Richard Chappell🔸 @RYChappell Twitter profile

Pinned Tweet

Richard Chappell🔸

4 months

Maybe I'll take this opportunity to re-share some of my favourite posts. 🧵 (1) 'My Big Ideas' highlights and explains five major themes from my work

My Big Ideas

Feel free to share yours, too!

www.goodthoughts.blog

2

1

13

Last Seen Profiles

@dul_turkporno

@W3bwh0re

@TrackTeddy

@Coach_Thomas7A

@bokeplokalmalam

@kessekai

@myrti_spe

@xiaohan1655149

@zaxavage

@wenzinh0

@JessicaBeltrnn

@Arly_Di

@fuwari_next

@bodie_jerome

@ciumtaesan

@Gia2458

@Eddsworld

@kazukazuyas

@LGBTQcomics

@mkvfile

@Jahany2030

@ana_ebrek_shay

@Avik

@Robots_and_Such

@neauthorka

@inniecollec

@WaluigiXrp

@HowffWhisky

@CoachWhitlow

@HamptonUMascot

@WnAllh15794

@peacocktv

@TorahJudaism

@stw_pdg

@jordisn

@CoachWhitlow

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

Utilitarianism is just what you get when you take seriously the moral datum that *everyone matters equally*. Other views blatantly deny this, while trying to pretend otherwise.

76

15

276

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

Always confused when people critique an idea as "dangerous" rather than "false". What are they doing? Are they advocating that ppl should lie (for the "greater good")? Seems esp. self-defeating for criticisms of utilitarianism...

51

25

234

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

1 year

Utilitarians: we should care more about others. Like, think how much you care about your loved ones, and what you'd sacrifice to help them. *Everyone* is that important! Critics: utilitarians just care about math.

9

16

186

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

9 months

I wish people would start using another term, like "naive instrumentalism", to refer to this sort of reasoning. No utilitarian theorists endorse it! Like, literally, zero.

Nate Silver

@NateSilver538

10 months

There's a certain type of journalist with an increasingly utilitarian outlook, i.e. it's so important the Good Guys win that the ends justify the means and fairness and accurately are subservient to that. This was subtext for a long time but is now being said explicitly.

576

915

7K

14

7

177

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

Utilitarian public philosophers: "Let's do more to help the poor, stop torturing animals, and safeguard future generations!" Twitter critics: "REPUGNANT!!"

6

5

144

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

6 months

Kidney donors are the only people in the process who receive no compensation via @voxdotcom

4

22

132

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

3 years

Download *Parfit's Ethics* for free (until May 3) from Cambridge University Press:

Parfit's Ethics

Cambridge Core - Ethics - Parfit's Ethics

www.cambridge.org

3

55

122

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

Kinda striking how *literally saving lives* doesn't seem to register to many as a positive impact? There's a weird refusal (in some corners) to acknowledge the obvious positive impact of Peter Singer's work in practical ethics.

7

6

120

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

11 months

There's nothing EAs hate more than suggesting that their critics are obviously wrong.

6

1

117

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

5 months

Funny but true: many critics of EA seem deeply morally disturbed.

7

116

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

7 months

The quality bar for criticism of EA is so low that someone can write an op-ed saying "Forget GiveWell, just bring money with you when you go surfing in poor countries," and plenty of folks will applaud, "SO INSIGHTFUL!"

7

4

109

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

Whenever I see ppl dismiss AI risk as "sci fi", I really want to know (i) what credence they give to AGI arriving within 30 yrs, and (ii) at what credence level they think it would be reasonable to start worrying about AI safety.

7

101

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

5 months

It's very striking that most critics of EA aren't interested in the underlying *ideas* (which they mistakenly dismiss as "vacuous"); instead, they want to focus on the *people* and turn it into a status conflict: arguing that they're weird, bad, or unoriginal in various ways.

14

4

100

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

I wonder to what extent extreme antipathy towards utilitarianism correlates with a "low decoupling" cognitive style?

16

5

87

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

1/11. The puzzles of population ethics, infinite ethics, and decision theory are not problems specifically for utilitarianism. These are puzzles for everyone.

Puzzles for Everyone

Leaving details blank is not a theoretical virtue

www.goodthoughts.blog

7

16

84

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

1 year

Great post from @ATabarrok on the importance of rolling out malaria vaccines ASAP: it's obscene to treat >1000 daily deaths as an acceptable "status quo" rather than an (ongoing) emergency.

