The strongest counterargument for the Drowning Child argument is “reciprocity”.
If a person saves a nearby drowning child, there is a probability that the saved child then goes onto provide positive utility for the rescuer or their family/tribe/nation. A child who is greatly geographically distant, or is unwilling to provide positive utility to others, is less likely to provide positive utility for the rescuer or their family/tribe/nation. This is an evolutionary explanation of why people are more inclined to save children who are nearby, however the argument also applies to ethical egoists.
This argument is understandably unpopular because it’s inconsistent with core principles of EA.
But the principle of reciprocity (and adjacent kin selection arguments) absolutely is the most plausible argument for why the human species evolved to behave in an apparently altruistic[1] manner and value it in others in the first place, long before we started on abstract value systems like utilitarianism, and in many cases people still value or practice some behaviours that appear altruistic despite indifference to or active disavowal of utilitarian or deontological arguments for improving others’ welfare.
I don’t know if you’re even implying this, but the causal mechanism for altruism arising in humans doesn’t need to hold any moral force over us. Just because kin selection caused us to be altruistic, doesn’t mean we need to think “what would kin selection want?” when deciding how to be altruistic in future. We can replace the causal origin with our own moral foundations, and follow those instead.
For the record, I agree that evolutionary mechanisms need not hold any moral force over us, and lean personally towards considering acts to save human lives of being approximately equal value irrespective of distance and whether anyone actually notices or not. But I still think it’s a fairly strong counterargument to point out that the vast majority of humanity does attach moral weight to proximity and community links, as do the institutions they design to do good, and for reasons.
“This argument is understandably unpopular because it’s inconsistent with core principles of EA.”
Agreed.
However, remember that unpopularity doesn’t mean untrue. We are effective altruists because we succeed at altruism despite the evolutionary and social pressures encouraging us to fail.
The strongest counterargument for the Drowning Child argument is “reciprocity”.
If a person saves a nearby drowning child, there is a probability that the saved child then goes onto provide positive utility for the rescuer or their family/tribe/nation. A child who is greatly geographically distant, or is unwilling to provide positive utility to others, is less likely to provide positive utility for the rescuer or their family/tribe/nation. This is an evolutionary explanation of why people are more inclined to save children who are nearby, however the argument also applies to ethical egoists.
This argument is understandably unpopular because it’s inconsistent with core principles of EA.
But the principle of reciprocity (and adjacent kin selection arguments) absolutely is the most plausible argument for why the human species evolved to behave in an apparently altruistic[1] manner and value it in others in the first place, long before we started on abstract value systems like utilitarianism, and in many cases people still value or practice some behaviours that appear altruistic despite indifference to or active disavowal of utilitarian or deontological arguments for improving others’ welfare.
there’s an entire literature on “reciprocal altruism”
I don’t know if you’re even implying this, but the causal mechanism for altruism arising in humans doesn’t need to hold any moral force over us. Just because kin selection caused us to be altruistic, doesn’t mean we need to think “what would kin selection want?” when deciding how to be altruistic in future. We can replace the causal origin with our own moral foundations, and follow those instead.
For the record, I agree that evolutionary mechanisms need not hold any moral force over us, and lean personally towards considering acts to save human lives of being approximately equal value irrespective of distance and whether anyone actually notices or not. But I still think it’s a fairly strong counterargument to point out that the vast majority of humanity does attach moral weight to proximity and community links, as do the institutions they design to do good, and for reasons.
Agreed.
However, remember that unpopularity doesn’t mean untrue. We are effective altruists because we succeed at altruism despite the evolutionary and social pressures encouraging us to fail.