You’re one of my very favorite writers, and I feel like I learn a lot from your column. I don’t know how you’re able to read so much, listen to so much, and write so much; your productivity is astounding, and you do it all with unique insights.
Today’s column is the first time I’ve felt you were unfair, and not just a little.
My son works for an Effective Altruist (EA) organization founded by a multi-billionaire to research how he can spend his billions of charitable dollars to do the most good. My son lives and breathes EA, and I have never heard him talk—not once--about "maximizing pleasure." He’s currently in Ethiopia leading a delegation of South Korean parliamentarians, showing them vaccination facilities and other cost-effective ways to save lives in a country that needs support; the hope is that the parliamentarians will lobby their government to increase funding for such projects. EAs tend to focus on countries where the most good can be done at the least cost, so developing countries are at the top of their list.
It’s true that many EAs are consequentialists, but not in the name of having a good time. They deal with dicey equations like how much sacrifice today is justifiable to achieve a better tomorrow. Similarly, they’ll make the difficult suggestion that resources spent to do good on the local level in this country would be better spent in another country where the dollars—and the good that can be done—go much further. That part of EA can make a lot of people uncomfortable, and understandably so, but that doesn’t make it wrong.
Aspiring EAs have traditionally had two primary career choices: working within EA to identify and promote charitable causes that give the most bang for the buck (i.e., lives saved or substantially improved per dollar spent), or “earning to give”—following the path that maximizes the amount of money they can make and thereby eventually donate. Samuel Bankman-Fried gave the EA movement a big black eye by twisting “earn to give” to allow ripping off investors and shareholders. Effective Altruists would not support any such unethical activities, and they’ve dialed down the whole “earn to give” side of the equation as a result of what he’s done. Samuel Bankman-Fried may have started as—or claimed to be—an Effective Altruist, but in no way does he represent the movement. The day his criminal activities were revealed was absolutely brutal for Effective Altruists; not only did he damage the movement in the public eye, but billions of dollars that were expected to go to charitable good vanished. To be very clear: The EA movement would have endorsed his plan to make as much money as possible to donate to worthy causes (if he ever really meant that), but they would never have endorsed the way he went about it. He can call himself an Effective Altruist, but I challenge you to find an Effective Altruist who would want anything to do with him.
I’m curious where you came up with the idea that Effective Altruism is about maximizing pleasure. Is it in writing somewhere? If not, I think you’re being grossly unfair, and I honestly don’t understand why; it doesn’t seem at all consistent with all the well-researched and unerringly fair columns you’ve posted in the past. The whole device about EAs supporting the idea of Granny being sold to sex traffickers to maximize human pleasure in the long run seems—and I hate to say this to someone as deep and thoughtful as you—completely disingenuous and terribly misleading. I challenge you to find a single Effective Altruist who would support it.
And, yes, my progeny is an Effective Altruist, and I’m very proud of him. He lives his life to achieve the most benefit for mankind (and animals as well—animal welfare is a major EA concern); he puts me to shame. "Maximizing pleasure" is part of the equation only insofar as it makes him feel good to have a positive influence on the world.
My son is based in the Bay Area, and I would love for you to get to know him to see what kind of “hate monger” he is. I’m sure he’d welcome the opportunity to talk with you about it.
It sounds like your son is doing good deeds. I commend him, and I congratulate you as a parent.
But I commend charitable works of this sort even if they are done just out of compassion and good will. They certainly don't need a vague consequentialist philosophy to validate them. People did good deeds of this sort long before Effective Alltruism even existed, and didn't require elaborate justifications.
The most important thing is that your son is working to help others in a very concrete way, and this is absolutely praiseworthy. Well done.
Many people in the EA movement are kindhearted, and good. I was a part of it for a long time.
That doesn't mean the philosophy is good overall however, or promotes the right things. There are absolutely bright spots in EA, but the blind spots are so large and can lead to so much harm that I don't think the confidence most EAs have is warranted.
That confidence is a double edged sword because it is what allows so many EAs to devote their lives to the cause - but it also leads them down really dark paths.
Thank you so much for your comment. I'm an agnostic about EA, but, as I said in a comment above, Bankman-Fried's use of it could easily have been a perversion of the philosophy in the same way people pervert the principles of different religions for nefarious ends. You seem to come to a similar conclusion based on a a much deeper knowledge and personal experience with EA. Again, thank you.
Yes, our host is eliding all Effective Altruism into utilitarian consequentialism, which is a philosophy that is simply bankrupt.
My hope is that we are going to have a lot of EA types who simply want to do good cast off the utilitarianist roots of their philosophy after seeing how easily it can be misused. I think we’re already seeing some of the thought leaders constrict their utilitarianism so tightly to avoid such abuses that it effectively turns into Kantianism. If that happens, then EA will be just fine and we’re going to have a bunch of rationalist-cult people with the bad parts of the philosophy who are not part of the movement but try to use the branding as if they were.
Yes but if you have any idea who pulls the strings in EA, an extremely hierarchical movement, you'll realize that utilitarian consequentialism rules the day.
Oh, that's fascinating! I had not heard this. I of course know of the loud thought leaders, but I hadn't ever thought of it as hierarchical. Care to provide background/examples?
Open philanthropy controls the vast majority of the money/leadership in the EA movement. Overall the movement is highly elitist and keeps power in the hands of a loose organization of folks at the top.
Thanks for posting those links! I only started reading the first... My overall problem (also maybe one major pushback against the Oxford school of philosophy) is the hubristic nature of the thought that "if I am careful enough in my mental modeling, I can predict the future."
I suspect that this kind of attitude (maybe born out of a desire to control the future, out of a fear of death and demise) is at the core of all philosophies that "go wrong" (lead to more harm than expected). No matter how careful we study reality, I don't think we will ever be in a position to *completely* foresee the complex feedback loops that push on reality once we implement a change. As such, the best I can think of is always to (1) acknowledge that information and modeling is imperfect, (2) implement changes gradually using biologically informed intuitions of "good and bad" (or evil) to avoid otherwise rationally justifiable pitfalls, (3) humbly observe the results, and (4) accept that results will likely differ from predictions, and then equally carefully course-correct.
This whole notion of being able to use some sort of crystal ball of rationality to predict how things will turn out a year (let alone a century) from now seems so debunked, it is strange that any serious philosophy would still entertain that concept...
Yeah this nails a big problem with utilitarianism in my estimation too. It's easy to get sucked in when our models are so large and powerful nowadays, but on the other hand the results are much worse when we get things wrong BECAUSE our models and technologies are so powerful.
Thank you! That's very helpful, and I'll scratch away at those as I have time (20K words for the first one! Goodness.).
That said, this post kind of illustrates my point: that there are undercurrents in EA that are trying to get it right, especially in light of the collapse of FTX. I _hope_ they will be successful; I would not blame anyone for being doubtful that it will come to pass.
It seems that after the FTX fiasco there was indeed a large upswell of people trying to move away from the strict utilitarian control of those at the top. Unfortunately from my perspective that upswell failed, and most of the people trying to change the movement have either left or been pushed out.
Controlling the purse strings means a lot in this sort of nascent movement.
I agree with you that this is what people, and I have trouble with:
"They deal with dicey equations like how much sacrifice today is justifiable to achieve a better tomorrow. Similarly, they’ll make the difficult suggestion that resources spent to do good on the local level in this country would be better spent in another country where the dollars—and the good that can be done—go much further." I think that Thanos from the Marvel movies is a great example of an Effective Altruist, along with most Hollywood villians. I also think that if you really want to make an impact, support your local nonprofits.
