments are why I will focus on people in EA, rather than non-EAs living paycheck to paycheck, for the rest of this comment.) I think there are ways to achieve this cost-effectively. For example:
When possible, have employee housing arrangements made directly with a landlord or similar person, rather than routing through someone they have a working relationship with.
Agree in advance that any employee who lives for free in employer-provided housing gets to continue living there for, say, 3 months if they quit/get fired.
Build things like Basefund to the point where no EA thinks it is very hard to quit their job. (For example, a hypothetical Basefund+ could guarantee that EA employees who quit/get fired always receive a generous severance package. This idea might seem costly at first, but because the money is going to an EA instead of a landlord, it is much more likely to e.g. be donated to an effective charity.)
Encourage EAs to live with non-EAs when all else is equal.
(I mostly agree)
When I wrote about deontology, I didn’t mean “we must help all people who are stuck in their jobs”. I meant “we must not hire people who will be stuck in their job while arguing that it’s ok to do so for the greater good”