This is another one I started and never finished. I actually specifically started it as an intended draft amnesty entrant last year, but I think it is in even rougher shape, and I also haven’t looked at it in a long time. Basically this was inspired by the controversy a little while ago over ACE evaluating their movement grants on criteria other than impact on animal welfare. I don’t defend this specific case but rather make a general argument against this type of argument. Basically the idea is that most EA donors (especially the great majority who claim to be somewhat “cause neutral”) care about things other than the impact of charities within their intended causes. Insofar as a charity evaluator is looking at charities that could have impacts in other cause areas, evaluators have a reason to take this into account if they can. Global Health and Longtermist charity evaluators probably aren’t ranking the charities ACE is at all, so it’s up to ACE to incorporate their impacts in other areas into their ranking (and then be clear about the priorities/decisions that went into this).
-The Case for Pluralist Evaluation
This is another one I started and never finished. I actually specifically started it as an intended draft amnesty entrant last year, but I think it is in even rougher shape, and I also haven’t looked at it in a long time. Basically this was inspired by the controversy a little while ago over ACE evaluating their movement grants on criteria other than impact on animal welfare. I don’t defend this specific case but rather make a general argument against this type of argument. Basically the idea is that most EA donors (especially the great majority who claim to be somewhat “cause neutral”) care about things other than the impact of charities within their intended causes. Insofar as a charity evaluator is looking at charities that could have impacts in other cause areas, evaluators have a reason to take this into account if they can. Global Health and Longtermist charity evaluators probably aren’t ranking the charities ACE is at all, so it’s up to ACE to incorporate their impacts in other areas into their ranking (and then be clear about the priorities/decisions that went into this).