What is an Emergency? The Case for Rapid Malaria Vaccination - Marginal REVOLUTION

Compare two otherwise similar towns. In Town A there have always been 1000 deaths every month from disease X. In contrast, Town B has been free of disease X for as long as anyone can remember until...

marginalrevolution.com

1

21

82

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

I find this (seemingly very common) suspicion extremely bizarre. Why would you posit nefarious motives -- against very altruistic academics, of all people -- when "honest intellectual disagreement" is such an obvious alternative explanation?

Liam Bright

@lastpositivist

2 years

Mix of fair and unfair critiques in this. True - there is often socio-political naivety among EA rank and file, and upper echelons seem to avoid social theory in a way one cannot help but suspect is related to maintaining relationships with pay masters...

20

15

243

12

5

78

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

7 months

NYT Columnists: "If only more philanthropists would consider the plight of the poor, struggling, American doctor."

4

1

75

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

9 months

Why don't more philosophers blog about their research? Seems worth doing if your work is interesting and/or important.

15

5

70

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

Review: WWOTF is to longtermism what Animal Liberation was to anti-speciesism. Targeted at a general audience, it urges us to take more fully into account morally significant interests or considerations that we otherwise tend to unduly neglect...

Review of What We Owe the Future

And what academic philosophers can expect from the book

www.goodthoughts.blog

5

14

67

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

Weird pattern I've noticed: ppl often defend untargeted philanthropy by arguing that EA optimization misses some important consideration. But if they're right, that just recommends changing targets, not abandoning all attempt at optimization.

5

2

67

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

6 months

New blog post (link in bio): Anti-Philanthropic Misdirection: when anti-EAs sound like anti-vaxxers.

2

7

69

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

1 year

You can save five lives, but at the cost of complicity with Big Lever Corp. What do you do?

3

11

64

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

1 year

"EA is just an excuse to do what you want while donating money to good causes" - Guy who does what he wants *without* donating money to good causes.

0

6

65

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

1 year

Effective Altruism is (IMO) the pinnacle of saying "unsaid obvious" things. Like, (1) it's better to do more good than less, and (2) a career could be morally good for indirect reasons, like a high salary that you donate, and (3) existential risks are worth taking seriously.

Spencer Greenberg 🔍

@SpencrGreenberg

1 year

The "Unsaid Obvious" is my name for ideas that can be immediately identified as true upon hearing them but that are rarely considered. Despite their simplicity, they're often overlooked due to the vastness of idea space. They hold a unique power: 🧵[thread]

7

6

60

1

5

65

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

4 months

@ReflectiveAlt You're picking on an undergraduate student for saying true things in a tone you don't like? That's low.

7

0

64

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

Crudely calculating the expected utility of murdering your rivals, and acting accordingly, would be predictably disastrous. This doesn’t mean that you should abandon the goal of doing good. It just means that you should pursue it prudently.

Naïve vs Prudent Utilitarianism

Careless pursuit of the good is simply bad

www.goodthoughts.blog

3

5

56

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

Why utilitarianism is no threat to abortion rights: It would be crazy to think that "forced births" was a socially optimal policy.

Utilitarianism and Abortion

Why forced goods aren't the best

www.goodthoughts.blog

13

5

57

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

3 months

Anti-cancel-culture politicians should walk the walk by sponsoring legislation making it illegal to fire employees for their off-the-clock political activities or extramural speech.

TracingWoodgrains

@tracewoodgrains

3 months

in light of the recent wave of conservative-driven social media mobs and firings, I'm inclined to agree with this is it possible to put the genie back in the bottle, or is this tendency fundamental to any coalition that gains cultural control of a platform like this?

123

17

635

10

6

55

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

Is the "systemic change" critique claiming that (i) EA doesn't successfully maximize Expected Value, or (ii) we should prioritize "systemic" causes even when doing so has lower EV?

8

4

53

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

7 months

"Pushing an agenda" is one of those funny phrases that only ever applies to *other* people. What *you're* doing is encouraging sensible thinking and good values. It's too bad that "agendas" keep getting in the way of others having good values, right?

6

2

53

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

8 months

It's sad how offensive many people find the philosophical mindset. Like it's inconceivable to them that anyone could truly be "just asking questions" in good faith. (Intellectual curiosity seems a rare virtue!)

3

5

53

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

6 months

It's fine and normal (morally neutral) to not be very altruistic. But it's deeply malevolent to discourage others' altruism.

