I appreciate your critique of global welfare maximisation as a problematic goal given our epistemic situation: “That standard is problematic. It requires us to anticipate a comparison encompassing all effects on all welfare-bearing beings across the relevant future, although the central lesson of cluelessness is that our evidence does not support such a comparison. Appealing to an idealised evaluator does not explain how we can form justified expectations about its verdict. [...] Nor would perfect information necessarily yield a global welfare ranking. A single welfare function requires cardinal measurement, interpersonal and cross-species comparison, aggregation across populations and a solution to population ethics.” I think this is on point, and I think many discussions within effective altruism would benefit from greater caution when it comes to comparing causes and interventions!
But I’m unsure I fully understand how you suggest that we respond (which might be due to me misreading the text, apologies in that case).
The reason arising from the expected benefit to the child remains visible even if its final weight cannot be determined. [...] We should first identify the welfare-relevant reasons supported by the evidence, consider countervailing effects and uncertainty, and reach an overall judgement only where those reasons can be sufficiently weighed.
I really resonate with parts of this approach: being clear about the reasons we have, how they are supported, and how they can be challenged; allowing for a variety of reasons without forcing them immediately onto an artificially-produced common scale in order to facilitate simplistic aggregation of welfare effects. But I’m not sure what it implies for action: if the weight of the expected benefit to the child cannot be determined and if we can only reach overall judgement for reasons that can be weighed, then how are we to reach a judgement and thus decision in this case? More generally, how do we make judgements and how do we decide when our reasons cannot be weighed straightforwardly?
Similarly for the “potentially very large but deeply indeterminate animal-welfare reason against”: Is that reason a “mere possibility” and therefore to be disregarded entirely in the final judgement? Or does/can it enter our overall judgement somehow, and if so, how can it be weighed against the expected benefit to the child?
I appreciate your critique of global welfare maximisation as a problematic goal given our epistemic situation: “That standard is problematic. It requires us to anticipate a comparison encompassing all effects on all welfare-bearing beings across the relevant future, although the central lesson of cluelessness is that our evidence does not support such a comparison. Appealing to an idealised evaluator does not explain how we can form justified expectations about its verdict. [...] Nor would perfect information necessarily yield a global welfare ranking. A single welfare function requires cardinal measurement, interpersonal and cross-species comparison, aggregation across populations and a solution to population ethics.” I think this is on point, and I think many discussions within effective altruism would benefit from greater caution when it comes to comparing causes and interventions!
But I’m unsure I fully understand how you suggest that we respond (which might be due to me misreading the text, apologies in that case).
I really resonate with parts of this approach: being clear about the reasons we have, how they are supported, and how they can be challenged; allowing for a variety of reasons without forcing them immediately onto an artificially-produced common scale in order to facilitate simplistic aggregation of welfare effects. But I’m not sure what it implies for action: if the weight of the expected benefit to the child cannot be determined and if we can only reach overall judgement for reasons that can be weighed, then how are we to reach a judgement and thus decision in this case? More generally, how do we make judgements and how do we decide when our reasons cannot be weighed straightforwardly?
Similarly for the “potentially very large but deeply indeterminate animal-welfare reason against”: Is that reason a “mere possibility” and therefore to be disregarded entirely in the final judgement? Or does/can it enter our overall judgement somehow, and if so, how can it be weighed against the expected benefit to the child?