I upvoted this comment for the second half about categories, but this part didn’t make much sense to me:
I think the advantage of a label like “Global health and development” is that is doesn’t require a super specific worldview: you make your own assumptions about what you value, then you can decide for yourself whether GHD works as a cause area for you, based on the evidence presented.
I can imagine either speciesism or anti-speciesism being considered “specific” worldviews, likewise person-affecting ethics or total ethics, likewise pure time discounting or longtermism, so I don’t think the case for GHD feels obviously less specific than any other cause area, but maybe there’s some sense of the word “specific” you have in mind that I haven’t thought of.
Moreover, and again I’m not sure what you’re saying so I’m not sure this is relevant, I think even once you’ve decided that GHD is good for you, I think your philosophical and moral commitments will continue to influence which specific GHD interventions seem worthwhile, and you’ll continue to disagree with other people in GHD on philosophical grounds. For example:
whether creating new lives is good, or only saving existing lives,
how saving children under 5 compares with saving the lives of adults,
how tolerant you are of paternalism, influencing the choices of others, vs. being insistent on autonomy and self-determination.
I upvoted this comment for the second half about categories, but this part didn’t make much sense to me:
I can imagine either speciesism or anti-speciesism being considered “specific” worldviews, likewise person-affecting ethics or total ethics, likewise pure time discounting or longtermism, so I don’t think the case for GHD feels obviously less specific than any other cause area, but maybe there’s some sense of the word “specific” you have in mind that I haven’t thought of.
Moreover, and again I’m not sure what you’re saying so I’m not sure this is relevant, I think even once you’ve decided that GHD is good for you, I think your philosophical and moral commitments will continue to influence which specific GHD interventions seem worthwhile, and you’ll continue to disagree with other people in GHD on philosophical grounds. For example:
whether creating new lives is good, or only saving existing lives,
how saving children under 5 compares with saving the lives of adults,
how tolerant you are of paternalism, influencing the choices of others, vs. being insistent on autonomy and self-determination.