I was given the opportunity to organise and run a student-led university course introducing attendees to the philosophy and social movement of EA. :)
Even though it was officially categorised as a philosophy course, I would describe it as "an introductory reading and discussion group with a focus on philosophy".
Prior to running the course, I had sought feedback on a preliminary collection of resources for the syllabus and, having incorporated three people's feedback, now think this should give a more well-rounded, balanced intro into mainstream EA. Prior to that, my preliminary collection of resources for the syllabus was too suffering-focused for it to be a well-rounded, balanced introduction into what mainstream EA currently is.
The event series took place at UZH (University of Zurich) in the last autumn semester.
For six events, a guest with more background knowledge than me in that day's topic was invited by me and arranged to make it to the event to enrich the discussion.
There were varying but low numbers of attendees, with the most being four and with only one attendee attending the whole event series. If I ever rerun such an event series, I won't schedule it for Friday from 16:15 to 17:45 and I'll start advertising it sooner.
I think it can't hurt to share the syllabus below and my power point slides with discussion prompts here.
Maybe it's useful for someone who has a similar opportunity. Or for people looking into a philosophy-focused intro to EA. And if I ever decide to rerun such an event series, I'd make sure to take any suggestions / criticisms / ... of yours to heart prior to doing so. :)
These were my syllabus-related preliminary remarks:
I distinguish between resources designated as
E1: expected
E2: encouraged
E3: extra
Additionally, I would like to encourage you to quickly scan the resources you are not going to read in full, especially those I encourage you to read (i.e. “E2”).
I recommend reading/watching the resources in the order I put them.
Table of Contents
session #1: Introduction
session #2: Global Health and Development
session #3: Animal Welfare
session #4: The Long-Term Future
session #5: Putting EA into Practice – Part 1/2
session #6: Global Catastrophic Biological Risks
session #7: Positively Shaping the Development of Artificial Intelligence
session #8: Global Priorities Research and Moral Uncertainty
session #9: Putting EA into Practice – Part 2/2
session #1: Introduction
- E2 The Rise of the Rational Do-Gooders (introductory news article by Zachary Pincus-Roth)
- E1 Introduction to EA | Ajeya Cotra | EAGxBerkeley 2016 (35:05)
- E1 The Definition of Effective Altruism (by William MacAskill)
- E1 Centre for Effective Altruism’s Guiding Principles
- E3 Introduction to Effective Altruism on effectivealtruism.org
session #2: Global Health and Development
- E1 Global Health and Development (introductory article by Jess Whittlestone)
- E1 Peter Singer: The why and how of effective altruism (17:19)
- E1 The Drowning Child and the Expanding Circle (by Peter Singer)
- E3 The Life You Can Save in 3 minutes by Peter Singer (3:24)
- E3 Famine, Affluence and Morality, by Peter Singer- Summary + Full Text on givingwhatwecan.org (original journal article here)
- E1 The Moral Imperative Toward Cost-Effectiveness in Global Health (by Toby Ord)
- E2 Effective Altruism, Global Poverty, and Systemic Change (by Iason Gabriel and Brian McElwee)
- E2 Myths and Misconceptions about Charity on givingwhatwecan.org
- E2 Our Top Charities on givewell.org
session #3: Animal Welfare
- E1 Animal Welfare (introductory article by Jess Whittlestone et al.)
