Category: The good it promises
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The good it promises (Part 7: Crary continued)
This post continues my discussion of Alice Crary’s essay, “Against `effective altruism’,” focusing on Crary’s composite critique of effective altruism.
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The good it promises (Part 6: Alice Crary)
Alice Crary’s essay “Against `effective altruism'” argues that effective altruism inherits a number of assumptions from consequentialism, including a focus on moral questions about particular actions and a framing of those questions in terms of the point of view of the universe.
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The good it promises (Part 5: de Coriolis et al.)
Andrew deCoriolis and colleagues urge effective altruists to dream big, keeping their eye on the prize: an end to factory farming. In this post, I discuss what deCoriolis and colleagues like about effective altruists’ animal advocacy work, and what changes they’d like to see.
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The good it promises, the harm it does (Part 4: Lori Gruen)
Revolutionaries argue that meaningful change requires overthrowing unjust systems. Reformers counter that it is often best to improve conditions within existing systems. Lori Guren proposes a middle road between revolution and reform.
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The good it promises, the harm it does (Part 3: Carol J. Adams)
Carol J Adams proposes that effective altruists can learn valuable lessons from the feminist tradition of care ethics. I discuss two concrete lessons and sketch a care ethical approach.
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The good it promises, the harm it does (Part 2: Simone de Lima)
I look at Simone de Lima’s essay “Effective altruism’s unsuspecting 21st century colonialism” to draw out lessons for the importance of learning from local history, knowledge and context, the dangers of quantification, and the pitfalls of top-down international governance by former colonial powers.
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The good it promises, the harm it does (Part 1: Introduction)
A new collection of essays edited by Carol J Adams, Alice Crary, and Lori Gruen brings together activists and scholars from a wide range of perspectives to critically reflect on effective altruism.