Just to be clear, saving lives for several hundred thousand dollars each would still be efficient enough to justify donating most of one’s disposable income. The rhetorical force of the drowning child argument is useful for philosophy classrooms and public media where you have to prod people who are otherwise disappointingly selfish, but I don’t think many of us are going to rely on that as a rigorous basis for why we do what we do.
I would interpret your post as merely objecting that EA organizations are misrepresenting things in order to foster more aid for the otherwise-good goal of helping people in severe poverty. But the idea that we actually aren’t obligated to donate just because the cost per life saved is $100,000 instead of $5,000 is ridiculous.
But the idea that we actually aren’t obligated to donate just because the cost per life saved is $100,000 instead of $5,000 is ridiculous.
Does everyone who holds a moral anti-realist view think that they aren’t obliged to donate at $100k per life, or $5k per life?
Maybe you’re just claiming that moral anti-realism is ridiculous?
[Edit: some moral anti-realist views probably preserve the concept of moral obligation, though many don’t. So saying that all anti-realists aren’t moved by obligation is too strong.]
Then you sure aren’t obligated to do accurate marketing, or anything else. That kind of nihilism just blows everything up. It’s a bit like saying “I’m just a Boltzmann brain, therefore drowning kids don’t exist.”
He is claiming the idea that the cost of saving a life being $100k instead of being $5k being a sufficient condition to logically conclude one is not obliged to save a life, given the assumption one would otherwise be obliged to save a life, and that one believes in obligations in the first place, is ridiculous.
Just to be clear, saving lives for several hundred thousand dollars each would still be efficient enough to justify donating most of one’s disposable income. The rhetorical force of the drowning child argument is useful for philosophy classrooms and public media where you have to prod people who are otherwise disappointingly selfish, but I don’t think many of us are going to rely on that as a rigorous basis for why we do what we do.
I would interpret your post as merely objecting that EA organizations are misrepresenting things in order to foster more aid for the otherwise-good goal of helping people in severe poverty. But the idea that we actually aren’t obligated to donate just because the cost per life saved is $100,000 instead of $5,000 is ridiculous.
Does everyone who holds a moral anti-realist view think that they aren’t obliged to donate at $100k per life, or $5k per life?
Maybe you’re just claiming that moral anti-realism is ridiculous?
[Edit: some moral anti-realist views probably preserve the concept of moral obligation, though many don’t. So saying that all anti-realists aren’t moved by obligation is too strong.]
I don’t think realism / anti realism has much to do with it, it doesn’t necessarily change the actual content of ethics.
And if anti realism is true, then I’m definitely not going to change my views just because of what philosophers think.
It’s more a question of what meta-ethical view you hold personally, rather than what philosophers think.
If you hold an anti-realist view such that you think the concept of moral obligation is incoherent, you won’t feel morally obligated to do things.
Then you sure aren’t obligated to do accurate marketing, or anything else. That kind of nihilism just blows everything up. It’s a bit like saying “I’m just a Boltzmann brain, therefore drowning kids don’t exist.”
He is claiming the idea that the cost of saving a life being $100k instead of being $5k being a sufficient condition to logically conclude one is not obliged to save a life, given the assumption one would otherwise be obliged to save a life, and that one believes in obligations in the first place, is ridiculous.
More than that, I’m saying we’re simply obligated to save lives for $100k each. Assuming that we are first-worlders with spare money, of course.