Effective Altruism
A syllabus
This semester (Spring 2024) I’m teaching an upper-level Topics in Ethical Theory on Effective Altruism. Below is a condensed version of my syllabus. I’m greatly indebted to a few excellent syllabi, especially this one by Richard Yetter Chappell. This is a brand new course for me and one I’m very excited to teach. In preparation, I’ve been reading Rules of Rescue by Theron Pummer and Being Good in a World of Need by Larry Temkin, the former being a nonconsequentialist argument for helping those in need (with some surprising twists), the latter being by an early adopter of the ideals of international aid and effective altruism coming to grips with aid skepticism. Last year, I also read What We Owe the Future by William MacAskill, which I greatly enjoyed despite my continued reluctance to jump onto the longtermist bandwagon.
I’ve never considered myself an effective altruist, mainly because I don’t donate nearly enough of my income to qualify, in my view. But I’ve long been sold to the basic arguments and consider myself a fellow traveler of the movement. Since I discovered it around 2011, it’s animated parts of my work in animal ethics, professional and personal relationships, most of my charitable giving, and even some of my running. For recommendations on giving, two excellent places to start remain GiveWell and Animal Charity Evaluators. If you’re going to donate money, check them out first!
Effective Altruism
Topics in Ethical Theory | Spring 2024
How much good can you do? How much should you? Effective Altruism (EA) is a movement dedicated to using reason and evidence to help people figure out how to do the most good they can—whether through charitable giving, their career, or their advocacy. This course will examine the philosophical foundations of EA, especially what it says about living an ethical life, the importance of beneficence, how to approach some of the world’s most important problems, and the relations between moral theory and altruistic behavior. EA can be applied in many domains from global health to animal welfare to existential risks raised by artificial intelligence, pandemics, and nuclear war. In this course, you will learn about cost-effectiveness, cause prioritization, moral uncertainty, and what we owe (or not) to strangers, other animals, and future generations. We will also read many critiques of EA, especially regarding institutional change, career choice, resource allocation, AI, and the far future.
Schedule
This schedule is subject to change. Guest speakers will be added, including (at least) Élise Desaulniers and Holly Elmore.
A : Tuesday readings / B : Thursday readings.
Assignments will include frequent discussion posts or reading quizzes (20% of your grade); a class presentation on one of the readings (10%); a midterm exam (20%); and two papers (including a final paper) (20% each). Your evaluation will also include your participation (in class and online) (10%). No final exam.
1. What is this class about?
Read syllabus, check out OAKS
2. The demands of morality
What is morality? What does it demand of us? Are there limits to what it can demand?
A. David Hume, “Of the influencing motives of the will”
Adam Smith, “Of the influences and authority of conscience”
B. Shelly Kagan, “Against ordinary morality”
3. Introducing EA
How to measure impact? How should we decide how to allocate our beneficence?
A. William MacAskill, Doing Good Better (DGB), intro and ch. 1
B. DGB, ch. 2-3
4. Global poverty and the demands of beneficence
What is beneficence? How much ought we to donate? Do duties of beneficence presuppose consequentialism?
A. Peter Singer, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” + study guide
B. Travis Timmerman, “Sometimes there is Nothing Wrong with Letting a Child Drown”
Optional:
Onora O’Neill, “Kantian approaches to some famine problems”
Barbara Herman, “The scope of moral requirement”
Peter Unger, Living High and Letting Die, ch. 2
5. Do numbers count?
Is it better to save five people than just one other? Is it ever permissible to save fewer people?
A. John Taurek, “Should the numbers count?”
B. Derek Parfit, “Innumerate ethics”
6. Does distance matter?
Do distant people matter less? Are we equally strongly required to assist them or may we prioritize our own lives and those of our near and dear?
A. Frances Kamm, “Does Distance Matter Morally to the Duty to Rescue?”
B. Frank Jackson, “Decision-Theoretic Consequentialism and the Nearest and Dearest Objection”
Optional
Jeremy Waldron, “Who Is My Neighbor?”
Martha Nussbaum, “Patriotism and cosmopolitanism”
7. Empathy and rationality
Can our emotions guide us in helping others? Must we be able to identify with strangers to care? Why do we feel more compelled by immediate, salient suffering?
