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Followup to: In Continued Defense Of Effective Altruism

Freddie deBoer says effective altruism is \u201ca shell game\u201d:

Who could argue with that! But this summary also invites perhaps the most powerful critique: who could argue with that? That is to say, this sounds like so obvious and general a project that it can hardly denote a specific philosophy or project at all. The immediate response to such a definition, if you\u2019re not particularly impressionable or invested in your status within certain obscure internet communities, should be to point out that this is an utterly banal set of goals that are shared by literally everyone who sincerely tries to act charitably . . . Every do-gooder I have ever known has thought of themselves as shining a light on problems that are neglected. So what?

Generating the most human good through moral action isn\u2019t a philosophy; it\u2019s an almost tautological statement of what all humans who try to act morally do. This is why I say that effective altruism is a shell game. That which is commendable isn\u2019t particular to EA and that which is particular to EA isn\u2019t commendable.

In other words, everyone agrees with doing good, so effective altruism can\u2019t be judged on that. Presumably everyone agrees with supporting charities that cure malaria or whatever, so effective altruism can\u2019t be judged on that. So you have to go to its non-widely-held beliefs to judge it, and those are things like animal suffering, existential risk, and AI. And (Freddie thinks) those beliefs are dumb. Therefore, effective altruism is bad.

(as always, I\u2019ve tried to sum up the argument fairly, but read the original post to make sure.)

Here are some of my objections to Freddie\u2019s point (I already posted some of this as comments on his post):

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/contra-deboer-on-movement-shell-games\xa0