I share your concerns about EA being too associated with all of this. I’m not sure it has to be though.
For example when it comes to my suggestion of prominent EA academics (e.g. Peter Singer, Toby Ord etc.) joining advocacy efforts to boost philosophy in schools I don’t mean they should do this with their EA hat on. Peter Singer could do this as “the world’s most famous living ethicist” as opposed to as “the godfather of EA”. Similarly we wouldn’t need EAs to say “please include these EA ideas in the curriculum”, we could just have them say “the ethics of eating meat is a huge issue that should be included”. In short EA doesn’t have to explicitly come into this at all.
The inclusion of EA ideas into curricula was only one of my points anyway and it may not be absolutely necessary. As I mentioned, explicit EA outreach is probably better done at undergraduate level. Before uni, the most important thing is just philosophical learning.
Yes, I’d definitely guess that there’d be ways to do this, or versions of this, which wouldn’t lead to people seeing this push as associated with EA. And that would reduce some risks.
(I didn’t mean to imply my points should push against doing any version of this idea, just that they push against some versions of the idea, or push for particularly great caution regarding those versions of the idea. Also, it’s possible that association with EA would actually be net positive by raising EA’s profile or associating it with something concrete that many people end up liking; I’m just unsure, and think we should be cautious there.)
But counteracting those risks won’t necessarily counteract the other sort of risk I mentioned, which is that rushing somewhat means a less good version of this is implemented than what could’ve been implemented, and once it’s implemented it’s extremely hard to change. So that’s a separate reason to consider things like piloting and doing further research before pushing for widespread rollouts, even if the version of this that’s being done isn’t perceived as associated with EA at all.
(And that’s not a critique of your post, as your post isn’t a public campaign but rather a post to the EA Forum sharing an idea and soliciting input, which is definitely within the category of things I’d suggest at this stage.)
OK thanks that all makes sense. I would love for there to further research and investigation. For example some philosophers/education practitioners in the movement could have a look at the philosophy course I mention to see if it’s something that is worth supporting in addition to your suggestions in another comment.
Thanks for this, all very fair points.
I share your concerns about EA being too associated with all of this. I’m not sure it has to be though.
For example when it comes to my suggestion of prominent EA academics (e.g. Peter Singer, Toby Ord etc.) joining advocacy efforts to boost philosophy in schools I don’t mean they should do this with their EA hat on. Peter Singer could do this as “the world’s most famous living ethicist” as opposed to as “the godfather of EA”. Similarly we wouldn’t need EAs to say “please include these EA ideas in the curriculum”, we could just have them say “the ethics of eating meat is a huge issue that should be included”. In short EA doesn’t have to explicitly come into this at all.
The inclusion of EA ideas into curricula was only one of my points anyway and it may not be absolutely necessary. As I mentioned, explicit EA outreach is probably better done at undergraduate level. Before uni, the most important thing is just philosophical learning.
Yes, I’d definitely guess that there’d be ways to do this, or versions of this, which wouldn’t lead to people seeing this push as associated with EA. And that would reduce some risks.
(I didn’t mean to imply my points should push against doing any version of this idea, just that they push against some versions of the idea, or push for particularly great caution regarding those versions of the idea. Also, it’s possible that association with EA would actually be net positive by raising EA’s profile or associating it with something concrete that many people end up liking; I’m just unsure, and think we should be cautious there.)
But counteracting those risks won’t necessarily counteract the other sort of risk I mentioned, which is that rushing somewhat means a less good version of this is implemented than what could’ve been implemented, and once it’s implemented it’s extremely hard to change. So that’s a separate reason to consider things like piloting and doing further research before pushing for widespread rollouts, even if the version of this that’s being done isn’t perceived as associated with EA at all.
(And that’s not a critique of your post, as your post isn’t a public campaign but rather a post to the EA Forum sharing an idea and soliciting input, which is definitely within the category of things I’d suggest at this stage.)
OK thanks that all makes sense. I would love for there to further research and investigation. For example some philosophers/education practitioners in the movement could have a look at the philosophy course I mention to see if it’s something that is worth supporting in addition to your suggestions in another comment.