That Dorothea so closely resembles an effective altruist is not all that surprising, historically. George Eliot edited and wrote for the Westminster Review, a progressive journal established by Jeremy Bentham, and circulated in a milieu of Victorian high culture counting J.S. Mill and Herbert Spencer among its members. As did her husband, George Henry Lewes—a philosopher. I should also perhaps clarify that insofar Eliot spoke of utilitarianism herself, it was mostly negatively.
In any case, that a notional effective altruist is the moral core in one of the putatively greatest texts of the nineteenth century is to be celebrated, and of great affective potential.
That Dorothea so closely resembles an effective altruist is not all that surprising, historically. George Eliot edited and wrote for the Westminster Review, a progressive journal established by Jeremy Bentham, and circulated in a milieu of Victorian high culture counting J.S. Mill and Herbert Spencer among its members. As did her husband, George Henry Lewes—a philosopher. I should also perhaps clarify that insofar Eliot spoke of utilitarianism herself, it was mostly negatively.
In any case, that a notional effective altruist is the moral core in one of the putatively greatest texts of the nineteenth century is to be celebrated, and of great affective potential.
It is indeed interesting that George Eliot had such an intersection with Mill, but as you say she is emphatically not utilitarian.
Yes, while there is much new (and exciting) in effective altruism, I thinks it’s useful to understand how we might link to the past