Nothing altruistic about vaccination ha ha.. you mentioned he showed people around vaccination facilities... not mentioning the harm these vaccines are doing and did. And not.to mention the word "philantrope" and how much the media used this specific word for the last 3 years when they mention Bill Hates, all to the purpose of the global citizens accepting this man as being the most altruistic man alive today...
I could talk about capture of some parts of EA by utility monsters, such as AGI, or "Long Termism", which may stem from being too close to wealth and power, but I would rather consider paths not taken
One, Could the wealthy donor renounce tax minimization and set fair transfer prices within the companies they control? Could they promote improved wages and working conditions within supply chains they have influence over? Could they promote more lenient intellectual property rights and technology transfer, at both a corporate and state level?
Two, is the whole problem addressed? If mosquito nets, for example, are the cheapest form of poverty alleviation, why are people lacking them? Is it that mosquito nets are unobtainable, or the result of other priorities that might see them used as fishing nets?
Three, what is the cost of flexibilty? The medium or long term benefits of a program? Change to priorities of community, provinical, or national governmenets due to public pressure and interest? Intangibles such as the trust of communites toward NGOs. Are these considered before reallocating funds based on greater marginal benefit?
One strange tendancy I saw in the movement was "thinking like a machine", relying on bayesian inference, monetary valuations, and taking descisions as spot transactions. Another was conflating data with observation. Data is a symbolic representation of an observation and depends on sampling decisions taken during the conversion between observation and symbol.
If you take away the formulas for predicting the future and the clearly sociopathic learn, earn, return part of EA, then you are left with altruism, which it appears your son is engaged in, and you should be proud.
EA is now part of a story that includes artificial general intelligence and interplanetary travel. Just think about that. Both of these will consume unbelievable resources, and at least one could kill us. That is not altruism, that is just the same old delusion that held every tyrant through history in its thrall.
The dirty secret is that the most effective form of altruism in the world is fairness. When labor is not exploited through extraction, both happiness and most life quality indicators rise. As a result, any "altruistic" approach that demands extraction as its starting point is already predetermined. EA has been a strong proponent of hedge funds, for instance, which are just machines for extracting wealth from ordinary folks. If the proponents were intellectually honest, they would agree that minimizing wealth disparity is the single most effective form of altruism - proven from the failure of the poor houses of England to the success of social democracies of northern Europe.
EA is not a coherent philosophy for maximizing the quality of life of humanity, it is yet another complex rationalization for the accumulation of wealth and power without external accountability.
People have been trying to use metrics to enhance charitable giving for long before anyone thought to call themselves and effective altruist. Many charities spend a lot of time on such metrics.
So I don't think the idea of having metrics is new.
And I'm not sure EAs necessarily have a better bead on what metrics or how the measure them then other charities trying to do the same.
So what's new? What groundbreaking new idea in charity does EA represent? "We can save more lives in the third world" is not an earth shattering new idea.
I'm not sure there is one.
So what is EA but dressed up consequentialism? Why does it need a special name? Didn't the Gates Foundation already use metrics to steer African charity?
If we dig into EA, I think we would find the same old debates about assumptions we've always had. What more effective for human flourishing, increasing African population through mosquito nets or giving R&D funding to the worlds most capable individuals? Are political donations cost effective? Are for-profit business ventures more useful to society than non-profit work? Which ones?
I'm going to be harsh for a minute, but "my sons is trying to convince governments to give away more third world aid to Africa, which has a miserable track record of doing anything useful long term" could easily be worse then him just getting a regular job that makes products and services people want.
I mean if he thinks otherwise that's fine, but I don't need a philosophy lecture on his rationalization for doing so (justified or not).
First: I am a HUGE fan. Second: this is the one and only time I’ve read something of yours and thought, “this is a terrible piece of writing.” Just to be clear, I’m not saying that because I think your conclusion is faulty. In fact, I have no idea whether you’re right or wrong because I have no training in philosophy, aside from a political theory class I took when I got my JD at Berkeley.
What I am saying is that, as a piece of analysis/persuasion, this is a failure. You start by making some very strong claims about “Ethical Altruism,” e.g., it could make you sell your granny to sex traffickers. But you never walk the reader through specific tenets of the philosophy and how they’ve been applied to do terrible things in the world. You make a remarkably general proposition about EA, then you blame it for a litany of horrible behavior.
Where is the causation analysis? Many people go to law school (or business school) and later do terrible things. Did they do them because they went to law school? Maybe, maybe not. I’m completely open to the possibility that EA is a force for awful behavior in the mold of Sam Bankman-Fried. But your piece does absolutely nothing to persuade me that EA is, in fact, the cause. It’s entirely possible that an advocate could argue (maybe fairly, maybe not), that what Bankman-Fried did was a perversion of the philosophy, not an application of it, in the same way some people pervert religion for terrible ends.
Bottom line, this feels more like a personal vendetta than an argument, and for me, that’s a serious disappointment coming from you, because you are normally so careful and methodical in the way your marshal facts and arguments.
This is expository writing, not a thesis. If you understand EA and its relationship to Utilitarianism, then it holds together.
If you want a set of logical propositions countering EA, then there is about 250 years of strong analytical reasoning against Utilitarianism that will serve.
May I suggest "After Virtue" by Alastair MacIntyre? He has his problems, but pretty much eviscerates Utilitarianism.
If you can't intuitively see that EA is just a Malcolm Gladwell/TEDtalk rebranding of Utilitarianism, then that is a bigger issue.
Brilliantly fair. “By their fruits shall ye know them.” Every philosophical, ideological, or religious system that fails to curb human arrogance leads terribly astray, I think. We can hardly stop ourselves, but we must try. This piece is an excellent instance of “honest brokerage.” Thank you.
EA isn't all that fancy. It's just the latest philosophy for gangsters. From Robin Hood to Robespierre to Thomas Gambino, gangsters have balanced their present-day destruction against future charity, which always coincidentally comes back to the gangster as profit
Watched "Dirty Dancing" a few weeks ago and the scene where the main asshole hands Baby "The Fountainhead" had me laughing out loud. Such a boring book imo.
Strange I read that book and it changed my life. 18 years old. I wasn’t sure(at the time) what else she was trying to say but the message I took away is “it’s all up to me”, my future was in my hands. I got my ass in gear.
Interesting. I read it at exactly that age and experienced it as I described above. Not so many years have passed (I'm 21) but I agree with what you took from it. These ideas of forging your own destiny are powerful and can be a force for good, I just didn't get them from this book. Goes to show you how differently a work of art can rub off on people.
I would heart this, except that 'boring' truly does not do it justice. It is simply the worst-written book ever published, defying my ability to read it thru (and I've read some really bad books).
I don’t think that’s completely fair to Rand. She had quite a few valid insights - affirming reality, facts and science against the dangers of subjectivism and the nihilism that can lead to: upholding individual rights for all (part of liberal universalism, under attack today to the world’s detriment: clarifying the nature of wealth creation and defending non-predatory entrepreneurship in a true free market: upholding the value of cooperation (voluntarism) against the harms and evils of coercion , and much more.
Personally, I have found much of value in Rand’s thinking - and nothing in her writings seems inconsistent to me with this excellent essay critiquing this new variant of Altruism, something that Rand saw through from the start.
Excellent response to this thread. I've read it several times. First as a suggestion in high school from my Mom, a lover of fine art, opera, ballet, etc. and my Dad, a tough thirty-two year member of the AAC/USAF, Korean War POW, and Hot Shot Fighter Pilot. I was interested in architecture, and they thought I would like it. I read it again a few years later as required reading in architecture school, and a couple of times since, most recently around two years ago. Much lik "Atlas Shrugged," it was a novel about self-reliance and the good fight against "the Man," whether he's Big Education, Big Corporate, or Big Gubmint.
After reading the derogatory comments I got the impression that anything more complex than a comic book would be boring to them.
