JBentham

Karma: 414

JBentham Jan 29, 2023, 4:20 PM
1 point
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in reply to: NickLaing’s comment on: Non-utilitarian effective altruism
I agree that Gates has been heavily criticised too. This is probably because he’s a billionaire and because he’s involved himself so heavily in issues (such as the pandemic) which attract lots of attention. It might not be a coincidence, though, that there’s not much philosophical difference between Bill Gates and, say, Peter Singer. Gates wrote a blurb praising Singer’s The Most Good You Can Do, and in his recent annual newsletter he said that his goal is to “give my wealth back to society in ways that do the most good for the most people”.

JBentham Jan 29, 2023, 4:17 PM
11 points
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on: Non-utilitarian effective altruism
Thank you for this, Keir. I agree that some conclusions that EAs have come to are uncontroversial among non-utilitarians. And EAs have tried to appeal to non-utilitarians. Singer’s Drowning Child thought experiment does not appeal to utilitarianism. Ord and MacAskill both (while making clear they are sympathetic to total utilitarianism) try to appeal to non-utilitarians too.

However, there are some important cause prioritisation questions that can’t really be answered without committing to some philosophical framework. It’s plausible that these questions do make a real, practical difference to what we individually prioritise. So, doing EA without philosophy seems a bit like trying to do politics without ideology. Many people may claim to be doing so, but they’re still ultimately harbouring philosophical assumptions.

You bring up the comparison between donating to the opera and donating to global health as one that non-utilitarians like Sen can deal with relatively easily. But Amartya Sen is still a consequentialist and it’s notable that his close colleague (and ideological soulmate) Martha Nussbaum has recently written about wild-animal suffering, a cause which utilitarians have been concerned about for some time. Consequentialists and pluralists (as long as they include some degree of consequentialism in their thinking) can still easily prioritise. It’s less clear that pure deontologists and virtue ethicists can, without ultimately appealing to consequences.

Finally, I don’t think there’s much philosophical difference between Bill Gates and Peter Singer. Gates wrote a blurb praising Singer’s The Most Good You Can Do, and in his recent annual newsletter he said that his goal is to “give my wealth back to society in ways that do the most good for the most people”.

JBentham Jan 28, 2023, 2:56 PM
4 points
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on: ‘Evolutionary debunking arguments’ about human moral intuitions
Peter Singer authored A Darwinian Left so I’d say he at least has some understanding of the topics you mention. In a chapter of his book The Point of View of the Universe, co-authored with Katarzyna de Lazari Radek, he uses evolutionary debunking arguments to strengthen utilitarianism (from the perspective of a moral realist) and weaken other normative theories. They note that Darwin himself, in The Descent of Man, may have been the first to bring up the concept of an evolutionary debunking argument. I’m not whether it’s detailed enough to satisfy you, but it’s an interesting read nonetheless.

JBentham Jan 28, 2023, 2:46 PM
1 point
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in reply to: peterhartree’s comment on: ‘Evolutionary debunking arguments’ about human moral intuitions
On the contrary, non-naturalistic moral realists such as Derek Parfit and Peter Singer note that evolutionary debunking arguments tend to strengthen (some forms of) non-natural moral realism. On an evolutionary account, external reasons for belief and action would seem to be redundant (pure impulse would suffice), yet Parfit and Singer argue for their existence.

JBentham Dec 24, 2022, 4:25 PM
11 points
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on: What you prioritise is mostly moral intuition
Thank you for this. I would only caution that we should be vigilant when it comes to poor reasoning disguised as “intuition”. Most EAs would reject out of hand someone’s intuition that people of a certain nationality or ethnic group or gender matter less, even if they claim that it’s about suffering intensity as opposed to xenophobia, racism or sexism. Yet intuitions about the moral weight of nonhuman animals that often seem to have been plucked out of thin air, without any justification provided, seem to get a pass, especially when they’re from “high-status” individuals.