Foundational Issues in Effective Altruism (October 2017 Version)
Course Leader: Professor Hilary Greaves | Michaelmas term 2017
This course was offered to Oxford University Undergraduates who were studying philosophy.
Effective altruism is a philosophy and social movement that uses evidence and reasoning to determine the most effective ways to benefit others. This course explores the philosophical foundations of this approach. Each week of the course focuses on a different topic and considers a variety of different approaches to that topic.
Before studying this course, students were strongly advised to:
- Take a prior course in Ethics
- Read William MacAskill’s book “Doing Good Better” (OUP 2015).
Reading list
Core readings (mandatory)
Singer, Peter. "Famine, Affluence, and Morality." Philosophy & Public Affairs 1.3 (1972): 229-43 (ejournal).
Unger, Peter K. Living High and Letting Die: Our Illusion of Innocence. New York; Oxford: Oxford UP, 1996 (ebook).
[Chapter 2: “Living High and Letting Die: A Puzzle About Behavior Toward People in Great Need]
Pogge, Thomas. World Poverty and Human Rights: Cosmopolitan Responsibilities and Reforms. Cambridge: Polity, 2002.
[Introductory chapter (“General introduction”), and section 9 of chapter 4 (“The causal role of global institutions in the persistence of severe poverty”)]
Jaggar, Alison M (ed.). Thomas Pogge and His Critics. Cambridge: Polity, 2010.
[Chapter 2: “Rights, Harm, and Institution”, sections 1 (“Pogge’s institutional approach”) and 4 (“Does the global order unjustly harm the poor when it disadvantages them?”)]
Further readings (optional)
Anwander, Norbert. "Contributing and Benefiting: Two Grounds for Duties to the Victims of Injustice." Ethics & International Affairs 19.1 (2005): 39-45 (ejournal).
Entry on ‘Libertarianism’ in the (online) Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (e-resource).
Cruft, Rowan. "Human Rights and Positive Duties." Ethics & International Affairs 19.1 (2005): 29-37 (ejournal).
Wenar, Leif. Blood Oil: Tyrants, Violence, and the Rules That Run the World. New York: Oxford UP, 2017 (and alternative edition).
[Book-length, but a very good, accessible, extended discussion of the ‘international resource privilege’]
Suggested questions for class assignments
- Is there any morally relevant difference between failing to donate to aid the global poor and failing to rescue a child from a shallow pond?
- Can any reasonable moral theory escape the conclusion that affluent Westerners ought to donate significant amounts of money to wherever will do the most good?
- Can a duty to help the global poor be derived from the negative duty not to harm?
- Suppose that my government inflicts unjust harm on the citizens of a poor country. Do I bear partial responsibility for this harm because the government is my agent, because I benefit from the harm, because I contribute to the harm, for some other reason, or not at all? (Particularly relevant here: the article by Anwander on the ‘further readings’ list.)
Reading list
Core readings (mandatory)
Ord, Toby. The Moral Imperative toward Cost-Effectiveness in Global Health (2013): Policy File (e-resource).
Freedman, David, Robert Pisani, and Roger Purves. Statistics. 4th Ed. New York; London: W.W. Norton, 2007 (and alternative editions).
[Chapters 1 and 2]
Bates, Mary Ann, and Rachel Glennerster. "Striking a Balance Between Theory and Action" Stanford Social Innovation Review Summer 2017: 48-54 (ejournal).
The discussions of RCTs on GiveWell’s blog: start here, and follow the links to probe deeper (depending on time and interest)
Further readings (optional)
Easterly, William. The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done so Much Ill and so Little Good. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006 [on aid scepticism].
Moyo, Dambisa. Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is Another Way for Africa. London: Allen Lane, 2008 (legal deposit ebook) [another classic on aid scepticism].
Variant title: Dead aid : why aid makes things worse and how there is another way for Africa.
Shadish, William R., Thomas D. Cook, and Donald T. Campbell. Experimental and Quasi-experimental Designs for Generalized Causal Inference. Belmont, California, 2002, pp. 83-93 [on external validity].
West, Stephen, Jeremy Biesanz and Steven Pitts, “Causal inference and generalization in field settings: Experimental and quasi-experimental designs”, in Harry T. Reis and Charles M. Judd (eds.). Handbook of Research Methods in Social and Personality Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000 [another overview of experimental designs, complementary to Freedman et al]. (ebook)
Cartwright, Nancy. "Understanding and Misunderstanding Randomized Controlled Trials." National Bureau of Economic Research (2016) (e-resource) [a relatively advanced discussion urging against overestimating the merits of RCTs].
Claridge, Jeffrey, and A. Fabian. "History and Development of Evidence-based Medicine." World Journal of Surgery 29.5 (2005): 547-53 (ejournal) [some background on the medical case – as the title suggests!].
Solesbury, William. “Evidence based policy: Whence it came and where it’s going”, working paper, available here [a similar recent-historical account of the rise of evidence in public policy].
Suggested questions for class assignments
Suppose that some highly cost-effective intervention is available to boost health and school attendance, but (i) only works on boys, (ii) only works on members of the ethnic majority, or (iii) is only feasible in urban areas. To what extent do equity considerations mitigate the cost-effectiveness-based case for prioritising this intervention over one that is less cost-effective but applicable to a broader group of beneficiaries?