Rand's con is basically the Washington Czar of Cold War Propaganda's con.
That being Milton Friedman's worldview of never truly Free Markets leading a never truly Free World forward. Certainly not free of Military Interventions carte blanche access to Black Budgets. Look up the relationship between the U. of Chicago so-called Chicago Boys led by Milton Friedman and the Chilean Army overthrowing free and fair and internationally observed and monitored elections ushering in a Democratic Socialist political coalition headed by Salvador Allende, only to have it overthrown as per Washington's wishes for Washington & Langley's hemisphere under Operation Condor.
At its root, Milton Friedman and the Chicago E-CON School's Winner-Take-All Pay2Play 3-card Monty systemic used to bankrupt the Soviet Union Ruins of WW II and triumph over the nasty NAZIs via an Arms Race and a Space Race during our Post WW II inheritance of 2 World Wars of the first half of the 20th Century.
Not to mention the melting away of the Ottoman Turkish Empire of some 400 years ruling over key shipping lanes and by-ways of three continents. That dynamic phase of the Eurasian Imperial follies phase of contemporary history\herstory when Washington & Daddy Warbucks LLP having spent the better part of the 20th Century selling everything to everybody on all sides of any inter-national conflict or bid-net dispute or aero-space war and quite a few intra-national disputes (despite the weaponizers of Neo-Liberal\Neo-Conservative E-Con-o-mics insisting across all Free Markets Uber Alles\Centralization Is Communism's Satanic Soul propaganda platforms that any Centralized Communist System would fall of its own economic contradictions, inefficiencies and dead-weight) and yet still requiring more from every decimated homeland or networked investor holding (to use a phrase from Karl Marx and his sponsor Friedrich Engels heir and successful proprietary CEO of a global textiles empire) to beat back the early 20th Century's and First World War's GREAT DEPRESSION over here in the New World.
Including the feeding of the Free World's Newest technical innovations in Mass Communications via coast to conquered coast's Free Journalistic organs and Free Cultural Expression (again dependent on how well it sells per Free Markets being the guarantor of democracy). Yet absent from the programming of The West's (T)he Mighty Wurlitzer is how Communism is merely a fun-house mirror reflection of Corporate Capture and that Centralization is not only the handmaiden of the Kremlin but of Beijing's rulers as well as Wall Street, London, Bonn, Hong Kong's and The Pentagon's Cult of Personality that Trumps all constitutional safeguards.
That centralized branch of Daddy Warbucks and its many Neo-Classical E-CON-o-mics Public\Private Partnerships known as the Empire of Private Contractors who socialize all Costs\Risks while Privatizing the Profits.
Reach fer yer nukes, Podnah, whenever you are being sold something based on the efficiencies and markets of scale supply-side advantages of Public\Private Partnerships:
While in real life once a Public Health Risk posed a National Security Threat via the Global Pandemic In Perpetuity Throughout the Known Universe and Emperor Biden's Emergency Security Risk powers coming to the rescue of Ayn Rand's institutional heirs and heiresses:
Rand's con is objectiveism. It borrows "rational egoism" from nihilsm, piles on a claim to, essentially a "pareto distribution" of capability, and then uses those premises to justify the results of laissez faire economics, and to back radical individualism opposed to any form of collective problem solving.
The young Raskolnikov, in his misguided fervor, believed himself to be an extraordinary being, above the moral constraints of ordinary men. But he soon found that the human soul cannot easily escape the weight of guilt and conscience. It is alarming to see that, in this modern age, there are still ideologies that can blind individuals to the true essence of humanity, leading them to make choices devoid of genuine compassion and understanding. We must always remember that philosophy, when detached from the heart, can become a dangerous tool.
I suggest googling what the vast majorities of Effective Altruists actually do - see if you think their choices are devoid of genuine compassion and understanding. If so, I'd love to hear why.
SBF wasn’t poisoned by EA. He was poison, period....himself. Nothing he did was going to be good. Satan himself could follow Gandhi and he’d still hurt people.
I guess as a professional analytic philosopher, I am bound to be put off by this. And of course I am. But tell me I did not just read an argument from “Some analytic philosophers are utilitarians and some utilitarians justify bad things” to “analytic philosophy is a bad way of doing philosophy”. (Incidentally most philosophers reject utilitarianism but of course I wouldn’t want to let some facts stand in the way of this ridiculous post.)
I had to cut out passages from this essay, because it was already too long. I originally planned to address much more than utilitarianism—taught every day and almost round-the-clock in the Oxford colleges. If space permitted, I would have expressed my dismay at prescriptivism, emotivism, logical positivism, and many other dubious theories that circulated in those hallowed halls. I would also like to discuss the many philosophers I was told NOT to read—Arendt was hardly the only one. Most of the leading philosophers of the 20th century would show up on this list of forbidden thinkers. This is hardly an exaggeration. I lived through all this, and am simply sharing my story, and the implications I drew from it. Your results, as the saying goes, may vary.
I appreciate your response, and I don't want to be more polemical than I was in my first comment. I've learned a lot from your books and other writings on music on this platform. I'll say this much: (1) the tropes of lack of vitality and inconclusive meandering are also often mobilized against jazz music, but not often (and maybe never) from a point of view of mature understanding. (2) I would never tell a graduate student not to read Arendt. I am sorry this was your experience at Oxford. Students should read, and be inspired, by what they want, and the more eclectic their competence, the better philosophers they'll be. However, I don't think that reading Arendt (important as it might be to one's intellectual growth) is the best way to learn the craft of philosophy. (3) If you, or your readers, have an interest in checking out philosophy that originates within the analytic tradition but ends up mattering to important questions, check out your fellow sub-stacker Kieran Setiya.
I forwarded your article to my wife and told her I thought that this was the most political piece of your writing that I've read, and that I thought it was a great read.
It seems I was correct, judging by the particular vehemence towards it found in many of the comments.
Thanks for all of your writing, I thoroughly enjoy it and am always happy to see a post from you in my inbox.
I trust you are already well aware of this, but: *the internet will always push you towards spicy takes on hot button issues*. And that this has a consistently degrading effect on writers’ thought and output
I honestly don't think Ted's piece was a result of that. He's a writer I take at face value. Several of his articles bring to mind political issues, I.e. his article about moving to Austin But, in this case his thoughts about philosophy and B-F (appropriate initials from my perspective) were, in my estimation, bound to elicit outspokenly negative comments. For what it's worth, to me Gioia is in the running for being Dos Equis' spokesman because of the amazing array of subject matter in his writing.
I did a D.Phil. at Oxford in the 1970s and knew some of the leading analytic philosophers and read them all. Your rendition is so wide of the mark that it’s unrecognizable. I suggest that you drink some brandy, hug your favorite teddy bear, and hit the sack. Maybe you’ll be intelligible in the morning. Whew.
Wonderfully written article. It’s good to know that a life worth leading is one based on timeless values of honesty, keeping one’s word and mutual respect. Maybe i should dust off my copy of Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics for its insight into friendship. I’m curious as to your criticism of Michael Lewis. Another writer whom I respect Nassim Nicholas Taleb calls Lewis a fraud
"You just better hope that, if you’re ever a grandparent, your progeny aren’t Effective Altruists"
That line made me laugh. I have a one year old grandson. No Bentham for him!
Great essay.
I never understood the math behind EA; the uncertainty of the far out future is so great, that you have to discount any far future benefit to such an extent that it becomes de minimus compared to doing something kind and helpful to someone now. Plus as you point out, that's why we're here.
"It imposed a practicum that took anything vital and life-giving, and turned it into a patient etherized on a table."
This is a great sentence, which can be used on so much of Twentieth and the current centuries.
