EA appears to largely ignore the developments of modern and post-modern philosophy, making EA appear like a genuinely new idea/movement. Which it is not. That means that there is a lot to learn from past instances of EA-like movements. EA-like meaning Western rich people trying to do good with Rationality. 20th century philosophy is brimming with very valid critiques of Rationality, but somehow EA seems to jump from Bentham/Mills to Singer/Parfit without batting an eye.
Abigail leaves open how we should do good, whether we want to pursue systemic change or work within the system, or even how we shall define what “good” is. I am sure this is intentionally put at the end of the video. She warns people who consider joining EA to do so with open eyes. I deeply agree with this. If you are thinking about making EA your political movement of choice, be very careful, as with any political movement. EA claims to be open to different moral standpoints, but it most certainly not. There are unchecked power dynamics at play, demographic bias, “thought leaders”, the primacy of Rationality. If I had any advice for anyone in EA, I would recommend they go and spend a year or more learning about all the philosophy that came AFTER utilitarianism*. Otherwise, EA will be lacking context, and could even appear as The Truth. You will be tempted to buy into the opinion of a small number of apparently smart people saying apparently smart things, and by that, hand over your moral decisions to them.
* (for a start, Philosophize This is a nice podcast that deals at length with a lot of these topics)
EA is a movement that aims to use reason and evidence to do the most good, so the centrality of “rationality” (broadly speaking) shouldn’t be too surprising. Many EAs are also deeply familiar with alternatives to utilitarianism. While most (according to the surveys) are utilitarians, some are non-utilitarian consequentialists or pluralists.
I suspect that the movement is dominated by utilitarians and utilitarian-leaning people because while all effective altruists shouldn’t necessarily be utilitarians, all utilitarians should be effective altruists. In contrast, it’s hard to see why a pure deontologist or virtue ethicist should, as a matter of philosophical consistency, be an effective altruist. It’s also difficult to see how a pure deontologist or virtue ethicist could engage in cause prioritisation decisions without ultimately appealing to consequences.
I want to clarify that I do specifically mean philosophical movements like existentialism, structuralism, post-structuralism, the ethics behind communism and fascism—which all were influential in the 20th century. I would also argue that the grouping into consequentialism/virtue ethics/deontology does not capture the perspectives brought up in the aforementioned movements. I would love to see EAs engage with more modern ideas about ethics because they specifically shed light on the flexibility and impermanence of the terms ‘reason’ and ‘evidence’ over the decades.
Sure, you have to choose some model at some point to act, or else you’ll be paralyzed. But I really wish that people who make significant life changes based on reason and evidence take a close look at how these terms are defined within their political movement, and by whom.
I don’t quite see how existentialism, structuralism, post-structuralism and fascism are going to help us be more effectively altruistic, or how they’re going to help us prioritise causes. Communism is a different case as in some formats it’s a potential altruistic cause area that people may choose to prioritise.
I also don’t think that these ideas are more “modern” than utilitarianism, or that their supposed novelty is a point in their favour. Fascism, just to take one of these movements, has been thoroughly discredited and is pretty much the antithesis of altruism. These movements are movements in their own right, and I don’t think they’d want EAs to turn them into something they’re not. The same is true in the opposite direction.
By all means, make an argument in favour of these movements or their relevance to EA. But claiming that EAs haven’t considered these movements (I have, and think they’re false) isn’t likely to change much.
Surely, they are more modern than utilitarianism. Utilitarianism has been developed in the 19th century, while all the other ones mentioned are from the 20th century. And it is not their “novelty” which is interesting, but that they are a direct follow up and criticism of things like utilitarianism. Also, I don’t think that post above was an endorsement of using fascism, but instead a call to understand the idea why people even started with fascism in the first place.
The main contribution of the above mentioned fields of ideas to EA is that they highlight that reason is not a strong tool, as many EA think it is. You can easily bring yourself into bad situation, even if you follow reason all the way. Reason is not something objective, but born from your standpoint in the world and the culture you grow up in.
And if EA (or you) have considered things like existentialism, structuralism, post-structuralism I’d love to see those arguments why it is not important to EA. Never seen anything in this regard.
I think reason is as close to an objective tool as we’re likely to get and often isn’t born from our standpoint in the world or the culture we grow up in. That’s why people from many different cultures have often reached similar conclusions, and why almost everyone (regardless of their background) can recognise logical and mathematical truths. It’s also why most people agree that the sun will rise the next morning and that attempting to leave your house from your upper floor window is a bad idea.
I think the onus is on advocates of these movements to explain their relevance to “doing the most good”. As for the various 20th Century criticisms of utilitarianism, my sense is that they’ve been parried rather successfully by other philosophers. Finally, my point about utilitarianism being just as modern is that it hasn’t in any way been superseded by these other movements — it’s still practiced and used today.
I think it’s fairly unsurprising that EA is mostly consequentialists or utilitarians. But often it goes way beyond that, into very specific niches that are not all a requirement for trying to “do good effectively”.
For example, a disproportionate amount of people here are are capital R “Rationalists”, referring to the subculture built around fans of the “sequences” blogposts on Lesswrong written by Yudkowsky. I think this subgroup in particular suffers from “not invented here” syndrome, where philosophical ideas that haven’t been translated into rationalist jargon are not engaged with seriously.
