Thank you for laying out the “Malthusian effects” vs. “benefits of scale” framework so clearly. As someone engaging with the Effective Altruism movement’s ideas from an outside perspective, I find this a helpful way to structure the problem.
However, from my viewpoint, I have a deep concern with the “benefits of scale” argument as it’s presented. When we justify adding a million people by the chance that one of them might be the next Norman Borlaug, we are judging human lives based on their instrumental value—what they might produce for the rest of us.
This framing implicitly creates a hierarchy of human worth. The value of the 999,999 non-innovators becomes secondary, justified only by the possibility of the one “genius” they might help produce. They become a means to an end, not ends in themselves.
This is precisely the logic that opens the door to eugenics. To be clear on what I mean by this, eugenics is the belief that humanity can and should be improved by controlling reproduction—encouraging births among those with “desirable” traits while discouraging or preventing births among those with “undesirable” traits. At its very core, it is a system of valuing people instrumentally based on their perceived biological or social fitness.
If we accept the principle that a person’s worth is tied to their potential intelligence or creativity, what logical principle stops us from concluding that lives with less of that potential are less worth creating or protecting?
This brings me back to my central concern. For an observer like myself, it seems the only robust defense against these incredibly dangerous historical ideas is to build an ethical framework based on the inherent value of every single life, regardless of whether that person becomes a saviour or lives a simple, ordinary existence.
Thank you for laying out the “Malthusian effects” vs. “benefits of scale” framework so clearly. As someone engaging with the Effective Altruism movement’s ideas from an outside perspective, I find this a helpful way to structure the problem.
However, from my viewpoint, I have a deep concern with the “benefits of scale” argument as it’s presented. When we justify adding a million people by the chance that one of them might be the next Norman Borlaug, we are judging human lives based on their instrumental value—what they might produce for the rest of us.
This framing implicitly creates a hierarchy of human worth. The value of the 999,999 non-innovators becomes secondary, justified only by the possibility of the one “genius” they might help produce. They become a means to an end, not ends in themselves.
This is precisely the logic that opens the door to eugenics. To be clear on what I mean by this, eugenics is the belief that humanity can and should be improved by controlling reproduction—encouraging births among those with “desirable” traits while discouraging or preventing births among those with “undesirable” traits. At its very core, it is a system of valuing people instrumentally based on their perceived biological or social fitness.
If we accept the principle that a person’s worth is tied to their potential intelligence or creativity, what logical principle stops us from concluding that lives with less of that potential are less worth creating or protecting?
This brings me back to my central concern. For an observer like myself, it seems the only robust defense against these incredibly dangerous historical ideas is to build an ethical framework based on the inherent value of every single life, regardless of whether that person becomes a saviour or lives a simple, ordinary existence.