I didn’t find this compelling. As best I can tell your criticism grounds out in “EA disagrees with my and lots of people’s moral intuitions, so it’s probably wrong”.
To pick on just one quote to explain my point:
The EA position that one’s duty is to the entire global (or future) population tends to be very upsetting to most other people, because they have other ideas about your duty! EA is a movement of some of the most powerful people in our society, and a certain “natural’ reaction occurs when those with power seem to not take up a responsibility that ought to be theirs: that they have abdicated a serious duty, and that they correspondingly deserve to have their power taken away.
Your argument here is basically “people think EAs are free riders for caring about people other than those I like”, but this is not really an argument against EA, but to any value system different from some particular person. In fact, EAs make a symmetrical argument: people who are no focused on the global poor are selfishly focused on people near them who less need their help at the expense of further away people who are in greater need and can more use help. This is basically just arguing that different moral intuitions are different and people disagree about what is best. But that’s not a criticism of EA, that’s a criticism of how it sure sucks that we can’t all agree on what’s right and wrong.
Some of your points, for example about power, seem reasonable, but are not actual issues with EA per se, but with unilateral action or failing to take metaethical uncertainty sufficiently seriously.
I didn’t find this compelling. As best I can tell your criticism grounds out in “EA disagrees with my and lots of people’s moral intuitions, so it’s probably wrong”.
To pick on just one quote to explain my point:
Your argument here is basically “people think EAs are free riders for caring about people other than those I like”, but this is not really an argument against EA, but to any value system different from some particular person. In fact, EAs make a symmetrical argument: people who are no focused on the global poor are selfishly focused on people near them who less need their help at the expense of further away people who are in greater need and can more use help. This is basically just arguing that different moral intuitions are different and people disagree about what is best. But that’s not a criticism of EA, that’s a criticism of how it sure sucks that we can’t all agree on what’s right and wrong.
Some of your points, for example about power, seem reasonable, but are not actual issues with EA per se, but with unilateral action or failing to take metaethical uncertainty sufficiently seriously.