The Nonlinear Library EA - Unpacking Martin Sandbu's recent(ish) take on EA by JWS
Jan 20, 2024
23:33
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Unpacking Martin Sandbu's recent(ish) take on EA, published by JWS on January 20, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum.
The original article is here: https://www.ft.com/content/128f3a15-b048-4741-b3e0-61c9346c390b
Why respond to this article?
When browsing EA Twitter earlier this month, someone whose opinions on EA I respect quote-tweeted someone that I don't (at least on the topic of EA[1]). The subject of both tweets was an article published at the end of 2023 by Martin Sandbu of the Financial Times titled "Effective altruism was the favoured creed of Sam Bankman-Fried. Can it survive his fall?" Given that both of these people seem to broadly endorse the views, or at least the balance, found in the article I thought it would be worthwhile reading to see what a relatively mainstream commentator would think about EA.
The Financial Times is one of the world's leading newspapers and needs very little introduction, and Sandbu is one of its most well-known commenters. What gets printed in the FT is often repeated across policy circles, not just in Britain but across the world, and especially in wonky/policy-focused circles that have often been quite welcoming of EA either ideologically or demographically.
As always, I encourage readers to read and engage with the original article itself to get a sense of whether you think my summarisation and responses are fair.
Reviewing Sandbu's Article
Having read the article, I think it's mainly covering two separate questions related to EA, so I'll discuss them one-at-a-time. This means I'll be jumping back-and-forth a bit across the article to group similar parts together and respond to the underlying points, though I've tried to edit Sandbu's points down as little as possible.
1) How to account for EA's historical success?
The first theme in the article is an attempt to give a historical account of EA's emergence, and also an attempt by Sandbu to account for its unexpected success. Early on in the article, Sandbu clearly states his confusion at how a movement with the background of EA grew so much in such a short space of time:
"Even more puzzling is how quickly effective altruism rose to prominence - it is barely a decade since a couple of young philosophers at the University of Oxford invented the term ... nobody I knew would have predicted that any philosophical outlook, let alone this one, would take off in such a spectacular way."
He doesn't explicitly say so, but I think a reason behind this is EA's heavy debt to Utilitarian thinkers and philosophy, which Sandbu sees as having been generally discredited or disconfirmed over the 20th century:
"In the 20th century, Utilitarianism… progressively lost the favour of philosophers, who considered it too freighted with implausible implications."
The history of philosophy and the various 20th century arguments around Utilitarianism are not my area of expertise, but I'm not really sure I buy that argument, or even accept how much it's a useful simplification (a potted history, as Sandbu says) of the actual trends in normative ethics.
First, Utilitarianism has had plenty of criticism and counter-development before the 20th century.[2] And even looking at the field of philosophy right now, consequentialism is just as popular as the other two major alternatives in normative ethics.[3] I suspect that Sandbu is hinting at Bernard Williams' famous essay against utilitarianism, but I don't think one should consider that essay the final word on the subject.
In any case, Sandbu is telling a story here, trying to set a background against which the key founding moment of EA happens:
"Then came Peter Singer. In a famous 1972 article... [Singer] argued that not giving money to save lives in poor countries is morally equivalent to not saving a child drowning in a shallow pond... Any personal luxury...
The original article is here: https://www.ft.com/content/128f3a15-b048-4741-b3e0-61c9346c390b
Why respond to this article?
When browsing EA Twitter earlier this month, someone whose opinions on EA I respect quote-tweeted someone that I don't (at least on the topic of EA[1]). The subject of both tweets was an article published at the end of 2023 by Martin Sandbu of the Financial Times titled "Effective altruism was the favoured creed of Sam Bankman-Fried. Can it survive his fall?" Given that both of these people seem to broadly endorse the views, or at least the balance, found in the article I thought it would be worthwhile reading to see what a relatively mainstream commentator would think about EA.
The Financial Times is one of the world's leading newspapers and needs very little introduction, and Sandbu is one of its most well-known commenters. What gets printed in the FT is often repeated across policy circles, not just in Britain but across the world, and especially in wonky/policy-focused circles that have often been quite welcoming of EA either ideologically or demographically.
As always, I encourage readers to read and engage with the original article itself to get a sense of whether you think my summarisation and responses are fair.
Reviewing Sandbu's Article
Having read the article, I think it's mainly covering two separate questions related to EA, so I'll discuss them one-at-a-time. This means I'll be jumping back-and-forth a bit across the article to group similar parts together and respond to the underlying points, though I've tried to edit Sandbu's points down as little as possible.
1) How to account for EA's historical success?
The first theme in the article is an attempt to give a historical account of EA's emergence, and also an attempt by Sandbu to account for its unexpected success. Early on in the article, Sandbu clearly states his confusion at how a movement with the background of EA grew so much in such a short space of time:
"Even more puzzling is how quickly effective altruism rose to prominence - it is barely a decade since a couple of young philosophers at the University of Oxford invented the term ... nobody I knew would have predicted that any philosophical outlook, let alone this one, would take off in such a spectacular way."
He doesn't explicitly say so, but I think a reason behind this is EA's heavy debt to Utilitarian thinkers and philosophy, which Sandbu sees as having been generally discredited or disconfirmed over the 20th century:
"In the 20th century, Utilitarianism… progressively lost the favour of philosophers, who considered it too freighted with implausible implications."
The history of philosophy and the various 20th century arguments around Utilitarianism are not my area of expertise, but I'm not really sure I buy that argument, or even accept how much it's a useful simplification (a potted history, as Sandbu says) of the actual trends in normative ethics.
First, Utilitarianism has had plenty of criticism and counter-development before the 20th century.[2] And even looking at the field of philosophy right now, consequentialism is just as popular as the other two major alternatives in normative ethics.[3] I suspect that Sandbu is hinting at Bernard Williams' famous essay against utilitarianism, but I don't think one should consider that essay the final word on the subject.
In any case, Sandbu is telling a story here, trying to set a background against which the key founding moment of EA happens:
"Then came Peter Singer. In a famous 1972 article... [Singer] argued that not giving money to save lives in poor countries is morally equivalent to not saving a child drowning in a shallow pond... Any personal luxury...