I think there’s some good points to be made about the care-o-meter as a heuristic.
Basically, let’s say that the utility associated with altruistic effort has a term something like this: U = [relative amount of impact I can have on the problem] * [absolute significance of the problem]
To some extent, one’s care-o-meter is a measurement of the latter term, i.e. the “scope” of the problem, and the issue of scope insensitivity demonstrates that it fails miserably in this regard. However, that isn’t entirely an accurate criticism, because as a rough heuristic your care-o-meter isn’t simply a measure of the second term; it also includes some aspects of the first term. Indeed, if one views the care-o-meter as a “call to action”, then it would make much more sense for it to be a heuristic estimate of U than of absolute problem significance.
For example, if your care-o-meter says you care more about your friends than about people far away, or don’t care much more about large disasters than smaller ones, then any combination of three things could be going on: (1) I can’t have as much relative impact on those problems. (2) Those problems are simply less important. (3) My care-o-meter is simply wrong.
I don’t agree at all with (2), and I can see a lot of merit in the suggestion of (3). However, I think that for most people in most of human history, (1) has been relatively applicable. If you, personally, are only capable of helping other people a single person at a time, then it doesn’t really matter if that person is a single person who has been hurt, or one out of a million suffering due to a major disaster. Also, you are in a unique position to help your friends more so than other people, and thus it makes plenty of sense to spend effort on your friends more so than on random strangers.
Of course, it is nonetheless true that this kind of care-o-meter miscalibration has always been an issue. At the very least, there have always been people who have had much more power than others, and thus have been able to make larger impacts on larger problems.
More importantly, in modern times (1) is far less true than it used to be for a great many people. It is genuinely possible for many people in the world to have a significant impact on what you refer to as distant invisible problems, and thus good care-o-meter calibration is essential.
I think there’s some good points to be made about the care-o-meter as a heuristic.
Basically, let’s say that the utility associated with altruistic effort has a term something like this:
U = [relative amount of impact I can have on the problem] * [absolute significance of the problem]
To some extent, one’s care-o-meter is a measurement of the latter term, i.e. the “scope” of the problem, and the issue of scope insensitivity demonstrates that it fails miserably in this regard. However, that isn’t entirely an accurate criticism, because as a rough heuristic your care-o-meter isn’t simply a measure of the second term; it also includes some aspects of the first term. Indeed, if one views the care-o-meter as a “call to action”, then it would make much more sense for it to be a heuristic estimate of U than of absolute problem significance.
For example, if your care-o-meter says you care more about your friends than about people far away, or don’t care much more about large disasters than smaller ones, then any combination of three things could be going on:
(1) I can’t have as much relative impact on those problems.
(2) Those problems are simply less important.
(3) My care-o-meter is simply wrong.
I don’t agree at all with (2), and I can see a lot of merit in the suggestion of (3). However, I think that for most people in most of human history, (1) has been relatively applicable. If you, personally, are only capable of helping other people a single person at a time, then it doesn’t really matter if that person is a single person who has been hurt, or one out of a million suffering due to a major disaster. Also, you are in a unique position to help your friends more so than other people, and thus it makes plenty of sense to spend effort on your friends more so than on random strangers.
Of course, it is nonetheless true that this kind of care-o-meter miscalibration has always been an issue. At the very least, there have always been people who have had much more power than others, and thus have been able to make larger impacts on larger problems.
More importantly, in modern times (1) is far less true than it used to be for a great many people. It is genuinely possible for many people in the world to have a significant impact on what you refer to as distant invisible problems, and thus good care-o-meter calibration is essential.