I’d suggest that we interpret “cause-neutrality” in a more straightforward, plain-language way: neutrality about what cause area you support; lack of commitment to any particular cause area.
As with your definition, cause-neutrality is a matter of degree. No one would be completely neutral across all possible causes. In an EA context, a “cause-neutral” EA person or organization might be just interested in furthering EA and not specifically interested in any of the particular causes more than others. But they might want to exclude some causes from EA, which is a limit on their “cause-neutrality”, and might be a thorny subject.
For example:
I don’t know who runs this website or how cause-neutral they are as an individual or organization, but it seems to be run in a pretty cause-neutral way.
I’m not cause-neutral (I’m almost exclusively focused on animals, because I think that’s where I can help the most).
Expanding the pledge made GWWC more cause-neutral, but looking at the website, the organization doesn’t come across as particularly cause-neutral to me.
The point of cause neutrality is to be indifferent between causes based on any criteria except how much good you can do by focussing on that cause area. The advantage of being cause-neutral is, instead of choosing what to do based on how much you like the cause or any other reason, you are choosing based on how much of a difference you can make.
People who exclude causes because they think there is less room for doing good are cause-neutral, people who exclude causes based on other reasons are not cause neutral. As the reason you are exclusively focussed on animals is because that’s where you think you can help the most, you seem cause-neutral. Cause-neutral people can come to different conclusions as to which causes to support, what makes them alike is how they decide on the cause(s) they currently focus on.
GWWC is cause-neutral if it would be willing to no longer focus on poverty and global health if it was convinced that by focussing on other cause areas they could do more good. It is my understanding that the only reason they are committed to poverty and global health is because this cause area is where they believe they can do the most good. If they were to receive evidence that contradicted that, they would no longer focus on poverty and global health. The reason they are focussed on this cause is because they care only about the difference they can make in their cause selection. The reason they focus on this cause is because they are cause-neutral.
The value in discussing the meaning of a word is pretty limited, and I recognize that this usage is standard in EA.
Still, I’ve done a pretty bad job explaining why I find it confusing. I’ll try again:
Suppose we had an organization with a mission statement like “improve the United States through better government.” And suppose they had decided that the best way to do that was to recommend that their members vote Republican and donate to the Republican Party. The mission is politically neutral, but it’d be pretty weird for the organization to call itself “politically neutral”.
This isn’t a criticism of Michelle’s post or GWWC, since their usage of the phrase is (as I now know) standard in EA. (Initially I was criticizing this post, but I was confused. Sorry!) Instead, it’s a criticism of how EA uses the term generally. The “EA definition” is different from a common-sense definition.
As I see it now, “X-neutral” is implicitly “X-neutral for some purpose Y”. The way EAs use “cause-neutral”, Y is basically “cause selection”. It means that EAs haven’t committed to a cause before they select a cause. That’s a good and useful part of EA, but it’s also pretty narrow and (I claim) not the most natural meaning of “cause-neutral” in all contexts.
“Cause-neutral” sounds like a phrase whose meaning you could understand based on a small amount of context, but really you need the special EA definition. This makes it jargon. Jargon can be helpful, but in this case I think it’s not.
I’d suggest that we interpret “cause-neutrality” in a more straightforward, plain-language way: neutrality about what cause area you support; lack of commitment to any particular cause area.
As with your definition, cause-neutrality is a matter of degree. No one would be completely neutral across all possible causes. In an EA context, a “cause-neutral” EA person or organization might be just interested in furthering EA and not specifically interested in any of the particular causes more than others. But they might want to exclude some causes from EA, which is a limit on their “cause-neutrality”, and might be a thorny subject.
For example:
I don’t know who runs this website or how cause-neutral they are as an individual or organization, but it seems to be run in a pretty cause-neutral way.
I’m not cause-neutral (I’m almost exclusively focused on animals, because I think that’s where I can help the most).
Expanding the pledge made GWWC more cause-neutral, but looking at the website, the organization doesn’t come across as particularly cause-neutral to me.
Etc.
The point of cause neutrality is to be indifferent between causes based on any criteria except how much good you can do by focussing on that cause area. The advantage of being cause-neutral is, instead of choosing what to do based on how much you like the cause or any other reason, you are choosing based on how much of a difference you can make.
People who exclude causes because they think there is less room for doing good are cause-neutral, people who exclude causes based on other reasons are not cause neutral. As the reason you are exclusively focussed on animals is because that’s where you think you can help the most, you seem cause-neutral. Cause-neutral people can come to different conclusions as to which causes to support, what makes them alike is how they decide on the cause(s) they currently focus on.
GWWC is cause-neutral if it would be willing to no longer focus on poverty and global health if it was convinced that by focussing on other cause areas they could do more good. It is my understanding that the only reason they are committed to poverty and global health is because this cause area is where they believe they can do the most good. If they were to receive evidence that contradicted that, they would no longer focus on poverty and global health. The reason they are focussed on this cause is because they care only about the difference they can make in their cause selection. The reason they focus on this cause is because they are cause-neutral.
The value in discussing the meaning of a word is pretty limited, and I recognize that this usage is standard in EA.
Still, I’ve done a pretty bad job explaining why I find it confusing. I’ll try again:
Suppose we had an organization with a mission statement like “improve the United States through better government.” And suppose they had decided that the best way to do that was to recommend that their members vote Republican and donate to the Republican Party. The mission is politically neutral, but it’d be pretty weird for the organization to call itself “politically neutral”.
This isn’t a criticism of Michelle’s post or GWWC, since their usage of the phrase is (as I now know) standard in EA. (Initially I was criticizing this post, but I was confused. Sorry!) Instead, it’s a criticism of how EA uses the term generally. The “EA definition” is different from a common-sense definition.
As I see it now, “X-neutral” is implicitly “X-neutral for some purpose Y”. The way EAs use “cause-neutral”, Y is basically “cause selection”. It means that EAs haven’t committed to a cause before they select a cause. That’s a good and useful part of EA, but it’s also pretty narrow and (I claim) not the most natural meaning of “cause-neutral” in all contexts.
“Cause-neutral” sounds like a phrase whose meaning you could understand based on a small amount of context, but really you need the special EA definition. This makes it jargon. Jargon can be helpful, but in this case I think it’s not.