Does the greater availability of RCTs justify prioritising global poverty interventions over (e.g.) interventions aimed at reducing existential risk?
“The insistence on backing up recommendations with RCTs is appropriate for a charity evaluator, whose task is specifically to issue recommendations to third parties, but the donors themselves should not penalise causes for which RCTs aren’t available.” Discuss.
Given the problem of external validity (= “the generalizability puzzle”), is there any advantage to randomisation in the development context?
Core reading
Parfit, Derek. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984 (ebook). [Chapter 3: “Five Mistakes in Moral Mathematics”]
Kagan, Shelly. "Do I Make a Difference?" Philosophy & Public Affairs 39.2 (2011): 105-41 (ejournal).
Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter. “It’s not my fault: Global warming and individual moral obligations”, in Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter, and Richard B. Howarth. Perspectives on Climate Change: Science, Economics, Politics, Ethics. Amsterdam; San Diego, CA: Elsevier JAI, 2005, pp. 285-307 (ebook).
Broome, John. Climate Matters: Ethics in a Warming World. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012, pp. 74-78.
Optional further reading
Parfit, ‘What we together do’ (1988) unpublished (can be found here)
Nefsky, Julia. "Consequentialism and the Problem of Collective Harm: A Reply to Kagan." Philosophy & Public Affairs 39.4 (2011): 364-95 (ejournal).
Arntzenius, Frank, and David Mccarthy. "Self Torture And Group Beneficence." Erkenntnis 47.1 (1997): 129-44 (ejournal).
Pinkert, Felix. "What If I Cannot Make a Difference (and Know It)." Ethics 125.4 (2015): 971-98 (ejournal).
Dietz, Alexander. "What We Together Ought to Do." Ethics 126.4 (2016): 955-982 (ejournal).
Stephanie Collins (2013) Collectives' Duties and Collectivization Duties, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 91:2, 231-248 (ejournal)
Collins, Stephanie. & Lawford-Smith, Holly. “The Transfer of Duties: from Individuals to States and Back Again”, in Michael Brady and Miranda Fricker (eds.). The Epistemic Life of Groups: Essays in the Epistemology of Collectives. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2016, pp. 150-172 (ebook).
Budolfson, “Collective Action, Climate Change, and the Ethical Significance of Futility” (this can be found here, or at http://www.budolfson.com/papers)
Suggested questions for class assignments
- Are there any cases in which a sufficiently large group can make a difference, yet no individual can? If so, what is the significance of such cases for ethical theory?
- In what sense, if any, does the problem of climate change require collective rather than individual action?
Core readings (mandatory)
Taurek, John M M. "Should the Numbers Count?" Philosophy & Public Affairs 6.4 (1977): 293-316 (ejournal).
Otsuka, Michael. "Saving Lives, Moral Theory, and the Claims of Individuals." Philosophy & Public Affairs 34.2 (2006): 109-35 (ejournal).
Voorhoeve, Alex. "How Should We Aggregate Competing Claims?" Ethics 125.1 (2014): 64-87 (ejournal).
Further readings (optional)
Scanlon, Thomas. What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge, Mass.; London: Belknap Press of Harvard UP, 1998.
[Chapter 5 (“the structure of contractualism”), part 9 (“aggregation”); pp. 229-241 in the paperback edition]
Kamm, F. "Aggregation and Two Moral Methods." Utilitas 17.1 (2005): 1-23 (ejournal).
Halstead, John. "The Numbers Always Count." Ethics 126.3 (2016): 789-802 (ejournal).
Norcross, Alastair. "Comparing Harms: Headaches and Human Lives." Philosophy & Public Affairs 26.2 (1997): 135-67 (ejournal).
Carlson, Erik. "Aggregating Harms - Should We Kill to Avoid Headaches?" Theoria 66.3 (2000): 246-55 (ejournal).
Suggested questions for class assignments
- Why, if at all, should we save the many rather than the one in Taurek’s puzzle case?
- Is Scanlon right to insist that one must interrupt the TV broadcast to rescue the technician, regardless of the number of viewers?
- How much of a problem is it for the “Aggregate Relevant Claims” view (described by Voorhoeve) that that view sometimes recommends choosing the foreseeably worse outcome?
- Deworming treatments provide a modest benefit to very large numbers of individuals. For the same cost, distribution of insecticide-treated bed nets would provide a large benefit to a much smaller number of individuals. Does this consideration count in favour of bed net distribution over deworming, relative to the evaluation that would be suggested by straightforward utilitarian aggregation?
Core readings (mandatory)
Brock, Dan. “Identified versus Statistical Lives: An Interdisciplinary Perspective”, in Glenn Cohen et al. (eds.), Identified versus Statistical Lives: An Interdisciplinary Perspective. New York: Oxford UP, 2015, pp. 43-50 (ebook).
Eyal, Nir. “Concentrated risk, the Coventry blitz, Chamberlain’s cancer”, in Glenn Cohen et al. (eds.), Identified versus Statistical Lives: An Interdisciplinary Perspective. New York: Oxford UP, 2015, pp. 90-110 (ebook).
