Arepo comments on 'Effective Altruism' as utilitarian equivocation. - Less Wrong

1 Post author: Dias 24 November 2013 06:35PM

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Comment author: Arepo 25 November 2013 02:11:31PM 0 points [-]

‘A charity that very efficiently promoted beauty and justice’ would still be a utilitarian charity (where the form of util defined utility as beauty and justice), so if that’s not EA, then EA does not = utilitarianism, QED.

Also, as Ben Todd and others have frequently pointed out, many non-utilitarian ethics subsume the value of happiness. A deontologist might want more happiness and less suffering, but feel that he also had a personal injunction against violating certain moral rules. So long as he didn’t violate those codes, he might well want to maximise efficient use of welfare.