In the summary you mention that “Skepticism of formal philosophy is not enough”. I’m new to the forum, could you (or anyone else) clarify what is meant by formal philosophy? Is the statement equivalent to just saying “Skepticism of philosophy is not enough” or “Skepticism of philosophical reasoning is not enough”?
Also, in the section “Increasing Animal Welfare Funding would Reduce OP’s Influence on Philanthropists” you make a comparison of AI x-risk and FAM. While AI x-risk reduction is also a niche cause area, I think you underestimate how niche FAW is relative to AI x-risk. The potential alienating risk from significant allocation to x-risk isn’t the same as that of FAW since AI x-risk is still largely a story about the impact this would have on humans and their societies.
I’m not saying this is the correct view but the one that would be generally held by most potential funders.
In general the utilitarian case for your main points seem strong. Great post.
When I write “skepticism of formal philosophy”, I more precisely mean “skepticism that philosophical principles can capture all of what’s intuitively important”. Here’s an example of skepticism of formal philosophy from Scott Alexander’s review of What We Owe The Future:
I’m not sure I want to play the philosophy game. Maybe MacAskill can come up with some clever proof that the commitments I list above imply I have to have my eyes pecked out by angry seagulls or something. If that’s true, I will just not do that, and switch to some other set of axioms. If I can’t find any system of axioms that doesn’t do something terrible when extended to infinity, I will just refuse to extend things to infinity...I realize this is “anti-intellectual” and “defeating the entire point of philosophy”.
You make a good point regarding the relative niche-ness of animal welfare and AI x-risk. I agree that my post’s analogy is crude and there are many reasons why people’s dispositions might favor AI x-risk reduction over animal welfare.
In the summary you mention that “Skepticism of formal philosophy is not enough”. I’m new to the forum, could you (or anyone else) clarify what is meant by formal philosophy? Is the statement equivalent to just saying “Skepticism of philosophy is not enough” or “Skepticism of philosophical reasoning is not enough”?
Also, in the section “Increasing Animal Welfare Funding would Reduce OP’s Influence on Philanthropists” you make a comparison of AI x-risk and FAM. While AI x-risk reduction is also a niche cause area, I think you underestimate how niche FAW is relative to AI x-risk. The potential alienating risk from significant allocation to x-risk isn’t the same as that of FAW since AI x-risk is still largely a story about the impact this would have on humans and their societies.
I’m not saying this is the correct view but the one that would be generally held by most potential funders.
In general the utilitarian case for your main points seem strong. Great post.
Thanks for the compliment :)
When I write “skepticism of formal philosophy”, I more precisely mean “skepticism that philosophical principles can capture all of what’s intuitively important”. Here’s an example of skepticism of formal philosophy from Scott Alexander’s review of What We Owe The Future:
You make a good point regarding the relative niche-ness of animal welfare and AI x-risk. I agree that my post’s analogy is crude and there are many reasons why people’s dispositions might favor AI x-risk reduction over animal welfare.