Verweij, Marcel. “How (not) to argue for the rule of rescue”, in Glenn Cohen et al. (eds.), Identified versus Statistical Lives: An Interdisciplinary Perspective. New York: Oxford UP, 2015, pp. 137-149 (ebook).
Slote, Michael. “Why not empathy?”, in Glenn Cohen et al. (eds.), Identified versus Statistical Lives: An Interdisciplinary Perspective. New York: Oxford UP, 2015, pp. 150-156 (ebook).
All of these are in Glenn Cohen et al. (eds.), Identified versus Statistical Lives: An Interdisciplinary Perspective. New York: Oxford UP, 2015 (ebook).
Further readings (optional)
The remainder of the essays in the Cohen et al volume.
Suggested questions for class assignments
- Why, if at all, should one prioritise identified over statistical lives? (The maximally broad question for this week’s topic.)
- “Empathy pushes us towards prioritising identified over statistical lives. But empathy is known to track merely superficial features, and is thus morally irrelevant; we should resist its guidance.” Discuss.
- Can an anti-aggregationist approach justify prioritising identified over statistical lives?
- Should consideration of identified vs. statistical lives have induced Churchill to take defensive action against the Coventry raid, in the scenario Eyal discusses?
- Consider a variant of Singer’s ‘shallow pond’ example, in which one could save more people by selling one’s suit (and then donating the resulting money to maximally cost-effective global poverty charities) than by jumping into the pond (ruining one’s suit in the process). Can any reasonable moral theory hold that one ought not to save the drowning child from the pond in such a case? What are the implications of your answer for the debate over identified vs. statistical lives?
Core readings (mandatory)
Batson, Daniel et al. “Empathy and altruism”, in C. R. Snyder, and Shane J. Lopez (eds.). Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011, pp. 417-427 (ebook).
Elster, John. “The Valmont effect: The warm-glow theory of philanthropy”, in Patricia M. L. Illingworth, Thomas Pogge, and Leif Wenar (eds.). Giving Well: The Ethics of Philanthropy. New York; Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011, pp. 67-80 (ebook).
Snowden, James, “Does risk aversion give an agent with purely altruistic preferences a good reason to donate to multiple charities?”, (this can be found here)
Macaskill, William. "Replaceability, Career Choice, and Making a Difference." Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 17.2 (2014): 269-83 (ejournal).
Further readings (optional)
Batson, C. Daniel. Altruism in Humans. New York: Oxford UP, 2011 (ebook).
[Esp. chapter 5 and appendices B-G (on the empirical evidence concerning the “empathy-altruism hypothesis”)]
Oakley, Barbara A. Pathological Altruism. Oxford; New York: Oxford UP, 2012 (ebook).
Suggested questions for class assignments
- Is it rational to split one’s philanthropic donations between more than one charity? Is such behaviour consistent with true altruism?
- “Working in the charity sector indicates a somewhat altruistic personality, but earning to give manifests a much purer form of altruism.” Is that so?
- Must someone who behaves altruistically for the sake of the resulting ‘warm glow’ be deceiving herself? Is the same true of all impure forms of altruism?
Core readings (mandatory)
Lenman, James. "Consequentialism and Cluelessness." Philosophy & Public Affairs 29.4 (2000): 342-70 (ejournal).
Greaves, Hilary. "XIV—Cluelessness." Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 116.3 (2016): 311-39 (ejournal).
White, Roger. “Evidential symmetry and mushy credence”, in John Hawthorne and Tamar Gendler (eds.). Oxford Studies in Epistemology. Volume 3. Oxford: Clarendon, 2005. Oxford Studies in Epistemology, pp. 161-188.
Further readings (optional):
Rinard, Susanna. "A Decision Theory for Imprecise Probabilities." Philosophers’ Imprint 15.7: 1-16 (ejournal)
Elga, Adam. "Subjective probabilities should be sharp." Philosophers’ Imprint 10.5: 1-11 (ejournal).
Williams, J. Robert G. "Indeterminacy, Angst and Conflicting Values." Ratio 29.4 (2016): 412-33 (ejournal).
Suggested questions for class assignments
- To what extent, if at all, does the type of cluelessness focussed on by Lenman (and called ‘simple cluelessness’ by Greaves) handicap consequentialist decision-making? Is ‘complex cluelessness’ different, and if so how and why?
- Is it rational to refrain from donating on the basis of worries about cluelessness?
Core readings:
Greaves, Hilary. ‘Population axiology’, Philosophy Compass Vol 12 Issue 11 (2017)
Beckstead, Nick. ‘The case for existential risk reduction’ (unpublished manuscript)
Optional further reading:
Parfit, Derek. Reasons and Persons: Part IV. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984 (ebook). [Chapters 16-19 inclusive]
For the literature in population ethics more generally: follow up the references in the above article by Greaves.
Suggested questions for class assignments
- To what extent should the Repugnant Conclusion lead us to reject a totalist population axiology?
- Outline the argument for prioritising existential risk reduction. Is this argument sound?