It is perceived, that doesn’t mean the perception is beneficial. It’s better if people perceive EA as having weaker philosophical claims, like maximizing welfare in the context of charity, as opposed to taking on the full utilitarian theory and all it says about trolleys and torturing terrorists and so on. Quantitative optimization should be perceived as a contextual tool that comes bottom-up to answer practical questions, not tied to a whole moral theory. That’s really how cost-benefit analysis has already been used.
It is perceived, that doesn’t mean the perception is beneficial. It’s better if people perceive EA as having weaker philosophical claims, like maximizing welfare in the context of charity, as opposed to taking on the full utilitarian theory and all it says about trolleys and torturing terrorists and so on. Quantitative optimization should be perceived as a contextual tool that comes bottom-up to answer practical questions, not tied to a whole moral theory. That’s really how cost-benefit analysis has already been used.