Just look at modern mainstream economics. It used to be called political economy until the middle of the last century, the term political was dropped along, then any economic theories such as communism were removed, and it is now stuffed with mathematical formulae used to justify anything using money or profit; it is what Neoliberalism, which is more pseudo liberalism, than not, uses to justify the current iteration of laissez-fairefree, free market, financialized capitalism stripped of realism or morality, but very profitable for the elites.
However, doctrinaire Communism has the same problem of being reduced to a detailed excuse to treat people as things, supposedly for the greater good, but often used as an aid to not thinking things through. This is interesting because Marxian analysis, socialism, and communism were all reactions to the laissez-fairefree, free market, industrial capitalism of the 19th and 20th centuries.
It seems the method is more important than the goals long or short. It is fine to advocate an ideology or theory, but not to the destruction of the whatever the purpose or goal is. The ends should never be used to justify the costs especially if it is done without thinking of what they might be.
At the end of my sophomore year in college I disengaged from pursuing a mathematics degree, loving math but unable to see it as the future. I directed back to the liberal arts, with the idea of adding a philosophy minor; the first year was great, and we studied the classics, many of which offered life lessons and generated some deep thinking about same. But my senior year I ran into Wittgenstein and a host of the contemporary thinkers that seemed to fixate on a sterile thinking that had little bearing on what I had come for (probably the Greek traditions)--something that would impact my every day. Reading Ted's piece it would seem that philosophy may be just for philosophers, with little for those of us engaged with the moral and ethical decisions necessary for a best life.
"But my senior year I ran into Wittgenstein and a host of the contemporary thinkers that seemed to fixate on a sterile thinking that had little bearing on what I had come for (probably the Greek traditions)--something that would impact my every day. Reading Ted's piece it would seem that philosophy may be just for philosophers, with little for those of us engaged with the moral and ethical decisions necessary for a best life."
While I grant that without any qualification of what a "best life" is or should be any response to Ted's piece and your takeaway of it will lack any positive value, haunting how many different wisdom lit traditions and institutions also reduce the essence out of the mysteries of creation, life and evolutionary adaptations.
For example, my impatience during Jewish Day School and High School classes studying the Aramaic Babylonian Talmud and the reduction of the disputes across ages of the rabbinic Sages to issues of micro-management of codified ritualistic faith rather than any discussion on how to reconcile living a communal life while attentive and observant of what is required to manage inter-personal relations and inter-communal relations. Not to mention how to maintain Domestic Wholesome Peace (Shlom Bayith in Hebrew) within a or any household.
Thanks Ted. SBF provided a big red flag to anyone paying attention when he claimed that Bayesian priors ruled out Shakespeare as the author of canonical works. After all, how could a literary genius have been working in those olde times?
In the same vein, how likely is it that a cryptocurrency evangelist would prove to be a charlatan? Oh.
Hello Ted: An interesting piece, and one I will have to re-read to fully understand and evaluate. But upon finishing the article a favorite observation - by a French philosopher (the French, who bring their own tortured contribution to the history of philosophy) - occurred to me: "Upon the highest throne in the world, the human being still sits on his ass." That's Montaigne, bless him. Thanks again Ted for the essay. Cheers.
When Einstein gave lectures at U.S. universities, the recurring question that students asked him most was:
- Do you believe in God?
And he always answered:
- I believe in the God of Spinoza.
Baruch de Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher considered one of the great rationalists of 17th century philosophy, along with Descartes.
(Spinoza) : God would say:
Stop praying.
What I want you to do is go out into the world and enjoy your life. I want you to sing, have fun and enjoy everything I've made for you.
Stop going into those dark, cold temples that you built yourself and saying they are my house. My house is in the mountains, in the woods, rivers, lakes, beaches. That's where I live and there I express my love for you.
Stop blaming me for your miserable life; I never told you there was anything wrong with you or that you were a sinner, or that your sexuality was a bad thing. Sex is a gift I have given you and with which you can express your love, your ecstasy, your joy. So don't blame me for everything they made you believe.
Stop reading alleged sacred scriptures that have nothing to do with me. If you can't read me in a sunrise, in a landscape, in the look of your friends, in your son's eyes... ➤ you will find me in no book!
Stop asking me "will you tell me how to do my job?" Stop being so scared of me. I do not judge you or criticize you, nor get angry, or bothered. I am pure love.
Stop asking for forgiveness, there's nothing to forgive. If I made you... I filled you with passions, limitations, pleasures, feelings, needs, inconsistencies... free will. How can I blame you if you respond to something I put in you? How can I punish you for being the way you are, if I'm the one who made you? Do you think I could create a place to burn all my children who behave badly for the rest of eternity? What kind of god would do that?
Respect your peers and don't do what you don't want for yourself. All I ask is that you pay attention in your life, that alertness is your guide.
My beloved, this life is not a test, not a step on the way, not a rehearsal, nor a prelude to paradise. This life is the only thing here and now and it is all you need.
I have set you absolutely free, no prizes or punishments, no sins or virtues, no one carries a marker, no one keeps a record.
You are absolutely free to create in your life. Heaven or hell.
➤ I can't tell you if there's anything after this life but I can give you a tip. Live as if there is not. As if this is your only chance to enjoy, to love, to exist.
So, if there's nothing after, then you will have enjoyed the opportunity I gave you. And if there is, rest assured that I won't ask if you behaved right or wrong, I'll ask. Did you like it? Did you have fun? What did you enjoy the most? What did you learn?...
Stop believing in me; believing is assuming, guessing, imagining. I don't want you to believe in me, I want you to believe in you. I want you to feel me in you when you kiss your beloved, when you tuck in your little girl, when you caress your dog, when you bathe in the sea.
Stop praising me, what kind of egomaniac God do you think I am?
I'm bored being praised. I'm tired of being thanked. Feeling grateful? Prove it by taking care of yourself, your health, your relationships, the world. Express your joy! That's the way to praise me.
Stop complicating things and repeating as a parakeet what you've been taught about me.
What do you need more miracles for? So many explanations?
The only thing for sure is that you are here, that you are alive, that this world is full of wonders.
- Spinoza
See Religious and philosophical views of Albert Einstein- Wikipedia
You’re one of my very favorite writers, and I feel like I learn a lot from your column. I don’t know how you’re able to read so much, listen to so much, and write so much; your productivity is astounding, and you do it all with unique insights.
Today’s column is the first time I’ve felt you were unfair, and not just a little.
My son works for an Effective Altruist (EA) organization founded by a multi-billionaire to research how he can spend his billions of charitable dollars to do the most good. My son lives and breathes EA, and I have never heard him talk—not once--about "maximizing pleasure." He’s currently in Ethiopia leading a delegation of South Korean parliamentarians, showing them vaccination facilities and other cost-effective ways to save lives in a country that needs support; the hope is that the parliamentarians will lobby their government to increase funding for such projects. EAs tend to focus on countries where the most good can be done at the least cost, so developing countries are at the top of their list.
It’s true that many EAs are consequentialists, but not in the name of having a good time. They deal with dicey equations like how much sacrifice today is justifiable to achieve a better tomorrow. Similarly, they’ll make the difficult suggestion that resources spent to do good on the local level in this country would be better spent in another country where the dollars—and the good that can be done—go much further. That part of EA can make a lot of people uncomfortable, and understandably so, but that doesn’t make it wrong.