5

2

52

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

Critics repeatedly conflate "funding good causes is really important" (EA message) with "stealing money is an effective way to fund important causes" (stupid criminal fantasy). Important to note that the EA message and the stupid criminal fantasy are not remotely the same claim.

2

1

51

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

How is it that @jkcarlsmith 's blog posts are always more worth reading than 99% of published philosophy papers? Seriously, this is great:

Why should ethical anti-realists do ethics? - Joe Carlsmith

Who needs a system if you're free?

joecarlsmith.com

0

3

50

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

Introducing , endorsed by leading ethicists, e.g. as "the perfect introduction to utilitarianism: comprehensive, critical and accessible as a basis for classroom discussion or public debate."

Introducing Utilitarianism.net

The best online introduction to utilitarian moral theory

www.goodthoughts.blog

2

8

49

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

7 months

I'm continually baffled by how careless critics of EA are about whether their hostile public rhetoric will deter people from donating to effective charities (or provide "moral cover" to the selfish). It seems worth caring about this!

4

6

50

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

Academic philosophy peer review reform proposal: paper authors should always be given the opportunity to briefly respond to referee comments before editor decisions

8

2

49

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

5 months

This is a common mistake. People don't realize that old-school EA heavily critiqued Charity Navigator-style metrics, so they say things like, "Look what a monstrosity you have become according to your own old-school metrics" and just no. We always said those metrics were rubbish.

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

5 months

@lymanstoneky @Benthamsbulldog Two quick responses: (1) The pictured paragraph confuses EA with Charity Navigator. EA has always offered the opposite critique: "see what the funding ultimately achieves, don't obsess over superficial procedural metrics like CEO pay and overhead"

1

0

44

2

3

49

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

3 months

Against expecting (or pretending to) normative perfection:

2

11

46

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

People can vary a lot in their attention to subtext, which in turn can lead to miscommunication and misinterpretation. It may be helpful to bear this in mind, especially when interpreting analytic philosophers.

Text, Subtext, and Miscommunication

The Risks of High Decoupling, from Beckstead to Bostrom

www.goodthoughts.blog

3

5

46

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

6 months

New blog post (link in bio): What "Effective Altruism" means to me: 42 concrete theses -- which ones do you disagree with?

5

11

46

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

The disconnect between what policymakers think of as "medical ethics" and the verdicts of *every coherent moral theory from utilitarianism to Kantianism* is shocking.

Nate Silver

@NateSilver538

2 years

@mattyglesias One of my weird takeaways from the pandemic is that it really exposed the real-world consequences from the lack of interest in moral philosophy.

4

15

165

1

3

44

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

11 months

It's funny how philosophers can be like, "What I just said has already been refuted, but we'll just ignore that for reasons of space..."

6

2

43

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

5 months

@lymanstoneky @Benthamsbulldog Two quick responses: (1) The pictured paragraph confuses EA with Charity Navigator. EA has always offered the opposite critique: "see what the funding ultimately achieves, don't obsess over superficial procedural metrics like CEO pay and overhead"

1

0

44

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

4 months

Here's a blog from an Oxford PhD student, aimed at summarizing philosophy papers they consider important. Such a cool idea! More folks (esp. grad students) should do this sort of thing.

Million Year View | Riley Harris | Substack

Simple explanations of important research. Click to read Million Year View, by Riley Harris, a Substack publication with hundreds of subscribers.

www.millionyearview.com

2

8

44

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

4 months

I took the🔸 #10PercentPledge (way back in 2010) because it's a simple way to do a lot of good without sacrificing anything significant.

1

42

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

0

4

37

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

2. Utilitarianism suffers bad PR due to being sufficiently clear and systematic to actually *attempt to answer* these questions. Other theories too often don't even try, so their inevitably flaws are swept under the rug.

4

3

39

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

6 months

Risk-aversion kills a lot of people. Think how many fewer road fatalities there would be today if we'd tolerated more aggressive rollout of self-driving tech over the past decade.

Matthew Yglesias

@mattyglesias

6 months

Self-driving cars have become underhyped, with Waymo operating an actual functioning taxi service most people don’t seem to know exists that is expanding into two new significant markets.

40

75

733

1

2

37

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

5 months

The abusability objection to non-utilitarianism seems underappreciated. Non-utilitarian ethics (as applied by biased humans) provides moral cover to the wealthy* to ignore the plight of the global poor, non-human animals, and future generations -- to disastrous effect.