I’d like to add a thought on the last point:
EA appears to largely ignore the developments of modern and post-modern philosophy, making EA appear like a genuinely new idea/movement. Which it is not. That means that there is a lot to learn from past instances of EA-like movements. EA-like meaning Western rich people trying to do good with Rationality. 20th century philosophy is brimming with very valid critiques of Rationality, but somehow EA seems to jump from Bentham/Mills to Singer/Parfit without batting an eye.
Abigail leaves open how we should do good, whether we want to pursue systemic change or work within the system, or even how we shall define what “good” is. I am sure this is intentionally put at the end of the video. She warns people who consider joining EA to do so with open eyes. I deeply agree with this. If you are thinking about making EA your political movement of choice, be very careful, as with any political movement. EA claims to be open to different moral standpoints, but it most certainly not. There are unchecked power dynamics at play, demographic bias, “thought leaders”, the primacy of Rationality. If I had any advice for anyone in EA, I would recommend they go and spend a year or more learning about all the philosophy that came AFTER utilitarianism*. Otherwise, EA will be lacking context, and could even appear as The Truth. You will be tempted to buy into the opinion of a small number of apparently smart people saying apparently smart things, and by that, hand over your moral decisions to them.
* (for a start, Philosophize This is a nice podcast that deals at length with a lot of these topics)
EA is a movement that aims to use reason and evidence to do the most good, so the centrality of “rationality” (broadly speaking) shouldn’t be too surprising. Many EAs are also deeply familiar with alternatives to utilitarianism. While most (according to the surveys) are utilitarians, some are non-utilitarian consequentialists or pluralists.
I suspect that the movement is dominated by utilitarians and utilitarian-leaning people because while all effective altruists shouldn’t necessarily be utilitarians, all utilitarians should be effective altruists. In contrast, it’s hard to see why a pure deontologist or virtue ethicist should, as a matter of philosophical consistency, be an effective altruist. It’s also difficult to see how a pure deontologist or virtue ethicist could engage in cause prioritisation decisions without ultimately appealing to consequences.
I want to clarify that I do specifically mean philosophical movements like existentialism, structuralism, post-structuralism, the ethics behind communism and fascism—which all were influential in the 20th century. I would also argue that the grouping into consequentialism/virtue ethics/deontology does not capture the perspectives brought up in the aforementioned movements. I would love to see EAs engage with more modern ideas about ethics because they specifically shed light on the flexibility and impermanence of the terms ‘reason’ and ‘evidence’ over the decades.
Sure, you have to choose some model at some point to act, or else you’ll be paralyzed. But I really wish that people who make significant life changes based on reason and evidence take a close look at how these terms are defined within their political movement, and by whom.
I don’t quite see how existentialism, structuralism, post-structuralism and fascism are going to help us be more effectively altruistic, or how they’re going to help us prioritise causes. Communism is a different case as in some formats it’s a potential altruistic cause area that people may choose to prioritise.
I also don’t think that these ideas are more “modern” than utilitarianism, or that their supposed novelty is a point in their favour. Fascism, just to take one of these movements, has been thoroughly discredited and is pretty much the antithesis of altruism. These movements are movements in their own right, and I don’t think they’d want EAs to turn them into something they’re not. The same is true in the opposite direction.
By all means, make an argument in favour of these movements or their relevance to EA. But claiming that EAs haven’t considered these movements (I have, and think they’re false) isn’t likely to change much.
Surely, they are more modern than utilitarianism. Utilitarianism has been developed in the 19th century, while all the other ones mentioned are from the 20th century. And it is not their “novelty” which is interesting, but that they are a direct follow up and criticism of things like utilitarianism. Also, I don’t think that post above was an endorsement of using fascism, but instead a call to understand the idea why people even started with fascism in the first place.
The main contribution of the above mentioned fields of ideas to EA is that they highlight that reason is not a strong tool, as many EA think it is. You can easily bring yourself into bad situation, even if you follow reason all the way. Reason is not something objective, but born from your standpoint in the world and the culture you grow up in.
And if EA (or you) have considered things like existentialism, structuralism, post-structuralism I’d love to see those arguments why it is not important to EA. Never seen anything in this regard.
I think reason is as close to an objective tool as we’re likely to get and often isn’t born from our standpoint in the world or the culture we grow up in. That’s why people from many different cultures have often reached similar conclusions, and why almost everyone (regardless of their background) can recognise logical and mathematical truths. It’s also why most people agree that the sun will rise the next morning and that attempting to leave your house from your upper floor window is a bad idea.
I think the onus is on advocates of these movements to explain their relevance to “doing the most good”. As for the various 20th Century criticisms of utilitarianism, my sense is that they’ve been parried rather successfully by other philosophers. Finally, my point about utilitarianism being just as modern is that it hasn’t in any way been superseded by these other movements — it’s still practiced and used today.
I think it’s fairly unsurprising that EA is mostly consequentialists or utilitarians. But often it goes way beyond that, into very specific niches that are not all a requirement for trying to “do good effectively”.
For example, a disproportionate amount of people here are are capital R “Rationalists”, referring to the subculture built around fans of the “sequences” blogposts on Lesswrong written by Yudkowsky. I think this subgroup in particular suffers from “not invented here” syndrome, where philosophical ideas that haven’t been translated into rationalist jargon are not engaged with seriously.
I think the note on Not Invented Here syndrome is actually amazing and I’m very happy you introduced that concept into this discussion.