To the extent that you’re pursuing topics that EA organizations are also pursuing, you should probably donate to their recommended charities rather than trying to do it yourself or going through less-measured charities.
Well yes, this is basically the crux of my question.
As in, I obviously agree with the E and I tend do agree with the A , buy my issue is why how A seems to be defined in EA (as in, mainly around improving the lives of people that you will never interact with or ‘care’ about on a personal level).
So I agree with: I should donate to some of my favorite writers/video-makers that are less popular and thus might be kept in business by 20$ monthly on pateron is another hundred people think like me. (efficient as opposed, to, say, donating to an org that helps all artists or donating to well-off creators).
I also agree with: It’s efficient to save a life halfway across the globe for x,000$ as opposed to one in the EU where it would cost x00,000$ to achieve a similar addition in healthy life years.
Where I don’t understand how the intuition really works is “Why is it better to save the life of a person you will never know/meet than to help 20 artists that you love” (or some such equivalence).
As in, I get there some intuition about it being “better” and I agree that might be strong enough in some people that it’s just “obvious”, but my thinking was that there might be some sort of better ethic-rooted argument for it.
Nope, in the end it all comes down to your personal self-conception and intuition. You can back it up with calculations and testing your emotional reaction to intellectual counterfactuals (“how does it feel that I saved half a statistical life, but couldn’t support my friend this month”). But all the moral arguments I’ve seen come down to either religious authority or assertion that some intuitions are (or should be) universal.
Well yes, this is basically the crux of my question.
As in, I obviously agree with the
E
and I tend do agree with theA
, buy my issue is why howA
seems to be defined in EA (as in, mainly around improving the lives of people that you will never interact with or ‘care’ about on a personal level).So I agree with: I should donate to some of my favorite writers/video-makers that are less popular and thus might be kept in business by 20$ monthly on pateron is another hundred people think like me. (efficient as opposed, to, say, donating to an org that helps all artists or donating to well-off creators).
I also agree with: It’s efficient to save a life halfway across the globe for x,000$ as opposed to one in the EU where it would cost x00,000$ to achieve a similar addition in healthy life years.
Where I don’t understand how the intuition really works is “Why is it better to save the life of a person you will never know/meet than to help 20 artists that you love” (or some such equivalence).
As in, I get there some intuition about it being “better” and I agree that might be strong enough in some people that it’s just “obvious”, but my thinking was that there might be some sort of better ethic-rooted argument for it.
Nope, in the end it all comes down to your personal self-conception and intuition. You can back it up with calculations and testing your emotional reaction to intellectual counterfactuals (“how does it feel that I saved half a statistical life, but couldn’t support my friend this month”). But all the moral arguments I’ve seen come down to either religious authority or assertion that some intuitions are (or should be) universal.