Critical Introduction to Effective Altruism 3800-KWEA24-S-OG

A social movement and thought currently labeled 'effective altruism' by its sympathizers originated at Oxford in the early 2010s, founded by a group of philosophers determined to put into practice ideas about the scale and nature of helping those most in need, derived from the writings of the ethicist Peter Singer. It led not only to a number of publications on the ethics of charitable endeavor, but also to the creation of several major charitable organizations and charity evaluators; it attracted a large following, but also a lot of spirited criticism. "Westerners should donate a significant percentage of their income to help people in developing countries"; "by working for a corporation and donating a portion of your income to fight poverty, you can do more good than working for many charities"; "when helping others, we must scrupulously study the effects of our actions, and be guided only by the results of those studies" "ending the suffering of farmed animals and caring for the fate of future generations number among the foremost ethical challenges facing humanity". These and other ideas promoted by philosophers associated with effective altruism have proved to be simultaneously extremely attractive and controversial.

The class will introduce the students to the effective altruist’ ideas based on the ethics of utilitarianism and the achievements of economics and other social sciences, while at the same time maintaining a critical distance (the latter, incidentally, being one of the declared pillars of the EA approach). At the same time, it will be an introduction, albeit from a specific perspective, to the ethics of acting charitably, ethics of social activism and the ethics of the functioning of non- and supra-governmental organizations. What, if any, moral duties do we have towards strangers, animals or future generations - and does our ethical relationship with them end with the concept of duty? Who and how should we help as regular citizens of present-day Europe? Should these considerations influence our lifestyle or career choice - and if so, how? How can we rationally and responsibly choose, out of thousands of different potentially valuable causes, the one to which we would like to devote our charitable efforts? Should these duties translate into our political life, and what should be the relationship between the aid provided by states and other public entities and the activities of private persons? Students will learn about the often non-intuitive and always controversial answers that effective altruism poses to these and other questions; they will also learn about the methods by which it arrives at these answers and the philosophical assumptions behind them. These beliefs will be confronted with criticism from various perspectives - including from within effective altruism.

Does effective altruism promote a maximalist ethics whose demands cannot be met by ordinary people? Or is it a simultaneously pragmatic and idealistic approach capable of enriching our charitable and social endeavors? The new iteration of a soulless utilitarianism with its repulsive calculations? Or perhaps a conformist ideology of, by and for the rich, distracting them from their own responsibility for the structural problems of the contemporary world? Perhaps effective altruism is neither of these things, or perhaps it is a bit of each one? Are its prescriptions and ideals universalizable? Do they need to be? What do the answers to all these questions tell us about our personal, civilizational and cultural approaches to doing good? I cordially invite you to a lively discussion of these and other questions.
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