Bi-Weekly "Metapolitics" Discussion in Fishtown

Our standard discussion venue is the Front Street Cafe in Fishtown on the corner of Front & Girard Streets. SEPTA's Girard Station is just a block south, and there's also usually spaces available for street parking in the surrounding neighborhood.

This will be our last Saturday discussion of 2016, since the next one would've fallen on December 24th and I'm guessing most people will be celebrating the holidays with friends & family.

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The topic we'll be discussing this time is "Effective Altruism" (EA) -- a new social movement & approach to charity that applies evidence and reason to determining the most effective ways to improve the world, generally from the philosophical standpoint of utilitarianism. Michael Johnston, one of the meetup organizers from Effective Altruism Philadelphia, will be joining us & providing some basic background on EA.

EA encourages individuals to consider all causes and actions, and then act in the way that brings about the greatest positive impact based on their values. Because purchasing power is greater in developing world, effective altruists often give most or all of their donations to organizations that help those in the developing world, and effective altruist organizations take a broad, scientific approach with cost-benefit calculations that distinguishes them from traditional philanthropy or charity.

While a substantial proportion of effective altruists have focused on the nonprofit sector, the philosophy of effective altruism applies much more broadly, e.g., to prioritizing the scientific projects, companies, and policy initiatives which can be estimated to save and improve the most lives.

Check out the Wikipedia entry for a brief overview:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_altruism

• NOTE: If you're interested in going a bit more in-depth, Peter Singer's TED Talk is only 17 minutes:

https://www.ted.com/talks/peter_singer_the_why_and_how_of_effective_altruism?language=en

Our discussion will be based around Sam Harris's podcast interview with one of the major thinkers in the EA movement, William MacAskill - it's entitled "Being Good and Doing Good" as was broadcast back in August. William MacAskill is a 29-year-old associate professor of Philosophy at Lincoln College, Oxford, and he is the cofounder of three non-profits based on effective altruist principles: Giving What We Can, 80,000 Hours, and the Centre for Effective Altruism. He's also the author of the book, Doing Good Better.

https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/being-good-and-doing-good

We'll discuss the following topics which come up in the podcast. I've added some links below each topic for those who want a bit more information, but they're not required reading.

1. Peter Singer's Moral Argument for "Giving 'Til It Hurts" - The Drowning Child in a Shallow Pond Analogy

http://openborders.info/drowning-child/

http://www.7goldfish.com/11_Reasons_to_Let_Peter-Singers_Child_Drown

2. Practical Implications of the Psychological Resistance to "Giving Til It Hurts": Actualism vs Possibilism; Satisficing vs Maximizing; Gradual Acclimatization vs Radical Reform

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actualism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximization_(psychology)

3. Moral Salience & Moral Dilemmas: Save One Child from the Fire vs Save the Picasso Painting & Sell it to Save 100 Children; Save the Scientist who Can Cure Cancer vs Save the Ordinary Person

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_sense_theory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem

• NOTE: Saving the doctor relates to the "Utility Monster" argument discussed below, in that it accords higher value to certain individuals' lives.

4. Effective Altruism and The Case For & Against An Open Border Policy (Open Borders & Free Trade, Relative Deprivation & Global Immigration Equilibrium, Nassim Taleb's Minority Rule & Karl Popper's Paradox of Tolerance)

http://openborders.info/immigration-and-trade/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_migration#Relative_deprivation_theory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

• NOTE: We covered the case against open borders at a previous meetup: https://www.meetup.com/Philadelphia-Political-Agnostics/events/233675436/

5. Moral Paradoxes of Utilitarianism & Possible Solutions: The "Repugnant Conclusion" and "Theory X"; The "Utility Monster" and "Maximin Principle"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere_addition_paradox

• Sam & Will discuss the possibility of Theory X to solve the "Non-Identity Problem" that lies at the heart of the Mere Addition Paradox, similar to the way calculus solved Zeno's paradoxes:

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2012/08/no-theory-x-in-shining-armour.html

NOTE: Sam & Will do not discuss the inverse of the mere addition paradox, which is known as the "Utility Monster", which has a real-world equivalent in the "Smart Fraction Theory" (a.k.a. Killing the Goose That Lays the Golden Eggs). It may be worth discussing the Utility Monster argument along with John Rawls' proposed solution - the "Maximin Principle" (a.k.a. Difference Principle, Second Principle of Justice). Rawls' Maximin principle ties into 2 different versions of Utilitarianism that deal with Inequality: Prioritarianism & Sufficientarianism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_monster

http://openborders.info/kill-goose-golden-eggs/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Justice#The_Second_Principle_of_Justice

http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2011/03/getting-clearer-about-social-justice/

6. Effective Altruism & The Case for Mitigating "Existential Risk" (Calculating the Utility of Future Generations)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_catastrophic_risk#Moral_importance_of_existential_risk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Asymmetry_(population_ethics)

7. Postscript: Geoffrey Miller on the Psychological Foundations of Effective Altruism

Sam Harris & William MacAskill took a philosophical approach to Effective Altruism, but I also wanted us to look at the psychological side as well. The evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller gave a talk on Effective Altruism & Virtue Signaling from the EA Global 2016 conference back in August. The talk is only 23 minutes long, and it explore the way that EA differs from traditional philanthropy not only in its methods, but also in its social dynamics (IQ signaling vs virtue signaling) and the type of personality profiles it attracts (high Openness & Systematizing vs high Agreeableness & Empathizing).

Please listen to the audio if you can, but if not at least read the abstract below - http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2016/08/geoffrey-miller-on-virtue-signalling.html

Abstract:

"Virtue signaling means showing off the personal traits that are considered morally good, in order to gain social, sexual, and status benefits, but without necessarily delivering any real benefits to others. I'll argue that virtue signaling has deep evolutionary roots and important adaptive functions, but it also undermines the appeal, efficacy, unity, and inclusiveness of the EA movement.

Most animals have evolved elaborate traits such as peacock tails or gibbon songs to attract interest from mates, kin, and allies. Some human signaling traits like music, humor, and verbal fluency evolved to display general fitness (good genes, good health, good brains), but others such as kindness, honesty, and frugality evolved to display specific cognitive abilities (such as social and emotional intelligence) and the Big Five personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability). A key problem is that, under costly signaling theory, a signal's reliability is guaranteed by the conspicuous costs imposed on the signaler (e.g. money given to charities), not by the benefits delivered to others (e.g. utility generated by those charities).

Virtue signaling helps explain why EA attracts a narrow range of cognitive and personality types, why EA concerns about scalability, tractability, globalism, and problem neglectedness seem so weird, cold, and unappealing to many people, why arguments about EA priorities and strategies can turn so passionate, and why EA is prone to runaway IQ-signaling and openness-signaling.

I'll conclude with some practical suggestions about how to harness our narcissistic display instincts in the service of maximizing sentient utility. We can't eliminate virtue signaling, but the better we understand it, the better we can harness it to grow our movement, improve its marketing, align our heads and hearts, and do more good."