Aspiring EAs have traditionally had two primary career choices: working within EA to identify and promote charitable causes that give the most bang for the buck (i.e., lives saved or substantially improved per dollar spent), or “earning to give”—following the path that maximizes the amount of money they can make and thereby eventually donate. Samuel Bankman-Fried gave the EA movement a big black eye by twisting “earn to give” to allow ripping off investors and shareholders. Effective Altruists would not support any such unethical activities, and they’ve dialed down the whole “earn to give” side of the equation as a result of what he’s done. Samuel Bankman-Fried may have started as—or claimed to be—an Effective Altruist, but in no way does he represent the movement. The day his criminal activities were revealed was absolutely brutal for Effective Altruists; not only did he damage the movement in the public eye, but billions of dollars that were expected to go to charitable good vanished. To be very clear: The EA movement would have endorsed his plan to make as much money as possible to donate to worthy causes (if he ever really meant that), but they would never have endorsed the way he went about it. He can call himself an Effective Altruist, but I challenge you to find an Effective Altruist who would want anything to do with him.
I’m curious where you came up with the idea that Effective Altruism is about maximizing pleasure. Is it in writing somewhere? If not, I think you’re being grossly unfair, and I honestly don’t understand why; it doesn’t seem at all consistent with all the well-researched and unerringly fair columns you’ve posted in the past. The whole device about EAs supporting the idea of Granny being sold to sex traffickers to maximize human pleasure in the long run seems—and I hate to say this to someone as deep and thoughtful as you—completely disingenuous and terribly misleading. I challenge you to find a single Effective Altruist who would support it.
And, yes, my progeny is an Effective Altruist, and I’m very proud of him. He lives his life to achieve the most benefit for mankind (and animals as well—animal welfare is a major EA concern); he puts me to shame. "Maximizing pleasure" is part of the equation only insofar as it makes him feel good to have a positive influence on the world.
My son is based in the Bay Area, and I would love for you to get to know him to see what kind of “hate monger” he is. I’m sure he’d welcome the opportunity to talk with you about it.
It sounds like your son is doing good deeds. I commend him, and I congratulate you as a parent.
But I commend charitable works of this sort even if they are done just out of compassion and good will. They certainly don't need a vague consequentialist philosophy to validate them. People did good deeds of this sort long before Effective Alltruism even existed, and didn't require elaborate justifications.
The most important thing is that your son is working to help others in a very concrete way, and this is absolutely praiseworthy. Well done.
Many people in the EA movement are kindhearted, and good. I was a part of it for a long time.
That doesn't mean the philosophy is good overall however, or promotes the right things. There are absolutely bright spots in EA, but the blind spots are so large and can lead to so much harm that I don't think the confidence most EAs have is warranted.
That confidence is a double edged sword because it is what allows so many EAs to devote their lives to the cause - but it also leads them down really dark paths.
Thank you so much for your comment. I'm an agnostic about EA, but, as I said in a comment above, Bankman-Fried's use of it could easily have been a perversion of the philosophy in the same way people pervert the principles of different religions for nefarious ends. You seem to come to a similar conclusion based on a a much deeper knowledge and personal experience with EA. Again, thank you.
Yes, our host is eliding all Effective Altruism into utilitarian consequentialism, which is a philosophy that is simply bankrupt.
My hope is that we are going to have a lot of EA types who simply want to do good cast off the utilitarianist roots of their philosophy after seeing how easily it can be misused. I think we’re already seeing some of the thought leaders constrict their utilitarianism so tightly to avoid such abuses that it effectively turns into Kantianism. If that happens, then EA will be just fine and we’re going to have a bunch of rationalist-cult people with the bad parts of the philosophy who are not part of the movement but try to use the branding as if they were.
Yes but if you have any idea who pulls the strings in EA, an extremely hierarchical movement, you'll realize that utilitarian consequentialism rules the day.
Oh, that's fascinating! I had not heard this. I of course know of the loud thought leaders, but I hadn't ever thought of it as hierarchical. Care to provide background/examples?
Open philanthropy controls the vast majority of the money/leadership in the EA movement. Overall the movement is highly elitist and keeps power in the hands of a loose organization of folks at the top.
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/54vAiSFkYszTWWWv4/doing-ea-better-1
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/dsCTSCbfHWxmAr2ZT/open-ea-global
Thanks for posting those links! I only started reading the first... My overall problem (also maybe one major pushback against the Oxford school of philosophy) is the hubristic nature of the thought that "if I am careful enough in my mental modeling, I can predict the future."
I suspect that this kind of attitude (maybe born out of a desire to control the future, out of a fear of death and demise) is at the core of all philosophies that "go wrong" (lead to more harm than expected). No matter how careful we study reality, I don't think we will ever be in a position to *completely* foresee the complex feedback loops that push on reality once we implement a change. As such, the best I can think of is always to (1) acknowledge that information and modeling is imperfect, (2) implement changes gradually using biologically informed intuitions of "good and bad" (or evil) to avoid otherwise rationally justifiable pitfalls, (3) humbly observe the results, and (4) accept that results will likely differ from predictions, and then equally carefully course-correct.
This whole notion of being able to use some sort of crystal ball of rationality to predict how things will turn out a year (let alone a century) from now seems so debunked, it is strange that any serious philosophy would still entertain that concept...
Yeah this nails a big problem with utilitarianism in my estimation too. It's easy to get sucked in when our models are so large and powerful nowadays, but on the other hand the results are much worse when we get things wrong BECAUSE our models and technologies are so powerful.
Thank you! That's very helpful, and I'll scratch away at those as I have time (20K words for the first one! Goodness.).
That said, this post kind of illustrates my point: that there are undercurrents in EA that are trying to get it right, especially in light of the collapse of FTX. I _hope_ they will be successful; I would not blame anyone for being doubtful that it will come to pass.
It seems that after the FTX fiasco there was indeed a large upswell of people trying to move away from the strict utilitarian control of those at the top. Unfortunately from my perspective that upswell failed, and most of the people trying to change the movement have either left or been pushed out.
Controlling the purse strings means a lot in this sort of nascent movement.
I agree with you that this is what people, and I have trouble with:
"They deal with dicey equations like how much sacrifice today is justifiable to achieve a better tomorrow. Similarly, they’ll make the difficult suggestion that resources spent to do good on the local level in this country would be better spent in another country where the dollars—and the good that can be done—go much further." I think that Thanos from the Marvel movies is a great example of an Effective Altruist, along with most Hollywood villians. I also think that if you really want to make an impact, support your local nonprofits.
Nothing altruistic about vaccination ha ha.. you mentioned he showed people around vaccination facilities... not mentioning the harm these vaccines are doing and did. And not.to mention the word "philantrope" and how much the media used this specific word for the last 3 years when they mention Bill Hates, all to the purpose of the global citizens accepting this man as being the most altruistic man alive today...
I could talk about capture of some parts of EA by utility monsters, such as AGI, or "Long Termism", which may stem from being too close to wealth and power, but I would rather consider paths not taken
One, Could the wealthy donor renounce tax minimization and set fair transfer prices within the companies they control? Could they promote improved wages and working conditions within supply chains they have influence over? Could they promote more lenient intellectual property rights and technology transfer, at both a corporate and state level?
Two, is the whole problem addressed? If mosquito nets, for example, are the cheapest form of poverty alleviation, why are people lacking them? Is it that mosquito nets are unobtainable, or the result of other priorities that might see them used as fishing nets?
Three, what is the cost of flexibilty? The medium or long term benefits of a program? Change to priorities of community, provinical, or national governmenets due to public pressure and interest? Intangibles such as the trust of communites toward NGOs. Are these considered before reallocating funds based on greater marginal benefit?
One strange tendancy I saw in the movement was "thinking like a machine", relying on bayesian inference, monetary valuations, and taking descisions as spot transactions. Another was conflating data with observation. Data is a symbolic representation of an observation and depends on sampling decisions taken during the conversion between observation and symbol.
Mosquito nets are supposed to be a form of life prolongation,.
If you take away the formulas for predicting the future and the clearly sociopathic learn, earn, return part of EA, then you are left with altruism, which it appears your son is engaged in, and you should be proud.
