I’m not sure many EAs will agree with your intuition (If I’m understanding your question correctly) that it’s morally wrong to kill one person to save 10. There are certainly some moral philosophers who do, however. This dilemma is often referred to as the “trolley problem”, and has had plenty of discussion over the years.
You may find this interesting reading, it turns out people’s intuitions about similar problems vary quite a lot based on culture.
Interesting, so what are the bounds of the views of effective altruism with regards to maximizing impact? For example, if a eugenics program was found to be the #1 way to increase humanity’s chance of survival, then would that be an acceptable/ideal program to donate to from the lens of effective altruism?
Thanks, that article is interesting. Interesting that the views mainly fell into three groups of western, southern, and eastern.
People’s beliefs differ widely on questions like that, even within EA. But it’s helpful to keep in mind that things like “eugenics programs” in the Nazism sense (or various other forms of crime) are highly unlikely to be the best way to increase humanity’s chances of survival, because they have many flow-through effects that are bad in a variety of ways.
I try to perform very well on “standard” generosity and ethics, and overlay my more personal, debatable, potentially-biased agenda on top of that rather than in replacement of it. I wouldn’t steal money to give it to our top charities.
Stealing money to save lives may seem moral in the short run, but there are so many ways theft can backfire that it’s probably a terrible strategy even if you’re focused on the total utility of your actions and ignoring commonsense prohibitions against stealing. You could be caught and jailed, reducing your ability to do good for a long time; your actions could hurt the reputation of EA as a movement and/or the reputation of the charity you supported; your victim could become an outspoken advocate against EA; and so on.
The general strategy that seems likely to most improve the future involves building a large, thriving community of people who care a lot about doing good and also care about using reason and evidence. Advocating crime, or behavior that a vast majority of people would view as actively immoral, makes it very hard to build such a community.
I’m not sure many EAs will agree with your intuition (If I’m understanding your question correctly) that it’s morally wrong to kill one person to save 10. There are certainly some moral philosophers who do, however. This dilemma is often referred to as the “trolley problem”, and has had plenty of discussion over the years.
You may find this interesting reading, it turns out people’s intuitions about similar problems vary quite a lot based on culture.
Interesting, so what are the bounds of the views of effective altruism with regards to maximizing impact? For example, if a eugenics program was found to be the #1 way to increase humanity’s chance of survival, then would that be an acceptable/ideal program to donate to from the lens of effective altruism?
Thanks, that article is interesting. Interesting that the views mainly fell into three groups of western, southern, and eastern.
People’s beliefs differ widely on questions like that, even within EA. But it’s helpful to keep in mind that things like “eugenics programs” in the Nazism sense (or various other forms of crime) are highly unlikely to be the best way to increase humanity’s chances of survival, because they have many flow-through effects that are bad in a variety of ways.
To quote Holden Karnofsky:
Stealing money to save lives may seem moral in the short run, but there are so many ways theft can backfire that it’s probably a terrible strategy even if you’re focused on the total utility of your actions and ignoring commonsense prohibitions against stealing. You could be caught and jailed, reducing your ability to do good for a long time; your actions could hurt the reputation of EA as a movement and/or the reputation of the charity you supported; your victim could become an outspoken advocate against EA; and so on.
The general strategy that seems likely to most improve the future involves building a large, thriving community of people who care a lot about doing good and also care about using reason and evidence. Advocating crime, or behavior that a vast majority of people would view as actively immoral, makes it very hard to build such a community.
Thanks so much for the explanation! That makes a lot of sense, especially the third paragraph!