Fake Meat—Real Talk 3: The Capability Approach to Human Welfare
Disclaimer: You’re also very welcome to this event if you generally prefer real meat and/or fake talk. While a significant fraction of EAs are vegetarian/vegan and enjoy lively debates, neither is necessary for being welcome in the community.
What:
“Fake Meat and Real Talk” is a series of events where we discuss philosophical and practical questions of EA in small groups over (vegan) food and drinks. EA newcomers welcome; studying our suggested materials is encouraged, but not needed. Please RSVP.
This time around, we’d like to discuss the Capabilities Approach to measuring human wellbeing. A brief teaser from Ryan C Briggs’ EA Forum post on the topic:
“This post outlines the capability approach to thinking about human welfare. I think that this approach, while very popular in international development, is neglected in EA. While the capability approach has problems, I think that it provides a better approach to thinking about improving human welfare than approaches based on measuring happiness or subjective wellbeing (SWB) or approaches based on preference satisfaction. [...]
The fundamental unit of the value in the capability approach is a functioning, which is anything that you can be or do. Eating is a functioning. Being an EA is a functioning. Other functionings include: being a doctor, running, practicing Judaism, sleeping, and being a parent. Capabilities are options to be or do a functioning.[2] The goal of the capability approach is not to maximize the number of capabilities available to people, it is instead to maximize the number of sets of capabilities. The notion here is that if you maximized simply the number of capabilities then you might enable someone to be: a parent or employed outside the home.”
Suggested reading:
Ryan C Briggs’ EA Forum post: “The Capabilities Approach to Human Welfare”
Where/how/what:
This time, we’ll do a potluck! If the weather allows, in one of Berlin’s central parks (tbd)
Please bring:
Food+drink for yourself (Doesn’t have to be vegan)
Vegan food+drinks for the group (optional)
Your own cup, plate, and cutlery
Picnic blankets (optional)
Here are the details for the next meetup of the series:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/events/mNuFdqcdhN4JuriZR/food-for-thought-4-measuring-good-formerly-fake-meat-real
We have renamed the event and had to change the date of the next meetup. We’d love to see you at the next event :)
This is where we are: https://maps.app.goo.gl/dmK9ZxRiH4c6Xqts6 Directly opposite of the Kar Liebknecht Memorial.
This is happening today, we are looking forward to the discussion :) I will post a link to our exact location here in the comments before 19:00, as soon as we found a nice spot. It will be close to the location shown on the map here in the event description (5ish min away from S-Bahn Tiergarten). If you can, I recommend you bring one extra layer of clothing. Its warmer than yesterday, but can still get a bit chilly in the evening. If you don’t find the time to prepare food, don’t worry about it and come anyway ;)