Thanks for engaging with my piece and for these interesting thoughts—really appreciate it.
I agree that, on a personal level, turning ‘doing the most good’ into an instrumental goal towards the terminal goal of ‘being happy’ sounds like an intuitive and healthy way to approach decision-making. My concern however is that this is not EA, or at least not EA as embodied by its fundamental principles as explored in my piece.
The question that comes to my mind as I read your comment is: ‘is instrumental EA (A) a personal ad hoc exemption to EA (i.e. a form of weak EA), or (B) a proposed reformulation of EA’s principles?’
If the former, then I think this is subject to the same pressures as outlined in my piece. If the latter, then my concern would be that the fundamental objective of this reformulation is so divorced from EA’s original intention that the concept of EA becomes meaningless.
Thanks for engaging with my piece and for these interesting thoughts—really appreciate it.
I agree that, on a personal level, turning ‘doing the most good’ into an instrumental goal towards the terminal goal of ‘being happy’ sounds like an intuitive and healthy way to approach decision-making. My concern however is that this is not EA, or at least not EA as embodied by its fundamental principles as explored in my piece.
The question that comes to my mind as I read your comment is: ‘is instrumental EA (A) a personal ad hoc exemption to EA (i.e. a form of weak EA), or (B) a proposed reformulation of EA’s principles?’
If the former, then I think this is subject to the same pressures as outlined in my piece. If the latter, then my concern would be that the fundamental objective of this reformulation is so divorced from EA’s original intention that the concept of EA becomes meaningless.