A. Paul Bloom, “Against empathy”
Vox explainer on Paul Slovic’s work
Laurie Santos and Joshua Greene, The Happiness Lab, “How to give more effectively”
B. Dan Brock, “Identified versus Statistical Lives: Some Introductory Issues and Arguments”
Michael Slote, “Why not empathy?”
8. Other animals
Should we care about nonhuman animal suffering? Is species membership morally relevant? How much weight should we give to the interests of animals?
A. Peter Singer, “All Animals are Equal”
Kieran Setiya, “Humanism”
B. Jeff Sebo, “ The rebugnant conclusion”
Optional
Alastair Norcross, “Puppies, Pigs, and People: Eating Meat and Marginal Cases”
Mark Budolfson and Dean Spears, “Public Policy, Consequentialism, the Environment, and Non-Human Animals”
9. EA and the future
How much weight should we give to future people relative to present people? How should we evaluate tradeoffs between quantity and quality of life? How clueless are we about the far future? Is expected utility the right decision tool?
A. William MacAskill, What We Owe the Future, introduction and ch. 1
Our World in Data, “The Future Is Vast”
Utilitarianism.net, “Population Ethics”
B. Hilary Greaves, “Cluelessness”
10. Existential risks
How bad would human extinction be? What is the value of human civilization? What are the most significant low-probability/high-stakes risks?
A. Toby Ord, The Precipice, ch. 2 & 6
Roger Crisp, “Would Extinction Be So Bad?”
B. What We Owe the Future, ch. 3-4
Optional
Richard Pettigrew, “Effective altruism, risk, and human extinction”
11. Global health and international aid
Why does cost-effectiveness matter? How should we measure impact? Is most philanthropy ineffective at best, harmful at worst? Is aid skepticism justified?
A. Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, “Low-Hanging Fruit for Better (Global) Health?”
Toby Ord, “The Moral Imperative Toward Cost-Effectiveness in Global Health”
B. Angus Deaton, “Response to effective altruism”
Larry Temkin, “Being Good in a World of Need: Some Empirical Worries and an Uncomfortable Philosophical Possibility”
Dambasi Moyo, Dead Aid (excerpt)
12. Do I make a difference?
Can individuals make a difference and what are their obligations? What are collective harms? Are there collective obligations?
A. Shelly Kagan, “Do I Make a Difference?”
B. Julia Nefsky, “Collective Harm and the Inefficacy Problem”
Stephanie Collins, “Beyond individualism”
13. Justice, institutions, structural change
Is individual behavior the right locus of evaluation? Is EA sensitive to considerations of justice? Does it leave society as it is?
A. Amia Srinivasan, “Stop the robot apocalypse”
Iason Gabriel, “Effective altruism and its critics”
B. Brian Berkey, “The institutional critique of effective altruism”
Elizabeth Ashford, “Severe poverty as an unjust emergency”
14. Impersonality and meaningful lives
Why be moral? Does the good life involve more than being moral? Are we allowed to prioritize personal projects or beauty or culture?
A. Susan Wolf, “Moral saints”
Larissa Macfaquahr, Strangers Drowning (selection)
The Good Place, “Don’t let the good live pass you by”
B. Peter Singer, “Why act morally”
Todd May, A Decent Life (selection)
15. End of term activities
Career Choice and Charities Selection
DGB, ch. 9: “Don’t follow your passion”
80,000 hours
GiveWell
Very interesting reading list. It seems like an extra challenge to disentangle EA the philosophy from EA the "movement," but an interesting challenge. EA and existential risk from AI was a bit of a side challenge to a book I'm writing about generative AI and writing, but I ended up getting more interested in exploring than necessary for the book. I found myself sympathetic to some of the philosophy - I think I'm a soft consequentialist at heart - but increasingly skeptical of the movement, if that distinction makes sense. I'm pro rationality, but from what I could see about their stance on AI, they've taken leave of their senses relative to other existential risks.
The earn to give aspect of the movement also seems like an awfully thin rationale to become very rich and feel okay about it as long as you tithe. It's like the prosperity gospel for the rationalist community.
Syllabus makes me wish I was still in college and could be in a group of people kicking this stuff around.
P.S.: This podcast episode is a bit snarky, but underneath the critiques of EA made sense to me. https://pod.link/1544487624/episode/22f52bae6270a26d1ca342ef672355ea
I am curious about the relation with running!