2

38

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

"To call attention to the fact that we could make major improvements without ending capitalism is inconvenient for people who want to recruit for anti-capitalism." I wonder how much leftist opposition to effective altruism this also explains?

4

1

35

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

10 months

On the common neglect of positive-sum interactions: "In this Malthusian world, the only way to get rich was to essentially steal from someone else, because stealing is quick and efficient compared to growing food." Great piece from @mattyglesias

Outdated Malthusian intuitions cripple our politics

More people and more houses for them is good

www.slowboring.com

0

6

36

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

7 months

"Evidence-based quantification is imperfect so we shouldn't even try" remains a weirdly popular inference. (Note: "imperfect" is very different from "worse than nothing".)

1

0

34

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

4 months

Angry Goose chases guy who dunks on the Repugnant Conclusion despite every fully-fleshed-out alternative seeming even worse...

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

4 months

(10) 'Puzzles for Everyone' explains how the challenge of coherently extending beneficence and decision theory to extreme cases is a challenge for *every* (decent) theory, not just utilitarianism:

2

0

2

3

1

35

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

11 months

I hope the term 'beneficentrism' takes off, since it's quite confusing to refer to a "degree" of utilitarianism (as though taking constraints and prerogatives to be purely instrumental was a matter of degree!)

Richard Hanania

@RichardHanania

11 months

Another problem for EA is that its embrace of utilitarianism makes it adjacent to every other movement. Everyone claims that their ideology increases human well being and relies on utilitarianism to some degree. And people often really hate adjacent ideologies.

1

0

22

4

1

34

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

6 months

New blog post (link in bio) on MORAL MISDIRECTION: speech acts that functionally operate to distract one’s audience from more important moral truths (predictably reducing the importance-weighted accuracy of the audience’s moral beliefs).

4

7

32

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

5 months

It's striking how many supposed intellectuals still evaluate moral propositions in terms of their coalitional value instead of their truth value. (Like, "it's good to earn lots of money and donate it to effective charities" is controversial bc earning money is coded right-wing.)

2

3

34

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

4 months

New post explores how philosophy can make us worse at practical ethics. Too many philosophers seem tempted to turn practical quandaries into trolley problems, when the deeper practical problem is that agents often *don't really know* what situation they are in. 1/3

1

8

31

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

4 months

wtf philosophers? You do not "have a respectable philosophical argument on your side" whenever you ASSUME empirical claim X, and the truth of X would morally justify your action. Your X-belief has to be actually reasonable! Compare terrorists, religious inquisitors, etc.

8

0

31

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

3 months

💯%: "Peer review thus functions on the whole... to suppress originality, to enforce groupthink, to amplify bias against anything unconventional, to entrench paradigms."

A X Douglas

@alexxdouglas

3 months

It’s part of my soft boycott of what I take to be an irredeemably corrupt industry devoid of any real value:

1

52

3

5

35

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

I don't think this is the true view, but it may be the most serious philosophical alternative to EA's beneficentrism.

The Nietzschean Challenge to Effective Altruism

What if excellence is more important than comfort?

www.goodthoughts.blog

3

4

29

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

10 months

Many common mistakes can be avoided if you read my blog!

1

0

29

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

EAs tend to think like economists. Economists don't tend to think especially highly of "social theory", Marxism, etc. So it's not like the possibility of non-Marxist EAs is this inexplicable thing that has to be explained away by invoking deception or dishonesty.

2

0

29

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

11 months

Critic: [attempts an objection to EA] Me: Your view implies that you should sooner hug a homeless person than cure world hunger. That can't be right. Critic: You're just assuming utilitarianism! Me: *head explodes*

2

29

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

5 months

@lymanstoneky @Benthamsbulldog (2) Against your claim that the principles are vacuous, see "Doing Good Effectively is Unusual": (Also, your own section on EA's anti-speciesism brings this out very clearly.)

Doing Good Effectively is Unusual

Neglected truisms are a real thing

www.goodthoughts.blog

2

0

28

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

6 months

New blog post (link in bio): Utopian Enemies of the Better: One of the most common fallacies in applied ethics and public policy is to reason from “X is good” to “Doing Y without X should be prohibited”.

2

8

28

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

4 months

I like this pictured quote from the QT. Systematic thinking invites cheap shots from the anti-intellectual. (You don't have to agree with the views. But if you think they're unreasonable you probably haven't thought much.) See "Puzzles for Everyone":

Asterisk

@asteriskmgzn

4 months

The TESCREAL “bundle of ideologies” is purportedly essential to understand the race to build AI, the ethical milieu of those building it, and the philosophical underpinnings behind Silicon Valley as a whole. But does the label actually tell us anything?

