Interesting. My view is that EAs do tend to view these things as valuable only insofar as they serve wellbeing, at least in their explicit theorising and decision-making. That’s my person view anyway. I’d add the caveat that I think most people actually judge according to a more deontological folk morality implicitly when making moral judgements (i.e. we actually do think that fairness, and our beliefs being right, are important).
I think this varies a bit by cause area though. For example (and this is not necessarily a criticism) the animal rights (clue’s in the name) section seems much more deontological.
Some of those things I would just define in utilitarian terms. I would view justice as ‘the social arrangement that maximizes utility’, and the form of equality I value most highly is equal consideration of interests (of course, I value other forms of equality instrumentally).
As an animal rights EA involved in one of the more explicitly deontological organizations (DxE), I have to say there are more consequentialists than you’d think. I’m a consequentialist, for instance, but think rights and the like often have high instrumental value.
Interesting. My view is that EAs do tend to view these things as valuable only insofar as they serve wellbeing, at least in their explicit theorising and decision-making. That’s my person view anyway. I’d add the caveat that I think most people actually judge according to a more deontological folk morality implicitly when making moral judgements (i.e. we actually do think that fairness, and our beliefs being right, are important).
I think this varies a bit by cause area though. For example (and this is not necessarily a criticism) the animal rights (clue’s in the name) section seems much more deontological.
Some of those things I would just define in utilitarian terms. I would view justice as ‘the social arrangement that maximizes utility’, and the form of equality I value most highly is equal consideration of interests (of course, I value other forms of equality instrumentally).
As an animal rights EA involved in one of the more explicitly deontological organizations (DxE), I have to say there are more consequentialists than you’d think. I’m a consequentialist, for instance, but think rights and the like often have high instrumental value.