Yeah, I think the crux is that you want to weight counterfactual analysis less and myself and EAs generally think this is the ultimate question (at least to the extent consequentialism is motivating our actions as opposed to non-consequentialist moral considerations).
I think that the way to evaluate Alec’s impact is to say, if Alec had not taken action, would those thousand people be dead or would they be alive? (in this hypothetical, I’m assuming Alec is playing a founder role regarding a new intervention). Regarding the twenty other people, ask yourself if the same is true of them. If they are volunteering, would there have been others to volunteer, or would the project been able to procure the funds to fund employees? If they are working for pay, was their work such that the project would not have been able to happen without them? Maybe it is the case that some or all of these people were truly indispensable to the project, such that a proper impact analysis would attribute much or even most of the impact to the twenty people other than Alec.
On the other hand, it may be the case that Alec secured funding to pay these twenty other people and if they had not taken the position, other competent people would. In this situation, provided that there were not other sources of funding for Alec, I would say an impact analysis would attribute half of the lives saved to Alec and half to the funder.
I acknowledge that determining the counterfactual is hard (for instance, maybe the 20 workers freed up other actors to do other impactful work). But as the endpoint of analysis, I definitely think we should be trying to determine what the world looks like if we do X rather than if we did not do X, rather than if we do something that other people consider admirable or otherwise feels good.
EDIT: I realize you put “and those thousand people would not be saved but for the twenty others”. If this is true, then the impact “credit” should definitely be spread among them. I think it bears considering whether that is true.
Yeah, I think the crux is that you want to weight counterfactual analysis less and myself and EAs generally think this is the ultimate question (at least to the extent consequentialism is motivating our actions as opposed to non-consequentialist moral considerations).
I think that the way to evaluate Alec’s impact is to say, if Alec had not taken action, would those thousand people be dead or would they be alive? (in this hypothetical, I’m assuming Alec is playing a founder role regarding a new intervention). Regarding the twenty other people, ask yourself if the same is true of them. If they are volunteering, would there have been others to volunteer, or would the project been able to procure the funds to fund employees? If they are working for pay, was their work such that the project would not have been able to happen without them? Maybe it is the case that some or all of these people were truly indispensable to the project, such that a proper impact analysis would attribute much or even most of the impact to the twenty people other than Alec.
On the other hand, it may be the case that Alec secured funding to pay these twenty other people and if they had not taken the position, other competent people would. In this situation, provided that there were not other sources of funding for Alec, I would say an impact analysis would attribute half of the lives saved to Alec and half to the funder.
I acknowledge that determining the counterfactual is hard (for instance, maybe the 20 workers freed up other actors to do other impactful work). But as the endpoint of analysis, I definitely think we should be trying to determine what the world looks like if we do X rather than if we did not do X, rather than if we do something that other people consider admirable or otherwise feels good.
EDIT: I realize you put “and those thousand people would not be saved but for the twenty others”. If this is true, then the impact “credit” should definitely be spread among them. I think it bears considering whether that is true.