I really like this post! I’m sympathetic to the point about normativity. I particualrly think the point that movements may be able to suffer from not being demanding enough is a potentially really good one and not something I’ve thought about before. I wonder if there are examples?
For what it’s worth, since the antecedent “if you want to contrinute to the common good” is so minimal, ben’s def feels kind of near-normative to me—like it gets someone on the normative hook with “mistake” unless they say “well I jsut don’t care about the common good”, and then common sense morality tells them they’re doing something wrong… so it’s kind of like we don’t have to explicitly?
Also, I think I disagree about the maximising point. Basically I read your proposed definition as near-maximising, becuase when you iterate on ‘contributing much more’ over and over again you get a maximum or a near-maximum. And then it’s like… does that really get you out of the cited worries with maximising? Like it still means that “doing a lot of good” will be not good enough a lot of the time (as long as there’s still something else you could do that would do much more good), which I think could still run into at least the 2nd and 3rd worries you cite with having maximising in there?
Thanks for the kind words and feedback! Some responses:
I wonder if there are examples?
The sort of examples which come to mind are things like new religions, or startup, or cults—all of which make heavy demands on early participants, and thereby foster a strong group bond and sense of shared identity which allows them greater long-term success.
since the antecedent “if you want to contribute to the common good” is so minimal, ben’s def feels kind of near-normative to me
Consider someone who only cares about the lives of people in their own town. Do they want to contribute to the common good? In one sense yes, because the good of the town is a part of the common good. But in another sense no; they care about something different from the common good, which just happens to partially overlap with it.
Using the first definition, “if you want to contribute to the common good” is too minimal to imply that not pursuing effective altruism is a mistake.
Using the second definition, “if you want to contribute to the common good” is too demanding—because many people care about individual components of the common good (e.g. human flourishing) without being totally on board with “welfare from an impartial perspective”.
I think I disagree about the maximising point. Basically I read your proposed definition as near-maximising, becuase when you iterate on ‘contributing much more’ over and over again you get a maximum or a near-maximum.
Yeah, I agree that it’s tricky to dodge maximalism. I give some more intuitions for what I’m trying to do in this post. On the 2nd worry: I think we’re much more radically uncertain about the (ex ante) best option available to us out of the space of all possible actions, than we are radically uncertain about a direct comparison between current options vs a new proposed option which might do “much more” good. On the 3rd worry: we should still encourage people not to let their personal preferences stand in the way of doing much more good. But this is consistent with (for example) people spending 20% of their charity budget in less effective ways. (I’m implicitly thinking of “much more” in relative terms, not absolute—so a 25% increase is not “much more” good.)
I really like this post! I’m sympathetic to the point about normativity. I particualrly think the point that movements may be able to suffer from not being demanding enough is a potentially really good one and not something I’ve thought about before. I wonder if there are examples?
For what it’s worth, since the antecedent “if you want to contrinute to the common good” is so minimal, ben’s def feels kind of near-normative to me—like it gets someone on the normative hook with “mistake” unless they say “well I jsut don’t care about the common good”, and then common sense morality tells them they’re doing something wrong… so it’s kind of like we don’t have to explicitly?
Also, I think I disagree about the maximising point. Basically I read your proposed definition as near-maximising, becuase when you iterate on ‘contributing much more’ over and over again you get a maximum or a near-maximum. And then it’s like… does that really get you out of the cited worries with maximising? Like it still means that “doing a lot of good” will be not good enough a lot of the time (as long as there’s still something else you could do that would do much more good), which I think could still run into at least the 2nd and 3rd worries you cite with having maximising in there?
Thanks for the kind words and feedback! Some responses:
The sort of examples which come to mind are things like new religions, or startup, or cults—all of which make heavy demands on early participants, and thereby foster a strong group bond and sense of shared identity which allows them greater long-term success.
Consider someone who only cares about the lives of people in their own town. Do they want to contribute to the common good? In one sense yes, because the good of the town is a part of the common good. But in another sense no; they care about something different from the common good, which just happens to partially overlap with it.
Using the first definition, “if you want to contribute to the common good” is too minimal to imply that not pursuing effective altruism is a mistake.
Using the second definition, “if you want to contribute to the common good” is too demanding—because many people care about individual components of the common good (e.g. human flourishing) without being totally on board with “welfare from an impartial perspective”.
Yeah, I agree that it’s tricky to dodge maximalism. I give some more intuitions for what I’m trying to do in this post. On the 2nd worry: I think we’re much more radically uncertain about the (ex ante) best option available to us out of the space of all possible actions, than we are radically uncertain about a direct comparison between current options vs a new proposed option which might do “much more” good. On the 3rd worry: we should still encourage people not to let their personal preferences stand in the way of doing much more good. But this is consistent with (for example) people spending 20% of their charity budget in less effective ways. (I’m implicitly thinking of “much more” in relative terms, not absolute—so a 25% increase is not “much more” good.)