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1. ncalla+(OP)[view] [source] 2024-05-21 02:59:14
I don’t think so. I’ve narrowed my comments specifically to Effective Altruists who are making utilitarian trade-offs to justify known moral wrongs.

> I will say, when EA are talking about where they want to donate their money with the most efficacy, I have no problem with it. When they start talking about the utility of committing crimes or other moral wrongs because the ends justify the means, I tend to start assuming they’re bad at morality and ethics.

Frankly, if you’re going to make an “ends justify the means” moral argument, you need to do a lot of work to address how those arguments have gone horrifically wrong in the past, and why the moral framework you’re using isn’t susceptible to those issues. I haven’t seen much of that from Effective Altruists.

I was responding to someone who was specifically saying an EA might argue why it’s acceptable to commit a moral wrong, because the ends justify it.

So, again, if someone is using EA to decide how to direct their charitable donations, volunteer their time, or otherwise decide between mora goods, I have no problem with it. That specifically wasn’t context I was responding to.

replies(1): >>parine+4r1
2. parine+4r1[view] [source] 2024-05-21 14:40:02
>>ncalla+(OP)
> I don’t think so. I’ve narrowed my comments specifically to Effective Altruists who are making utilitarian trade-offs to justify known moral wrongs.

Did you?

> Effective Altruists are just shitty utilitarians that never take into account all the myriad ways that unmoderated utilitarianism has horrific failure modes.

replies(1): >>ncalla+0X1
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3. ncalla+0X1[view] [source] [discussion] 2024-05-21 17:09:07
>>parine+4r1
Sure, I should’ve said I tried to or I intended to:

You can see another comment here, where I acknowledge I communicate badly, since I’ve had to clarify multiple times what I was intending: >>40424566

This is the paragraph that was intended to narrow what I was talking about:

> I will say, when EA are talking about where they want to donate their money with the most efficacy, I have no problem with it. When they start talking about the utility of committing crimes or other moral wrongs because the ends justify the means, I tend to start assuming they’re bad at morality and ethics.

That said, I definitely should’ve said “those Effective Altruists” in the first paragraph to more clearly communicate my intent.

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