A clear-thinking EA should strongly oppose “ends justify the means” reasoning.
This has indeed always been the case, but I’m glad it is so explicitly pointed out now. The overgeneralization from “FTX/SBF did unethical stuff” to “EA people think the end always justifies the means” is very easy to make for people that are less familiar with EA—or perhaps even SBF fell for this kind of reasoning, though his motivations are speculations for now.
It would probably be for the better to make the faulty nature of “end justify the means” reasoning (or the distinction between naive and prudent utilitarianism) a core EA cultural norm that people can’t miss.
This has indeed always been the case, but I’m glad it is so explicitly pointed out now. The overgeneralization from “FTX/SBF did unethical stuff” to “EA people think the end always justifies the means” is very easy to make for people that are less familiar with EA—or perhaps even SBF fell for this kind of reasoning, though his motivations are speculations for now.
It would probably be for the better to make the faulty nature of “end justify the means” reasoning (or the distinction between naive and prudent utilitarianism) a core EA cultural norm that people can’t miss.