EA is now part of a story that includes artificial general intelligence and interplanetary travel. Just think about that. Both of these will consume unbelievable resources, and at least one could kill us. That is not altruism, that is just the same old delusion that held every tyrant through history in its thrall.
The dirty secret is that the most effective form of altruism in the world is fairness. When labor is not exploited through extraction, both happiness and most life quality indicators rise. As a result, any "altruistic" approach that demands extraction as its starting point is already predetermined. EA has been a strong proponent of hedge funds, for instance, which are just machines for extracting wealth from ordinary folks. If the proponents were intellectually honest, they would agree that minimizing wealth disparity is the single most effective form of altruism - proven from the failure of the poor houses of England to the success of social democracies of northern Europe.
EA is not a coherent philosophy for maximizing the quality of life of humanity, it is yet another complex rationalization for the accumulation of wealth and power without external accountability.
People have been trying to use metrics to enhance charitable giving for long before anyone thought to call themselves and effective altruist. Many charities spend a lot of time on such metrics.
So I don't think the idea of having metrics is new.
And I'm not sure EAs necessarily have a better bead on what metrics or how the measure them then other charities trying to do the same.
So what's new? What groundbreaking new idea in charity does EA represent? "We can save more lives in the third world" is not an earth shattering new idea.
I'm not sure there is one.
So what is EA but dressed up consequentialism? Why does it need a special name? Didn't the Gates Foundation already use metrics to steer African charity?
If we dig into EA, I think we would find the same old debates about assumptions we've always had. What more effective for human flourishing, increasing African population through mosquito nets or giving R&D funding to the worlds most capable individuals? Are political donations cost effective? Are for-profit business ventures more useful to society than non-profit work? Which ones?
I'm going to be harsh for a minute, but "my sons is trying to convince governments to give away more third world aid to Africa, which has a miserable track record of doing anything useful long term" could easily be worse then him just getting a regular job that makes products and services people want.
I mean if he thinks otherwise that's fine, but I don't need a philosophy lecture on his rationalization for doing so (justified or not).
First: I am a HUGE fan. Second: this is the one and only time I’ve read something of yours and thought, “this is a terrible piece of writing.” Just to be clear, I’m not saying that because I think your conclusion is faulty. In fact, I have no idea whether you’re right or wrong because I have no training in philosophy, aside from a political theory class I took when I got my JD at Berkeley.
What I am saying is that, as a piece of analysis/persuasion, this is a failure. You start by making some very strong claims about “Ethical Altruism,” e.g., it could make you sell your granny to sex traffickers. But you never walk the reader through specific tenets of the philosophy and how they’ve been applied to do terrible things in the world. You make a remarkably general proposition about EA, then you blame it for a litany of horrible behavior.
Where is the causation analysis? Many people go to law school (or business school) and later do terrible things. Did they do them because they went to law school? Maybe, maybe not. I’m completely open to the possibility that EA is a force for awful behavior in the mold of Sam Bankman-Fried. But your piece does absolutely nothing to persuade me that EA is, in fact, the cause. It’s entirely possible that an advocate could argue (maybe fairly, maybe not), that what Bankman-Fried did was a perversion of the philosophy, not an application of it, in the same way some people pervert religion for terrible ends.
Bottom line, this feels more like a personal vendetta than an argument, and for me, that’s a serious disappointment coming from you, because you are normally so careful and methodical in the way your marshal facts and arguments.
Perhaps to put it another way, EA lacks a foundation for what "good" is. Though that is a less sensational claim than made in the essay.
That's certainly possible - I'm not qualified to make that assessment. But it absolutely would be far less sensational than the claim in the essay.
This is expository writing, not a thesis. If you understand EA and its relationship to Utilitarianism, then it holds together.
If you want a set of logical propositions countering EA, then there is about 250 years of strong analytical reasoning against Utilitarianism that will serve.
May I suggest "After Virtue" by Alastair MacIntyre? He has his problems, but pretty much eviscerates Utilitarianism.
If you can't intuitively see that EA is just a Malcolm Gladwell/TEDtalk rebranding of Utilitarianism, then that is a bigger issue.
Brilliantly fair. “By their fruits shall ye know them.” Every philosophical, ideological, or religious system that fails to curb human arrogance leads terribly astray, I think. We can hardly stop ourselves, but we must try. This piece is an excellent instance of “honest brokerage.” Thank you.
EA isn't all that fancy. It's just the latest philosophy for gangsters. From Robin Hood to Robespierre to Thomas Gambino, gangsters have balanced their present-day destruction against future charity, which always coincidentally comes back to the gangster as profit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Gambino
P.S. Another favourite philosopher of con artists is Ayn Rand.
Despite her popularity, I'd take issue with calling Ayn Rand a "philosopher."
Good point. I should have put quotation marks around the word philosopher.
Watched "Dirty Dancing" a few weeks ago and the scene where the main asshole hands Baby "The Fountainhead" had me laughing out loud. Such a boring book imo.
Strange I read that book and it changed my life. 18 years old. I wasn’t sure(at the time) what else she was trying to say but the message I took away is “it’s all up to me”, my future was in my hands. I got my ass in gear.
Interesting. I read it at exactly that age and experienced it as I described above. Not so many years have passed (I'm 21) but I agree with what you took from it. These ideas of forging your own destiny are powerful and can be a force for good, I just didn't get them from this book. Goes to show you how differently a work of art can rub off on people.
You get that from Harry Brown's, How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World.
It's all about personal responsibility for our choices.
I would heart this, except that 'boring' truly does not do it justice. It is simply the worst-written book ever published, defying my ability to read it thru (and I've read some really bad books).
It's really just him building buildings over and over.
Wow. So that's what you got out of it. Sigh...
Go over to archive.org and check out "Calumet K". It's a story about building a grain elevator. It's pulpy, but it isn't boring.
I don’t think that’s completely fair to Rand. She had quite a few valid insights - affirming reality, facts and science against the dangers of subjectivism and the nihilism that can lead to: upholding individual rights for all (part of liberal universalism, under attack today to the world’s detriment: clarifying the nature of wealth creation and defending non-predatory entrepreneurship in a true free market: upholding the value of cooperation (voluntarism) against the harms and evils of coercion , and much more.
Personally, I have found much of value in Rand’s thinking - and nothing in her writings seems inconsistent to me with this excellent essay critiquing this new variant of Altruism, something that Rand saw through from the start.
Excellent response to this thread. I've read it several times. First as a suggestion in high school from my Mom, a lover of fine art, opera, ballet, etc. and my Dad, a tough thirty-two year member of the AAC/USAF, Korean War POW, and Hot Shot Fighter Pilot. I was interested in architecture, and they thought I would like it. I read it again a few years later as required reading in architecture school, and a couple of times since, most recently around two years ago. Much lik "Atlas Shrugged," it was a novel about self-reliance and the good fight against "the Man," whether he's Big Education, Big Corporate, or Big Gubmint.
After reading the derogatory comments I got the impression that anything more complex than a comic book would be boring to them.
Agreed. Smart assed folk spewing out contrived pulp. My God. After all that's said & done. You'd think we would learn something. 🎬
What's Rand's con?
Rand's con is basically the Washington Czar of Cold War Propaganda's con.
That being Milton Friedman's worldview of never truly Free Markets leading a never truly Free World forward. Certainly not free of Military Interventions carte blanche access to Black Budgets. Look up the relationship between the U. of Chicago so-called Chicago Boys led by Milton Friedman and the Chilean Army overthrowing free and fair and internationally observed and monitored elections ushering in a Democratic Socialist political coalition headed by Salvador Allende, only to have it overthrown as per Washington's wishes for Washington & Langley's hemisphere under Operation Condor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor
At its root, Milton Friedman and the Chicago E-CON School's Winner-Take-All Pay2Play 3-card Monty systemic used to bankrupt the Soviet Union Ruins of WW II and triumph over the nasty NAZIs via an Arms Race and a Space Race during our Post WW II inheritance of 2 World Wars of the first half of the 20th Century.
