Effective Altruism Philosophical Issues

This is the first collective study of the thinking behind the effective altruism movement. This movement comprises a growing global community of people who organise significant parts of their lives around the two key concepts represented in its name. Altruism is the idea that if we use a significant portion of the resources in our possession--whether money, time, or talents--with a view to helping others then we can improve the world considerably. When we do put such resources to altruistic use, it is crucial to focus on how much good this or that intervention is reasonably expected to do per unit of resource expended (as a gauge of effectiveness). We can try to rank various possible actions against each other to establish which will do the most good with the resources expended. Thus we could aim to rank various possible kinds of action to alleviate poverty against one another, or against actions aimed at very different types of outcome, focused perhaps on animal welfare or future generations. The scale and organisation of the effective altruism movement encourage careful dialogue on questions that have perhaps long been there, throwing them into new and sharper relief, and giving rise to previously unnoticed questions. In this volume a team of internationally recognised philosophers, economists, and political theorists present refined and in-depth explorations of issues that arise once one takes seriously the twin ideas of altruistic commitment and effectiveness.

1 - The Definition of Effective Altruism
2 - The Moral Imperative Toward Cost-Effectiveness in Global Health
3 - Evidence Neutrality and the Moral Value of Information
4 - Effective Altruism and Transformative Experience
5 - Should We Give to More Than One Charity?
6 - A Brief Argument for the Overwhelming Importance of Shaping the Far Future
7 - Effective Altruism, Global Poverty, and Systemic Change
8 - Benevolent Giving and the Problem of Paternalism
9 - Demanding the Demanding
10 - On Satisfying Duties to Assist
11 - Effective Altruism's Underspecification Problem
12 - The Hidden Zero Problem: Effective Altruism and Barriers to Marginal Impact
13 - Beyond Individualism
14 - Overriding Virtue
15 - The Callousness Objection

Hilary Greaves's main research interests concern issues in moral philosophy, decision theory, and economics. Her articles have been published in Economics and Philosophy, Mind, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, and Philosophical Studies. Theron Pummer works on problems in ethical theory, metaphysics, and practical ethics. His articles have been published in Philosophy and Public Affairs, Philosophical Review, Philosophical Studies, and The Journal of Philosophy.