No I don’t think so. Moral realism vs anti-realism is orthogonal to whether one thinks we have a duty or merely an opportunity to be an effective altruist.
For example: a non-cognitivist would interpret my statement, ‘You have a duty to give 10% of your income to charity’ as an expression of the sentiment ‘Hooray to giving away 10% of your income to charity’ or ‘Boo to not-giving away 10% of your income to charity’. Alternatively, a subjectivist (who is sometimes classed as a moral realist, but of a ‘non-robust’ type) would interpret my statement, ‘You have a duty to give 10% of your income to charity’ as made true, in some sense, by the fact that I want you to give away 10% of your income to charity. Similarly a relativist could claim it’s true, but only relative to some standard of assessment.
I am talking about obligations in this Introduction (rather than ‘opportunities’). But I’m not claiming that effective altruism is, by definition, about obligations to do good. I’m arguing that we have an obligation to use at least a significant proportion of our resources to do as much good as we can—i.e. we have an obligation to be partial effective altruists.
No I don’t think so. Moral realism vs anti-realism is orthogonal to whether one thinks we have a duty or merely an opportunity to be an effective altruist.
For example: a non-cognitivist would interpret my statement, ‘You have a duty to give 10% of your income to charity’ as an expression of the sentiment ‘Hooray to giving away 10% of your income to charity’ or ‘Boo to not-giving away 10% of your income to charity’. Alternatively, a subjectivist (who is sometimes classed as a moral realist, but of a ‘non-robust’ type) would interpret my statement, ‘You have a duty to give 10% of your income to charity’ as made true, in some sense, by the fact that I want you to give away 10% of your income to charity. Similarly a relativist could claim it’s true, but only relative to some standard of assessment.
I am talking about obligations in this Introduction (rather than ‘opportunities’). But I’m not claiming that effective altruism is, by definition, about obligations to do good. I’m arguing that we have an obligation to use at least a significant proportion of our resources to do as much good as we can—i.e. we have an obligation to be partial effective altruists.
Thanks, this is helpful.
Could you say a bit more about why you chose to go with the ‘obligations’ framing?