Not to mention the melting away of the Ottoman Turkish Empire of some 400 years ruling over key shipping lanes and by-ways of three continents. That dynamic phase of the Eurasian Imperial follies phase of contemporary history\herstory when Washington & Daddy Warbucks LLP having spent the better part of the 20th Century selling everything to everybody on all sides of any inter-national conflict or bid-net dispute or aero-space war and quite a few intra-national disputes (despite the weaponizers of Neo-Liberal\Neo-Conservative E-Con-o-mics insisting across all Free Markets Uber Alles\Centralization Is Communism's Satanic Soul propaganda platforms that any Centralized Communist System would fall of its own economic contradictions, inefficiencies and dead-weight) and yet still requiring more from every decimated homeland or networked investor holding (to use a phrase from Karl Marx and his sponsor Friedrich Engels heir and successful proprietary CEO of a global textiles empire) to beat back the early 20th Century's and First World War's GREAT DEPRESSION over here in the New World.
Including the feeding of the Free World's Newest technical innovations in Mass Communications via coast to conquered coast's Free Journalistic organs and Free Cultural Expression (again dependent on how well it sells per Free Markets being the guarantor of democracy). Yet absent from the programming of The West's (T)he Mighty Wurlitzer is how Communism is merely a fun-house mirror reflection of Corporate Capture and that Centralization is not only the handmaiden of the Kremlin but of Beijing's rulers as well as Wall Street, London, Bonn, Hong Kong's and The Pentagon's Cult of Personality that Trumps all constitutional safeguards.
That centralized branch of Daddy Warbucks and its many Neo-Classical E-CON-o-mics Public\Private Partnerships known as the Empire of Private Contractors who socialize all Costs\Risks while Privatizing the Profits.
Reach fer yer nukes, Podnah, whenever you are being sold something based on the efficiencies and markets of scale supply-side advantages of Public\Private Partnerships:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_influence_on_public_opinion
https://www.oecd.org/gov/budgeting/43410287.pdf
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/privatizing-profits-and-socializing-losses.asp
While in real life once a Public Health Risk posed a National Security Threat via the Global Pandemic In Perpetuity Throughout the Known Universe and Emperor Biden's Emergency Security Risk powers coming to the rescue of Ayn Rand's institutional heirs and heiresses:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-ppp-ayn-rand/in-sign-of-the-times-ayn-rand-institute-approved-for-ppp-loan-idUSKBN248026
Mitch Ritter\Paradigm Sifters, Code Shifters, PsalmSong Chasers
Lay-Low Studios, Ore-Wa (Refuge of Atonement Seekers)
Media Discussion List\LookseeInnerEarsHearHere
Have you considered decaf coffee?
What does any of that have to do with Ayn Rand?
Hahahaha! Long, but comical.
She was wrong. She took a reasonably good idea and led it to an illogical conclusion.
Rand's con is objectiveism. It borrows "rational egoism" from nihilsm, piles on a claim to, essentially a "pareto distribution" of capability, and then uses those premises to justify the results of laissez faire economics, and to back radical individualism opposed to any form of collective problem solving.
Assuming that's a fair portrait, why is that a con though?
What's the alternative that isn't a con?
There you go again, asking rational questions...
The young Raskolnikov, in his misguided fervor, believed himself to be an extraordinary being, above the moral constraints of ordinary men. But he soon found that the human soul cannot easily escape the weight of guilt and conscience. It is alarming to see that, in this modern age, there are still ideologies that can blind individuals to the true essence of humanity, leading them to make choices devoid of genuine compassion and understanding. We must always remember that philosophy, when detached from the heart, can become a dangerous tool.
I suggest googling what the vast majorities of Effective Altruists actually do - see if you think their choices are devoid of genuine compassion and understanding. If so, I'd love to hear why.
SBF wasn’t poisoned by EA. He was poison, period....himself. Nothing he did was going to be good. Satan himself could follow Gandhi and he’d still hurt people.
I guess as a professional analytic philosopher, I am bound to be put off by this. And of course I am. But tell me I did not just read an argument from “Some analytic philosophers are utilitarians and some utilitarians justify bad things” to “analytic philosophy is a bad way of doing philosophy”. (Incidentally most philosophers reject utilitarianism but of course I wouldn’t want to let some facts stand in the way of this ridiculous post.)
I had to cut out passages from this essay, because it was already too long. I originally planned to address much more than utilitarianism—taught every day and almost round-the-clock in the Oxford colleges. If space permitted, I would have expressed my dismay at prescriptivism, emotivism, logical positivism, and many other dubious theories that circulated in those hallowed halls. I would also like to discuss the many philosophers I was told NOT to read—Arendt was hardly the only one. Most of the leading philosophers of the 20th century would show up on this list of forbidden thinkers. This is hardly an exaggeration. I lived through all this, and am simply sharing my story, and the implications I drew from it. Your results, as the saying goes, may vary.
I appreciate your response, and I don't want to be more polemical than I was in my first comment. I've learned a lot from your books and other writings on music on this platform. I'll say this much: (1) the tropes of lack of vitality and inconclusive meandering are also often mobilized against jazz music, but not often (and maybe never) from a point of view of mature understanding. (2) I would never tell a graduate student not to read Arendt. I am sorry this was your experience at Oxford. Students should read, and be inspired, by what they want, and the more eclectic their competence, the better philosophers they'll be. However, I don't think that reading Arendt (important as it might be to one's intellectual growth) is the best way to learn the craft of philosophy. (3) If you, or your readers, have an interest in checking out philosophy that originates within the analytic tradition but ends up mattering to important questions, check out your fellow sub-stacker Kieran Setiya.
Ted,
I forwarded your article to my wife and told her I thought that this was the most political piece of your writing that I've read, and that I thought it was a great read.
It seems I was correct, judging by the particular vehemence towards it found in many of the comments.
Thanks for all of your writing, I thoroughly enjoy it and am always happy to see a post from you in my inbox.
I trust you are already well aware of this, but: *the internet will always push you towards spicy takes on hot button issues*. And that this has a consistently degrading effect on writers’ thought and output
I honestly don't think Ted's piece was a result of that. He's a writer I take at face value. Several of his articles bring to mind political issues, I.e. his article about moving to Austin But, in this case his thoughts about philosophy and B-F (appropriate initials from my perspective) were, in my estimation, bound to elicit outspokenly negative comments. For what it's worth, to me Gioia is in the running for being Dos Equis' spokesman because of the amazing array of subject matter in his writing.
I did a D.Phil. at Oxford in the 1970s and knew some of the leading analytic philosophers and read them all. Your rendition is so wide of the mark that it’s unrecognizable. I suggest that you drink some brandy, hug your favorite teddy bear, and hit the sack. Maybe you’ll be intelligible in the morning. Whew.
Did you study the concept of an argument from authority?
Wonderfully written article. It’s good to know that a life worth leading is one based on timeless values of honesty, keeping one’s word and mutual respect. Maybe i should dust off my copy of Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics for its insight into friendship. I’m curious as to your criticism of Michael Lewis. Another writer whom I respect Nassim Nicholas Taleb calls Lewis a fraud
"You just better hope that, if you’re ever a grandparent, your progeny aren’t Effective Altruists"
That line made me laugh. I have a one year old grandson. No Bentham for him!
Great essay.
I never understood the math behind EA; the uncertainty of the far out future is so great, that you have to discount any far future benefit to such an extent that it becomes de minimus compared to doing something kind and helpful to someone now. Plus as you point out, that's why we're here.
