The biggest issue vis-a-vis changing one’s mind about cause areas seems to me likely to be the routine epistemic difficulty of properly (deeply, charitably and effectively) considering opposing points of view (motivated reasoning, confirmation bias etc.). (Closest but not identical to 5).
So conducting Ideological Turing Tests on yourself seems to be the best solution to me. 3 seems a good idea too: you’d really need to work with someone with the other point of view for the ITT to be fruitful, I’m guessing. 1 seems much less useful. For me, giving a nominal sum to causes B and C, where I support cause A, would be about as fruitful as sending a nominal donation to a couple of conservative organisations (which I expect would not shift my views one whit).
The only thing I worry about with the ITT and deep investigation of alternative causes’ arguments is that while these policies are very epistemically and morally virtuous, they seem extremely demanding. I don’t go in for moral over-demandingness arguments, but I worry that becoming decently conversant with the arguments for a cause you don’t yet agree with and thinking about it could require enormous amounts of time and that with anything less than enormous amounts of time and sincere effort invested, a person might do better to just defer to some authority. Alternatively, if you are really worried by apparent peer disagreement/lack of information, you could just split your donations between plausible-looking causes and exhort others to do the same. (This might be especially worthwhile if you think that people are unlikely to switch causes to the most rational, wholesale).
The biggest issue vis-a-vis changing one’s mind about cause areas seems to me likely to be the routine epistemic difficulty of properly (deeply, charitably and effectively) considering opposing points of view (motivated reasoning, confirmation bias etc.). (Closest but not identical to 5).
So conducting Ideological Turing Tests on yourself seems to be the best solution to me. 3 seems a good idea too: you’d really need to work with someone with the other point of view for the ITT to be fruitful, I’m guessing. 1 seems much less useful. For me, giving a nominal sum to causes B and C, where I support cause A, would be about as fruitful as sending a nominal donation to a couple of conservative organisations (which I expect would not shift my views one whit).
The only thing I worry about with the ITT and deep investigation of alternative causes’ arguments is that while these policies are very epistemically and morally virtuous, they seem extremely demanding. I don’t go in for moral over-demandingness arguments, but I worry that becoming decently conversant with the arguments for a cause you don’t yet agree with and thinking about it could require enormous amounts of time and that with anything less than enormous amounts of time and sincere effort invested, a person might do better to just defer to some authority. Alternatively, if you are really worried by apparent peer disagreement/lack of information, you could just split your donations between plausible-looking causes and exhort others to do the same. (This might be especially worthwhile if you think that people are unlikely to switch causes to the most rational, wholesale).