I’m not a philosopher, but to the extent I have opinions on such things they are about the same as Moss’s, i.e. classical hedonistic utilitarianism with quite a lot of moral uncertainty. I have somewhat suffering-focused intuitions but (a) I’ve never seen a remotely convincing argument for a suffering-focused ethic, and (b) I think my intuitions – and, I suspect, those of many people who identify as suffering-focused – can be explained by other factors. In particular, I think there are problems with the scales people use to measure valence/wellbeing/value of lives, both in reality and in thought experiments, e.g. it seems common for philosophers to assume a symmetrical scale like −10 to +10, whereas it seems pretty obvious to me that the worst lives – or even, say, the 5th percentile of lives – are many times more bad then the best lives are good. So if the best few percent of lives are 10⁄10 and 0 is equivalent to being dead, the bottom few percent of any large population are probably somewhere between −100 and −100,000. (It is not widely appreciated just how awful things are for so many people.) If true, classical utilitarianism may have policy implications similar to prioritarianism and related theories, e.g. more resources for the worst off (assuming tractability). But I haven’t seen much literature on these scale issues so I’m not confident this is correct. If you know of any relevant research, preferably peer-reviewed, I’d be very interested.
I take moral uncertainty extremely seriously, but my most preferred theory is classical hedonic utilitarianism. My most prominent uncertainties are about non-utilitarian consequentialisms which would include non-experiential goods (not preference utilitarian) and downside focused views.
I’m almost entirely uncertain about prescriptive metaethics. As someone who’s pretty Wittgensteinian, I’m inclined to see much debate between metaethical theories as confused. The metaethical views which (fwiw) strike me as most appealing don’t have too much to differentiate them in practice, i.e. versions of softer realism or anti-realism which give a central role to what would actually be rationally endorseable by humans in certain conditions.
My descriptive metaethical views, however, are that folk metaethical discourse and judgement is almost entirely indeterminate with regards to philosophers’ metaethical theories. i.e. there is no determinate fact of the matter as to whether folk views best fit realism/anti-realism, objectivism/relativism etc., and that the folk evince a contextually and inter-personally variable mix of conflicting metaethical commitments or proto-commitments. (e.g. Gill, 2009, Don Loeb (2008) and their exchanges).
Although I think the view that there are no ethical obligations should be taken seriously, I certainly (inside view) view altruism as an obligation and I think if I were convinced of anti-realism and/or moral nihilism, I think I would likely continue to view it in a very obligation-like way.
For implementing utilitarianism in practice, I lean toward Hare’s Two-Level Utilitarianism. Also, in practice, I put a large amount of additional weight on myself, my immediate family, and my friends.
I do see altruism as an ethical obligation, though do see my meta-ethical views for lots of caveats about what this means and doesn’t mean.
My impression is that I’m considerably less of a consequentialist than the average EA. Mostly I’m just pretty uncertain and so I put some stock in (some forms of) deontology and virtue ethics.
I’m a metaethical realist.
One’s obligations are context-sensitive, so I can’t say for sure what altruistic obligations others have. But for a person in my circumstances, I believe altruism (in many forms) is a moral obligation, one that I’m continually failing to fulfill.
What are your ethical and metaethical views?
Do you see altruism as an ethical obligation?
Whatever you’re comfortable sharing.
I’m not a philosopher, but to the extent I have opinions on such things they are about the same as Moss’s, i.e. classical hedonistic utilitarianism with quite a lot of moral uncertainty. I have somewhat suffering-focused intuitions but (a) I’ve never seen a remotely convincing argument for a suffering-focused ethic, and (b) I think my intuitions – and, I suspect, those of many people who identify as suffering-focused – can be explained by other factors. In particular, I think there are problems with the scales people use to measure valence/wellbeing/value of lives, both in reality and in thought experiments, e.g. it seems common for philosophers to assume a symmetrical scale like −10 to +10, whereas it seems pretty obvious to me that the worst lives – or even, say, the 5th percentile of lives – are many times more bad then the best lives are good. So if the best few percent of lives are 10⁄10 and 0 is equivalent to being dead, the bottom few percent of any large population are probably somewhere between −100 and −100,000. (It is not widely appreciated just how awful things are for so many people.) If true, classical utilitarianism may have policy implications similar to prioritarianism and related theories, e.g. more resources for the worst off (assuming tractability). But I haven’t seen much literature on these scale issues so I’m not confident this is correct. If you know of any relevant research, preferably peer-reviewed, I’d be very interested.
I take moral uncertainty extremely seriously, but my most preferred theory is classical hedonic utilitarianism. My most prominent uncertainties are about non-utilitarian consequentialisms which would include non-experiential goods (not preference utilitarian) and downside focused views.
I’m almost entirely uncertain about prescriptive metaethics. As someone who’s pretty Wittgensteinian, I’m inclined to see much debate between metaethical theories as confused. The metaethical views which (fwiw) strike me as most appealing don’t have too much to differentiate them in practice, i.e. versions of softer realism or anti-realism which give a central role to what would actually be rationally endorseable by humans in certain conditions.
My descriptive metaethical views, however, are that folk metaethical discourse and judgement is almost entirely indeterminate with regards to philosophers’ metaethical theories. i.e. there is no determinate fact of the matter as to whether folk views best fit realism/anti-realism, objectivism/relativism etc., and that the folk evince a contextually and inter-personally variable mix of conflicting metaethical commitments or proto-commitments. (e.g. Gill, 2009, Don Loeb (2008) and their exchanges).
Although I think the view that there are no ethical obligations should be taken seriously, I certainly (inside view) view altruism as an obligation and I think if I were convinced of anti-realism and/or moral nihilism, I think I would likely continue to view it in a very obligation-like way.
I wrote up my meta-ethical views here. I endorse End-Relational Theory. I am a moral realist but not a moral monist/universalist.
Ethically, I am some form of utilitarian consequentialist. I lean toward an objective list theory of value but I have a decent amount of moral uncertainty around this.
For implementing utilitarianism in practice, I lean toward Hare’s Two-Level Utilitarianism. Also, in practice, I put a large amount of additional weight on myself, my immediate family, and my friends.
I do see altruism as an ethical obligation, though do see my meta-ethical views for lots of caveats about what this means and doesn’t mean.
My impression is that I’m considerably less of a consequentialist than the average EA. Mostly I’m just pretty uncertain and so I put some stock in (some forms of) deontology and virtue ethics.
I’m a metaethical realist.
One’s obligations are context-sensitive, so I can’t say for sure what altruistic obligations others have. But for a person in my circumstances, I believe altruism (in many forms) is a moral obligation, one that I’m continually failing to fulfill.