- E1 A Meat Eater's Case For Veganism (24:06) (by CosmicSkeptic aka Alex J. O'Connor)
- E3 The Case Against Speciesism on centerforreducingsuffering.org
- E3 All Animals Are Equal (by Peter Singer) (excerpt on the EA Forum – original 1st chapter of Peter Singer’s 1975 book Animal Liberation here)
- E1 Why farmed animals? (by Jon Bockman) on animalcharityevaluators.org
- E2 The wild frontier of animal welfare (introductory news article by Dylan Matthews)
- E1 Reducing wild-animal suffering through research | Persis Eskander | EA Global: London 2017 (30:45)
- E2 Why we should give moral consideration to sentient beings rather than ecosystems on animal-ethics.org
- E2 Recommended Charities on animalcharityevaluators.org
session #4: The Long-Term Future
- E2 What we owe to future generations (introductory news article by Sigal Samuel)
- E1 The Long-Term Future (introductory article by Jess Whittlestone)
- E2 Uncertainty – 7th chapter of the 2012 book Climate Matters: Ethics in a Warming World (by John Broome)
- E1 Effective altruism, existential risk & existential hope | Max Tegmark (35:10)
- E1 Existential Risk Prevention as Global Priority (by Nick Bostrom)
- E3 Unprecedented Technological Risks (by Nick Beckstead, Nick Bostrom, Niel Bowerman, Owen Cotton-Barratt, William MacAskill, Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh, and Toby Ord)
- E3 A Brief Argument for the Overwhelming Importance of Shaping the Far Future (by Nick Beckstead)
session #5: Putting EA into Practice – Part 1/2
- E1 On Caring (by Nate Soares)
- E1 Against naive effective altruism | Lucius Caviola | EAGxBerlin 2017 (29:56)
- E1 Doing Good Effectively (short interview with UZH philosopher Stefan Riedener)
- E2 Room for Other Things: How to adjust if EA seems overwhelming (by Lukas Gloor)
- E2 Purchase Fuzzies and Utilons Separately (by Eliezer Yudkowsky)
- E3 Demandingness of morality tag on the EA Forum
- E3 Resources for Sustainable Activism (compiled by Magnus Vinding)
session #6: Global Catastrophic Biological Risks
- E1 Why we need worst-case thinking to prevent pandemics (edited extract from Toby Ord’s 2020 book The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity)
- E1 Biotechnology and existential risk | Andrew Snyder Beattie | EA Global: London 2017 (29:09)
- E2 short section on Synthetic Biology in Unprecedented Technological Risks (by Nick Beckstead, Nick Bostrom, Niel Bowerman, Owen Cotton-Barratt, William MacAskill, Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh, and Toby Ord)
- E2 What are information hazards? (by Michael Aird)
- E1 Information Hazards in Biotechnology (by Gregory Lewis, Piers Millett, Anders Sandberg, Andrew Snyder-Beattie, and Gigi Gronvall)
- E2 Horsepox synthesis: A case of the unilateralist’s curse? (by Gregory Lewis)
- E3 Information Hazard tag on the EA Forum
session #7: Positively Shaping the Development of Artificial Intelligence
- E1 Benefits & Risks of Artificial Intelligence on futureoflife.org
- E2 short section on Artificial General Intelligence in Unprecedented Technological Risks (by Nick Beckstead, Nick Bostrom, Niel Bowerman, Owen Cotton-Barratt, William MacAskill, Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh, and Toby Ord)
- E1 Intro to AI Safety, Remastered (18:04) (by Robert Miles)
- E1 The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence (by Nick Bostrom and Eliezer Yudkowsky)
- E2 Superintelligence as a Cause or Cure for Risks of Astronomical Suffering (by Kaj Sotala and Lukas Gloor)
- E3 Future of Life Institute: Value Alignment Research Landscape (concept map)
session #8: Global Priorities Research and Moral Uncertainty
- E1 What Should We Do?: Essays on Cause Prioritization and Fundamental Values (by Magnus Vinding)
- E1 Hilary Greaves | Evidence, cluelessness and the long term (31:52)
- E1 Why We Should Take Moral Uncertainty Seriously – 1st chapter of the 2020 book Moral Uncertainty (by William MacAskill, Krister Bykvist, and Toby Ord)
- E3 Global priorities research on 80000hours.org
- E3 Global Priorities Institute's research agenda
session #9: Putting EA into Practice – Part 2/2
- E1 Effective Altruism and Its Critics (by Iason Gabriel)
- E1 Embracing the intellectual challenge of effective altruism | Michael Page | EA Global: 2016 (18:55)
- E2 The best ways to help others with your career, compared on 80000hours.org
- E1 Advice for undergraduates on 80000hours.org
- E3 A guide to using your career to help solve the world’s most pressing problems on 80000hours.org (their "key ideas" article)
- E3 Research questions that could have a big social impact, organised by discipline on 80000hours.org
- E2 Impact (a page laying out some examples of the movement's impact) on effectivealtruism.org
- E1 Take action on effectivealtruism.org