Singer’s idea about the relative value of guide dogs sets up a false dichotomy, assuming that you can fund guide dogs or fund medical prevention. In fact, you can do both.
In this case that seems to be the substance of the criticism. You can’t anticipate every counter-argument one could make when talking to bigger audiences, but this one is pretty common. It might be necessary to say
if I have to decide where to donate my $ 100...
Not sure it would help, it could be that such arguments trigger bad emotions for other reasons and the counter-arguments we hear are just rationalizations of those emotions. It does feel like a minefield.
Therefore, when comparing any 2 charities while introducing someone (especially an audience) to EA, we must phrase it carefully and sensitively. BTW, I think there is something to learn from way Singer phrased it in the TED talk:
Take, for example, providing a guide dog for a blind person. That’s a good thing to do, right? Well, right, it is a good thing to do, but you have to think what else you could do with the resources. It costs about 40,000 dollars...
The article Vollmer cites says:
In this case that seems to be the substance of the criticism. You can’t anticipate every counter-argument one could make when talking to bigger audiences, but this one is pretty common. It might be necessary to say
Not sure it would help, it could be that such arguments trigger bad emotions for other reasons and the counter-arguments we hear are just rationalizations of those emotions. It does feel like a minefield.
Therefore, when comparing any 2 charities while introducing someone (especially an audience) to EA, we must phrase it carefully and sensitively. BTW, I think there is something to learn from way Singer phrased it in the TED talk: