There is a part of me which dislikes you presenting utilitarianism which includes animals as the standard form of utilitarianism. (...) I’d prefer you to disambiguate between versions of utilitarianism which aggregate over humans, and those who aggregate over all sentient/conscious beings, and maybe point out how this developed over time (i.e., Peter Singer had to come and make the argument forcefully, because before it was not obvious)?
My impression is that the major utilitarian academics were rather united in extending equal moral consideration to non-human animals (in line with technicalities’ comment). I’m not aware of any influential attempts to promote a version of utilitarianism that explicitly does not include the wellbeing of non-human animals (though, for example, a preference utilitarian may give different weight to some non-human animals than a hedonistic utilitarian would). In the future, I hope we’ll be able to add more content to the website on the link between utilitarianism and anti-speciesism, with the intention of bridging the inferential distance to which you rightly point.
Similarly, maybe you would also want to disambiguate a little bit more between effective altruism and utilitarianism, and explicitly mention it when you’re linking it to effective altruism websites, or use effective altruism examples?
In the section on effective altruism on the website, we already explicitly disambiguate between EA and utilitarianism. I don’t currently see the need to e.g. add a disclaimer when we link to GiveWell’s website on Utilitarianism.net, but we do include disclaimers when we link to one of the organisations co-founded by Will (e.g. “Note that Professor William MacAskill, coauthor of this website, is a cofounder of 80,000 Hours.”)
Also, what’s up with attributing the veil of ignorance to Harsanyi but not mentioning Rawls?
We hope to produce a longer article on how the Veil of Ignorance argument relates to utilitarianism at some point. We currently include a footnote on the website, saying that “This [Veil of Ignorance] argument was originally proposed by Harsanyi, though nowadays it is more often associated with John Rawls, who arrived at a different conclusion.” For what it’s worth, Harsanyi’s version of the argument seems more plausible than Rawls’ version. Will commented on this matter in his first appearance on the 80,000 Hours Podcast, saying that “I do think he [Rawls] was mistaken. I think that Rawls’s Veil of Ignorance argument is the biggest own goal in the history of moral philosophy. I also think it’s a bit of a travesty that people think that Rawls came up with this argument. In fact, he acknowledged that he took it from Harsayni and changed it a little bit.”
The section on Multi-level Utilitarianism Versus Single-level Utilitarianism seems exceedingly strange. In particular, you can totally use utilitarianism as a decision procedure (and if you don’t, what’s the point?).
Historically, one of the major criticisms of utilitarianism was that it supposedly required us to calculate the expected consequences of our actions all the time, which would indeed be impractical. However, this is not true, since it conflates using utilitarianism as a decision procedure and as a criterion or rightness. The section on multi-level utilitarianism aims to clarify this point. Of course, multi-level utilitarianism does still permit attempting to calculate the expected consequences of ones actions in certain situations, but it makes it clear that doing so all the time is not necessary.
Thank you for your comment!
My impression is that the major utilitarian academics were rather united in extending equal moral consideration to non-human animals (in line with technicalities’ comment). I’m not aware of any influential attempts to promote a version of utilitarianism that explicitly does not include the wellbeing of non-human animals (though, for example, a preference utilitarian may give different weight to some non-human animals than a hedonistic utilitarian would). In the future, I hope we’ll be able to add more content to the website on the link between utilitarianism and anti-speciesism, with the intention of bridging the inferential distance to which you rightly point.
In the section on effective altruism on the website, we already explicitly disambiguate between EA and utilitarianism. I don’t currently see the need to e.g. add a disclaimer when we link to GiveWell’s website on Utilitarianism.net, but we do include disclaimers when we link to one of the organisations co-founded by Will (e.g. “Note that Professor William MacAskill, coauthor of this website, is a cofounder of 80,000 Hours.”)
We hope to produce a longer article on how the Veil of Ignorance argument relates to utilitarianism at some point. We currently include a footnote on the website, saying that “This [Veil of Ignorance] argument was originally proposed by Harsanyi, though nowadays it is more often associated with John Rawls, who arrived at a different conclusion.” For what it’s worth, Harsanyi’s version of the argument seems more plausible than Rawls’ version. Will commented on this matter in his first appearance on the 80,000 Hours Podcast, saying that “I do think he [Rawls] was mistaken. I think that Rawls’s Veil of Ignorance argument is the biggest own goal in the history of moral philosophy. I also think it’s a bit of a travesty that people think that Rawls came up with this argument. In fact, he acknowledged that he took it from Harsayni and changed it a little bit.”
Historically, one of the major criticisms of utilitarianism was that it supposedly required us to calculate the expected consequences of our actions all the time, which would indeed be impractical. However, this is not true, since it conflates using utilitarianism as a decision procedure and as a criterion or rightness. The section on multi-level utilitarianism aims to clarify this point. Of course, multi-level utilitarianism does still permit attempting to calculate the expected consequences of ones actions in certain situations, but it makes it clear that doing so all the time is not necessary.
For more information on this topic, I recommend Amanda Askell’s EA Forum post “Act utilitarianism: criterion of rightness vs. decision procedure”.
Harsanyi’s version also came first IIRC, and Rawls read it before he wrote his version. (Edit: Oh yeah you already said this)