Just read “Going infinite” SBF was an examplar of “He loved mankind, it’s people he couldn’t stand”
Wonderful essay, thank you. Love is a practice and the golden rule still rules.
My sentiments exactly.
"It imposed a practicum that took anything vital and life-giving, and turned it into a patient etherized on a table."
This is a great sentence, which can be used on so much of Twentieth and the current centuries.
Just look at modern mainstream economics. It used to be called political economy until the middle of the last century, the term political was dropped along, then any economic theories such as communism were removed, and it is now stuffed with mathematical formulae used to justify anything using money or profit; it is what Neoliberalism, which is more pseudo liberalism, than not, uses to justify the current iteration of laissez-fairefree, free market, financialized capitalism stripped of realism or morality, but very profitable for the elites.
However, doctrinaire Communism has the same problem of being reduced to a detailed excuse to treat people as things, supposedly for the greater good, but often used as an aid to not thinking things through. This is interesting because Marxian analysis, socialism, and communism were all reactions to the laissez-fairefree, free market, industrial capitalism of the 19th and 20th centuries.
It seems the method is more important than the goals long or short. It is fine to advocate an ideology or theory, but not to the destruction of the whatever the purpose or goal is. The ends should never be used to justify the costs especially if it is done without thinking of what they might be.
At the end of my sophomore year in college I disengaged from pursuing a mathematics degree, loving math but unable to see it as the future. I directed back to the liberal arts, with the idea of adding a philosophy minor; the first year was great, and we studied the classics, many of which offered life lessons and generated some deep thinking about same. But my senior year I ran into Wittgenstein and a host of the contemporary thinkers that seemed to fixate on a sterile thinking that had little bearing on what I had come for (probably the Greek traditions)--something that would impact my every day. Reading Ted's piece it would seem that philosophy may be just for philosophers, with little for those of us engaged with the moral and ethical decisions necessary for a best life.
"But my senior year I ran into Wittgenstein and a host of the contemporary thinkers that seemed to fixate on a sterile thinking that had little bearing on what I had come for (probably the Greek traditions)--something that would impact my every day. Reading Ted's piece it would seem that philosophy may be just for philosophers, with little for those of us engaged with the moral and ethical decisions necessary for a best life."
While I grant that without any qualification of what a "best life" is or should be any response to Ted's piece and your takeaway of it will lack any positive value, haunting how many different wisdom lit traditions and institutions also reduce the essence out of the mysteries of creation, life and evolutionary adaptations.
For example, my impatience during Jewish Day School and High School classes studying the Aramaic Babylonian Talmud and the reduction of the disputes across ages of the rabbinic Sages to issues of micro-management of codified ritualistic faith rather than any discussion on how to reconcile living a communal life while attentive and observant of what is required to manage inter-personal relations and inter-communal relations. Not to mention how to maintain Domestic Wholesome Peace (Shlom Bayith in Hebrew) within a or any household.
Mitch Ritter\Paradigm Sifters, Code Shifters, PsalmSong Chasers
Lay-Low Studios, Ore-Wa (Refuge of Atonement Seekers)
Media Discussion List\LookseeInnerEarsHearHere
Thanks Ted. SBF provided a big red flag to anyone paying attention when he claimed that Bayesian priors ruled out Shakespeare as the author of canonical works. After all, how could a literary genius have been working in those olde times?
In the same vein, how likely is it that a cryptocurrency evangelist would prove to be a charlatan? Oh.
Maximizing pleasure is a really bad idea,
pleasure is fleeting and superficial,
its a waste and it eats and doesn't gives but a fleeting feeling
Real Happiness doesn't bases itself on fleeting temporal things, or shouldn't
Suffering is what we should reduce, but most of it gets reduced from accepting life.
We accept life and then we do the right thing within our capabilities.
We make good habits to do the proper things, that benefit the most
We don't succumb to pleasure,
nor obsess with physical things or with anything else,
We keep balance and things good enough
We keep our physical things good enough,
our mental health good enough,
and enjoy being as we naturally are,
just regulating within what's reasonable
We don't sell the earth, our communities and our morals for
pleasures and money that won't feed us nor fill us
We can't be filled except for our role for others
We don't come to take, as we will take nothing with us
We come to give, and if we only give pleasure,
we will give a moment as fleeting as ourselves
Hello Ted: An interesting piece, and one I will have to re-read to fully understand and evaluate. But upon finishing the article a favorite observation - by a French philosopher (the French, who bring their own tortured contribution to the history of philosophy) - occurred to me: "Upon the highest throne in the world, the human being still sits on his ass." That's Montaigne, bless him. Thanks again Ted for the essay. Cheers.
When Einstein gave lectures at U.S. universities, the recurring question that students asked him most was:
- Do you believe in God?
And he always answered:
- I believe in the God of Spinoza.
Baruch de Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher considered one of the great rationalists of 17th century philosophy, along with Descartes.
(Spinoza) : God would say:
Stop praying.
What I want you to do is go out into the world and enjoy your life. I want you to sing, have fun and enjoy everything I've made for you.
Stop going into those dark, cold temples that you built yourself and saying they are my house. My house is in the mountains, in the woods, rivers, lakes, beaches. That's where I live and there I express my love for you.
Stop blaming me for your miserable life; I never told you there was anything wrong with you or that you were a sinner, or that your sexuality was a bad thing. Sex is a gift I have given you and with which you can express your love, your ecstasy, your joy. So don't blame me for everything they made you believe.
Stop reading alleged sacred scriptures that have nothing to do with me. If you can't read me in a sunrise, in a landscape, in the look of your friends, in your son's eyes... ➤ you will find me in no book!
Stop asking me "will you tell me how to do my job?" Stop being so scared of me. I do not judge you or criticize you, nor get angry, or bothered. I am pure love.
Stop asking for forgiveness, there's nothing to forgive. If I made you... I filled you with passions, limitations, pleasures, feelings, needs, inconsistencies... free will. How can I blame you if you respond to something I put in you? How can I punish you for being the way you are, if I'm the one who made you? Do you think I could create a place to burn all my children who behave badly for the rest of eternity? What kind of god would do that?
Respect your peers and don't do what you don't want for yourself. All I ask is that you pay attention in your life, that alertness is your guide.
My beloved, this life is not a test, not a step on the way, not a rehearsal, nor a prelude to paradise. This life is the only thing here and now and it is all you need.
I have set you absolutely free, no prizes or punishments, no sins or virtues, no one carries a marker, no one keeps a record.
You are absolutely free to create in your life. Heaven or hell.
➤ I can't tell you if there's anything after this life but I can give you a tip. Live as if there is not. As if this is your only chance to enjoy, to love, to exist.
So, if there's nothing after, then you will have enjoyed the opportunity I gave you. And if there is, rest assured that I won't ask if you behaved right or wrong, I'll ask. Did you like it? Did you have fun? What did you enjoy the most? What did you learn?...
Stop believing in me; believing is assuming, guessing, imagining. I don't want you to believe in me, I want you to believe in you. I want you to feel me in you when you kiss your beloved, when you tuck in your little girl, when you caress your dog, when you bathe in the sea.
Stop praising me, what kind of egomaniac God do you think I am?
I'm bored being praised. I'm tired of being thanked. Feeling grateful? Prove it by taking care of yourself, your health, your relationships, the world. Express your joy! That's the way to praise me.
Stop complicating things and repeating as a parakeet what you've been taught about me.
What do you need more miracles for? So many explanations?
The only thing for sure is that you are here, that you are alive, that this world is full of wonders.
- Spinoza
See Religious and philosophical views of Albert Einstein- Wikipedia
Also his book The World as I See it.
Spinoza was an ego-centric fool.