This post attempts to make Effective Altruism more legible to those who accept some form of virtue ethics (explicitly or otherwise)[1].
5000 years of moral philosophy has largely converged on the idea that altruism is good. It is good to weigh the interests of 'others' when making decisions. Whatever the ultimate Good is, it seems that it is attained, in part, by means of altruism.
But why be effective?
Welfarist consequentialism most obviously endorses the project of Effective Altruism. On the other hand, it is more difficult to decide whether virtue ethical approaches would do the same.
I make the case that the effectiveness mindset is a condition of virtue.
The task of the virtue ethicist is to cultivate virtue, in themselves and in others. Virtue seems to be a complex of several conditions in an individual, defying simple delineation. We begin by laying out two conditions for Virtue that seem fairly intuitive and are endorsed by several philosophical traditions [2]. Those considered virtuous usually
Notably, the form this care takes is underdetermined. There are many forms that this caring can take, but we can agree that caring is commensurate with action. The magnitude of action is commensurate with the magnitude of caring. To be clear, when I say ‘caring’ here, I don’t mean the feeling or emotion that we may usually associate with ‘caring’. Instead, I define ‘caring’ as a cognitive process; a kind of thought or series of thoughts that precede actions. The meaning of the word ‘caring’ is captured by the phrase ‘thinking of others’.
An interesting characteristic of virtue is that being virtuous creates the opportunity to be more virtuous. The skill ceiling for virtue is very high (see: the lives of many great men and women throughout history).
Others have eloquently noted elsewhere on the Forum that we ‘shut up and multiply’ not because we care too little, but because we cannot look away. However, I feel it also goes the other way round: shutting up and multiplying is a way to hack our brains to care more for others, when we’re most inclined to care for a few people around us, those most likely to help us back[3]. The sort of provincial pride we feel upon finding an initial cause to work on that neatly and gently fits into our narrative of ourselves is violently snatched away by the spreadsheet. We realize the smallness of our actions in comparison to the scale of all the problems that exist in the world. For one who truly cares, this is not discouraging, because there is no other alternative to caring. Engaging in the “cold” logic of the spreadsheet, if done right, can cultivate radical compassion.
Virtuous altruism, based on the conditions enumerated above, seems to be precisely found where there is a lack of self-interest. Many argue that altruism is done purely for selfish reasons, because it brings psychological satisfaction to the doer. EA, I think, provides a counterexample.
Cause prioritization and the maximization imperative is an exercise in self-abnegation. To illustrate this, let us say there is a certain maximum personal satisfaction/pleasure/utility T(N) we can experience from altruistic activities.[4] Then there is an impact (e.g. lives saved) of minimum size n at which T saturates, and say impact N>n. Then we have that the amount of effort undertaken to achieve N-n [5] units of impact is purely altruistic. Even if you gain extra satisfaction from the exercise of maximization, this is bounded, whereas the amount of impact can be unbounded. You can maximize impact instrumentally to act with more selfless virtue.
All this, as you might know, is not easy. It is a discipline, and a struggle. Doing all of this seems to make you kinder, thoughtful, more truth-seeking, and generally better at doing things in the world[6] – all signposts for virtue. You then inspire the people around you to be better people, too, perhaps in their own ways.
Now, the implications of this argument may seem harsh on those who aren’t EAs. But note that there are many means of cultivating virtue, though, of course, I think being an effective altruist is a particularly effective means of doing so. We also know that being maximally altruist is not the end-all-be-all of being virtuous. There’s necessary space for caring for family and friends as well as time for personal interests like art, music, meditation, prayer, etc. - all things that also can be part of the recipe for virtue. You can decide how much effective altruism to do, but a decent serving of it in your life seems like an incredibly good thing.
Thank you to Madeleine Hoffman and Noah Birnbaum for suggestions and conversations that inspired this post.
[1] Including thousands of crypto-virtue-ethicists masquerading as consequentialists (jesting).
[2] Drawn from my readings of Stoic, Hindu, and Buddhist, and Aristotelian philosophy
[3] For reasons of fitness, and because we are conditioned, but I believe not bound, to take actions in self-interest.
[4] Empirically, this seems true (see: scope insensitivity). There is an upper bound and/or point of diminishing returns to how much pleasure we feel upon helping others. I think it’s something like a sigmoid function. Instead of a maximum threshold, one may specify a model with diminishing marginal utility but no strict upper bound – for the purposes of this post, it would overcomplicate the argument, and I believe the conclusion would be similar. Perhaps a further exploration of this to come.
[5] Math, because including mathematical symbols means everything in this essay is definitely true (this is an economist joke).
[6] Source: personal experience group organizing and interacting with EAs. EA not only selects for these qualities but reinforces them. Maybe a psychologist/sociologist can conduct a study to verify.
