The Good It Promises, the Harm It Does Critical Essays on Effective Altruism

The Good It Promises, the Harm It Does is the first edited volume to critically engage with Effective Altruism (EA). It brings together writers from diverse activist and scholarly backgrounds to explore a variety of unique grassroots movements and community organizing efforts. By drawing attention to these responses and to particular cases of human and animal harms, this book represents a powerful call to attend to different voices and projects and to elevate activist traditions that EA lacks the resources to assess and threatens to squelch. The contributors reveal the weakness inherent within the ready-made, top-down solutions that EA offers in response to many global problems-and offers in their place substantial descriptions of more meaningful and just social engagement.

Alice Crary is University Distinguished Professor in Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York. Lori Gruen is William Griffin Professor of Philosophy at Wesleyan University where she founded and coordinates Wesleyan Animal Studies. Carol J. Adams is a feminist scholar and activist whose work explores the cultural construction of overlapping and interconnected oppressions, as well as the ethics of care.