Youāre welcome to disagree with me about whether whatās most distinctive about EA is its values or its methodology, but itās gratuitous to claim that I am āconfusingā the two just because you disagree. (One might say that you are confusing disagreement with confusion.)
A simple reason why EA canāt just be a value-neutral methodology: that leaves out the āaltruismā part. Effective Nazism is not a possible sub-category of EA, even if they follow an evidence-based methodology for optimizing their Nazi goals.
A second reason, more directly connected to the argument of this post: thereās nothing especially distinctive about ātrying to achieve your goals effectivelyā. Cause-agnostic beneficentrism, by contrast, is a very distinctive value system that can help distinguish the principled ācoreā of EA from more ordinary sorts of (cause-specific) do-gooding.
But the value of the options is not dictated by effective altruism; this depends on ones valuation of shrimp vs human life in the first case, and ones risk profile in the second.
This is a misunderstanding of my view. I never suggested that EA ādictatesā how to resolves disputes about the impartial good. I merely suggested that it (at core; one might participate in some sub-projects without endorsing the core principles) involves a commitment to being guided by considerations of the impartial good. The idea that value ādepends on oneās valuationā is a fairly crude and contestable form of anti-realism. Obviously if itās possible for oneās valuations to be mistaken, then one should instead be guided by the correct way to balance these competing interests.
Youāre welcome to disagree with me about whether whatās most distinctive about EA is its values or its methodology, but itās gratuitous to claim that I am āconfusingā the two just because you disagree. (One might say that you are confusing disagreement with confusion.)
A simple reason why EA canāt just be a value-neutral methodology: that leaves out the āaltruismā part. Effective Nazism is not a possible sub-category of EA, even if they follow an evidence-based methodology for optimizing their Nazi goals.
A second reason, more directly connected to the argument of this post: thereās nothing especially distinctive about ātrying to achieve your goals effectivelyā. Cause-agnostic beneficentrism, by contrast, is a very distinctive value system that can help distinguish the principled ācoreā of EA from more ordinary sorts of (cause-specific) do-gooding.
This is a misunderstanding of my view. I never suggested that EA ādictatesā how to resolves disputes about the impartial good. I merely suggested that it (at core; one might participate in some sub-projects without endorsing the core principles) involves a commitment to being guided by considerations of the impartial good. The idea that value ādepends on oneās valuationā is a fairly crude and contestable form of anti-realism. Obviously if itās possible for oneās valuations to be mistaken, then one should instead be guided by the correct way to balance these competing interests.