I think the comparison between calling yourself a Christian but not believing in the Divinity of Jesus or something is a worse analogy to being a non-Utilitarian EA than calling yourself a Republican but not believing in the divinity of Jesus. It’s true that utilitarianism is overrepresented among EAs including influential ones, and most of their favored causes are ones utilitarians like, but it is my impression that most EAs are not utilitarians and almost none of them think utilitarianism is just what EA is.
Given this, the post reads to me sort of like “I’m a pro-life free market loving Buddhist, but Christianity is wrong therefore I can’t be a Republican”.
This makes the rest of the post less compelling to me to be honest, debates about high level moral philosophy are interesting but unlikely to be settled over one blogpost (even just the debate over pure aggregation is extremely complicated, and you seem to take a very dismissive attitude towards it), and the connection to EA as a movement made in the post seems too dubious to justify it. The piece seems like a good explanation of why you aren’t a utilitarian, but I don’t take it that that was your motive.
I think the comparison between calling yourself a Christian but not believing in the Divinity of Jesus or something is a worse analogy to being a non-Utilitarian EA than calling yourself a Republican but not believing in the divinity of Jesus. It’s true that utilitarianism is overrepresented among EAs including influential ones, and most of their favored causes are ones utilitarians like, but it is my impression that most EAs are not utilitarians and almost none of them think utilitarianism is just what EA is.
Given this, the post reads to me sort of like “I’m a pro-life free market loving Buddhist, but Christianity is wrong therefore I can’t be a Republican”.
This makes the rest of the post less compelling to me to be honest, debates about high level moral philosophy are interesting but unlikely to be settled over one blogpost (even just the debate over pure aggregation is extremely complicated, and you seem to take a very dismissive attitude towards it), and the connection to EA as a movement made in the post seems too dubious to justify it. The piece seems like a good explanation of why you aren’t a utilitarian, but I don’t take it that that was your motive.