I think his take on GiveDirectly is likely to be very similar—he would point to the fraud and note that neither them or any of their evaluators took into account the harms caused by the beneficiaries of that fraud in their calculations. And I don’t think that that would be an unfair criticism (if delivered with a bit less snark).
1)I think it is pretty unclear how much harm was actually done here, other than the loss of money for the people who would otherwise have received it, who would also have gotten 0 money if GiveDirectly didn’t exist. (That doesn’t mean zero harm, since it’s worse to think you’ll get money and not receive it.) As far as I can tell from the link, the money was stolen by local GiveDirectly staff, not armed militias or governments that might have spent on it buying guns or improving their ability to extort more money from others. (There might even have been some indirect gain for locals in having the money reach the Congo at all, also. It could easily have been spent locally Harmful things also have secondary effects that don’t necessarily have the same sign as the primary thing.) It’s possible that if they’d given more details of how the fraud was carried out, more harms would be evident though. (Which is why I say “unclear” not “it seems like there wasn’t that much”).
2) It seems like it was a tiny fraction of GD’s giving that year, so the bad effects would have to be super-large in order for it to make much difference to the overall value of GD’s work. (I guess one possible response is that where you find one bad unintended consequence there might be others.)
I agree with both your points. I think the thrust of Leif’s argument, rather, is that no work was done to clarify the extent of those harms. They just say “we apologise to people counting on this” and quote statistics on how bad the militias in the area are.
On (2), I hope it was clear to anyone reading the article that Leif would like EAs to think in a negative-utilitarian way. I sincerely doubt he cares what proportion of the overall value of GiveDirectly’s work it was if a harm was done.
“Negative utilitarian” isn’t the right term here. Negative utilitarianism is the view that you should minimize total suffering. It doesn’t say your not allowed to cause some suffering in doing so, so long as you take the action that reduces suffering the most on net. The “benefits” of Give Directly’s work are a mixture of suffering reduction and positive stuff, and the harms of the theft are also a mixture of suffering and positive benefits blocked. NU is the view that you should only care about suffering and not the positive benefits in assessing whether GD does more good than harm .It’s not a view about not doing harm instrumentally. (And in fact, any sensible negative utilitarian will recognize that increasing positive happiness actually usually also decreases suffering for that person, since it helps prevent boredom etc.)
Insofar as Wenar is claiming that you should never do anything that is even an indirect cause of harms committed by other people, even if it’s a net benefit, I think that is just not at all convincing, for reasons both I and Richard Y Chappell have given elsewhere: it would paralyze all action by anyone ever, and it doesn’t have the common sense support of “don’t do evil things, even to achieve good outcomes”. I suppose someone could argue the harm was direct here though, since it was GD’s own staff who stole the money?
On the other hand, if his claim is just that GD might be doing more harm than good, then the specifics of how much money was stolen v. how much money GD gives out are relevant. If his claim is that GiveWell should incorporate harms more into the stuff they right up about the charities, again, the actual importance of the harms is relevant, since GiveWell can’t write up everything, and should include/exclude stuff from right-ups on the basis of how important that stuff is. If his claim is just that GiveWell needs to take the caveats about indirect harms they already include in long detailed reports and display them prominently in summaries, again, the level of the harms seems important, because the summary should be giving the most important stuff.
I think his take on GiveDirectly is likely to be very similar—he would point to the fraud and note that neither them or any of their evaluators took into account the harms caused by the beneficiaries of that fraud in their calculations. And I don’t think that that would be an unfair criticism (if delivered with a bit less snark).
1)I think it is pretty unclear how much harm was actually done here, other than the loss of money for the people who would otherwise have received it, who would also have gotten 0 money if GiveDirectly didn’t exist. (That doesn’t mean zero harm, since it’s worse to think you’ll get money and not receive it.) As far as I can tell from the link, the money was stolen by local GiveDirectly staff, not armed militias or governments that might have spent on it buying guns or improving their ability to extort more money from others. (There might even have been some indirect gain for locals in having the money reach the Congo at all, also. It could easily have been spent locally Harmful things also have secondary effects that don’t necessarily have the same sign as the primary thing.) It’s possible that if they’d given more details of how the fraud was carried out, more harms would be evident though. (Which is why I say “unclear” not “it seems like there wasn’t that much”).
2) It seems like it was a tiny fraction of GD’s giving that year, so the bad effects would have to be super-large in order for it to make much difference to the overall value of GD’s work. (I guess one possible response is that where you find one bad unintended consequence there might be others.)
I agree with both your points. I think the thrust of Leif’s argument, rather, is that no work was done to clarify the extent of those harms. They just say “we apologise to people counting on this” and quote statistics on how bad the militias in the area are.
On (2), I hope it was clear to anyone reading the article that Leif would like EAs to think in a negative-utilitarian way. I sincerely doubt he cares what proportion of the overall value of GiveDirectly’s work it was if a harm was done.
“Negative utilitarian” isn’t the right term here. Negative utilitarianism is the view that you should minimize total suffering. It doesn’t say your not allowed to cause some suffering in doing so, so long as you take the action that reduces suffering the most on net. The “benefits” of Give Directly’s work are a mixture of suffering reduction and positive stuff, and the harms of the theft are also a mixture of suffering and positive benefits blocked. NU is the view that you should only care about suffering and not the positive benefits in assessing whether GD does more good than harm .It’s not a view about not doing harm instrumentally. (And in fact, any sensible negative utilitarian will recognize that increasing positive happiness actually usually also decreases suffering for that person, since it helps prevent boredom etc.)
Insofar as Wenar is claiming that you should never do anything that is even an indirect cause of harms committed by other people, even if it’s a net benefit, I think that is just not at all convincing, for reasons both I and Richard Y Chappell have given elsewhere: it would paralyze all action by anyone ever, and it doesn’t have the common sense support of “don’t do evil things, even to achieve good outcomes”. I suppose someone could argue the harm was direct here though, since it was GD’s own staff who stole the money?
On the other hand, if his claim is just that GD might be doing more harm than good, then the specifics of how much money was stolen v. how much money GD gives out are relevant. If his claim is that GiveWell should incorporate harms more into the stuff they right up about the charities, again, the actual importance of the harms is relevant, since GiveWell can’t write up everything, and should include/exclude stuff from right-ups on the basis of how important that stuff is. If his claim is just that GiveWell needs to take the caveats about indirect harms they already include in long detailed reports and display them prominently in summaries, again, the level of the harms seems important, because the summary should be giving the most important stuff.