I haven’t read the Srinivasan, Gray, and Nussbaum critiques. However, I did read the Krishna critique, and that one uses another rhetorical technique (aside from the sneering dismissal McMahan mentions) to watch out for in critiques of effective altruism. The technique is for the critic of EA to write in as beautiful, literary and nuanced a way possible, in part to subtly frame the EA critic as a much more fully developed, artistic and mature human than the (implied) shallow utilitarian robots who devote their lives to doing a lot of good.
Effective altruism can then be rejected, not on the the basis of logic or anything like that (in fact, caring too much about this kind of logic would be evidence of your lack of humanity), but on grounds that rejecting EA goes along with being nuanced, sophisticated, socially wise, and truly human.
Sure you may have saved hundreds of lives, but your essays feature too few obscure literary references, you monstrous, pathetic excuse for a human being.
Effective Altruists, then, know the price of everything and the value of nothing. In the words of C. S. Lewis’s criticism of anti-monarchists, they are people who view stones in a line as better than those in an arch. Heir apparant to Bentham’s reductive credo, they aspire to prize apart the rib cage of eudaimonia to feast on its entrails of utilty.
When I see them casually dismiss poetry, the opera, the Iliad, the School of Athens, as outrageous luxuries instead of funging them into varying increments of common utility, to be sacrified if expedient to satisfy items lower on Maslow’s hierarchy, I feel like the character in Plato’s famous cave metaphor, returning to the prisoners still shackled in the wall, obsessed with the procession of the shadows. The human condition demands more of us all than to chase these silmucrula of a moral life.
Absolutely. That is such a common tactic. I think all of the criticisms against EA use one cheap rhetorical trick or another. Someone needs to make up a definitive web page that lists all the criticisms of EA with responses, and most importantly, calls out the rhetorical device that was used. It’s mostly the same tired, discredited criticisms and persuasive tricks that are used over and over, so rather than responding to each individually, we can simply refer people to the web page.
I haven’t read the Srinivasan, Gray, and Nussbaum critiques. However, I did read the Krishna critique, and that one uses another rhetorical technique (aside from the sneering dismissal McMahan mentions) to watch out for in critiques of effective altruism. The technique is for the critic of EA to write in as beautiful, literary and nuanced a way possible, in part to subtly frame the EA critic as a much more fully developed, artistic and mature human than the (implied) shallow utilitarian robots who devote their lives to doing a lot of good.
Effective altruism can then be rejected, not on the the basis of logic or anything like that (in fact, caring too much about this kind of logic would be evidence of your lack of humanity), but on grounds that rejecting EA goes along with being nuanced, sophisticated, socially wise, and truly human.
Sure you may have saved hundreds of lives, but your essays feature too few obscure literary references, you monstrous, pathetic excuse for a human being.
Ur doin’ it wrong, bro. Try:
Effective Altruists, then, know the price of everything and the value of nothing. In the words of C. S. Lewis’s criticism of anti-monarchists, they are people who view stones in a line as better than those in an arch. Heir apparant to Bentham’s reductive credo, they aspire to prize apart the rib cage of eudaimonia to feast on its entrails of utilty.
When I see them casually dismiss poetry, the opera, the Iliad, the School of Athens, as outrageous luxuries instead of funging them into varying increments of common utility, to be sacrified if expedient to satisfy items lower on Maslow’s hierarchy, I feel like the character in Plato’s famous cave metaphor, returning to the prisoners still shackled in the wall, obsessed with the procession of the shadows. The human condition demands more of us all than to chase these silmucrula of a moral life.
Absolutely. That is such a common tactic. I think all of the criticisms against EA use one cheap rhetorical trick or another. Someone needs to make up a definitive web page that lists all the criticisms of EA with responses, and most importantly, calls out the rhetorical device that was used. It’s mostly the same tired, discredited criticisms and persuasive tricks that are used over and over, so rather than responding to each individually, we can simply refer people to the web page.