1

6

51

7

2

29

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

I actually think these sorts of casual accusations of dishonesty are v bad. Too many ppl seem comfortable accusing others of being "grifters" or otherwise "suspect", just for having a different political opinion from them.

3

0

27

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

@davidad Nope. E.g. Maximin blatantly disregards the interests of those who aren't the worst off. Deontology enshrines status-quo privilege. Treating ppl formally alike isn't enough to capture *mattering* equally.

2

0

27

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

9 months

Ethicists too often hold emotional responses fixed. So when utilitarians argue that emotional responses are biased/misleading, they think utilitarians want people to be cold robots. Not me. I want people to have *better* emotional responses, and care more for those far away.

5

1

26

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

5 months

People often overreact to mildly bad things. But it's hard to criticize the pile-on without seeming like you're in favor of the bad thing. Seems like an unfortunate dynamic, that often leads to polarization and social ratcheting effects.

2

6

25

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

5 months

I really think the ideas are much more interesting and important than the particular people/movement/whatever. On the "vacuity" charge, see below:

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

11 months

Doing Good Effectively is Unusual

1

6

19

1

0

26

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

"[W]hen there is sufficient pressure not to consider or offer certain types of evidence, many people (it need not be everyone) will act in line with this incentive... [distorting] the epistemic supply chain." - @HSJSpeaks

Hrishikesh Joshi (Bowling Green State University), “The Epistemic Significance of Social Pressure”

Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 2022

newworkinphilosophy.substack.com

2

5

23

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

Not to mention general tendency towards "guilt by association" tactics, failure to distinguish "sounds superficially bad" from "reveals deep problems of principle", etc.

1

25

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

9 months

I think the problem is low-decouplers can't distinguish truth from other forms of endorsement.

florence ☧

@morallawwithin

9 months

i wish more people would admit that effective altruism is objectively correct and they just don’t like the people associated with it

103

12

452

1

0

24

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

3 years

New: "Near-Utilitarian Alternatives" explores the many ways to reject #utilitarianism in theory while still agreeing with its most important practical implications, i.e. concerning the importance of beneficence and #EffectiveAltruism :

Near-Utilitarian Alternatives

There are several ways to reject aspects of utilitarianism while remaining on board with the general thrust of the theory (at least in practice). This chapter explores a range of such near-utilitar...

www.utilitarianism.net

1

3

25

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

Why not try, "Yes, but for different reasons..."? These practical recommendations shouldn't be controversial, and frankly are so much more important than our theoretical differences.

2

0

23

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

3 months

If you lack institutional access to the journal, you can read the preprint version via PhilPapers:

Richard Yetter Chappell, Why Not Effective Altruism? - PhilPapers

philpapers.org

Illinois Press

@IllinoisPress

3 months

In Public Affairs Quarterly 38.1, a special issue, @RYChappell ( @univmiami ) addresses misconceptions about effective altruism & argues that its core ideas are excellent and widely neglected: even if we disagree on details, we should share its basic goals.

1

2

9

2

7

22

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

You might as well criticize someone for rescuing a drowning child b/c someone should have built a safety fence long ago. Even if you’re right about the fence, it’s dumb and wrong to criticize acts of rescue given that there currently is no fence and children are drowning.

0

23

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

4 months

It seems I've been blocked by David Thorstad for pointing this out. (As has the undergraduate philosophy student that he targeted.)

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

4 months

@ReflectiveAlt You're picking on an undergraduate student for saying true things in a tone you don't like? That's low.

7

0

64

7

0

24

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

5 months

Some ppl seem very let down by the fact that utilitarianism doesn't actually provide an algorithm for solving practical ethical problems. But neither does any alternative. Seems more like a problem with their expectations than a problem with the theory?

5

0

24

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

@mattyglesias Those aren't competing views. Discounting for uncertainty isn't "pure" time preference?

2

0

22

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

4 months

@NathanpmYoung @ReflectiveAlt If David was critically engaging with the ideas, that would be fine. But this kind of "screenshot without comment" tweeting functions as an invitation to mobbing and mockery. It's bad for discourse, and a professional norm violation for professors to target undergrads with it.

1

0

22

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

@SpencrGreenberg Avoid perfectionism. No-one will read your dissertation anyway, so best to think of it as a learning opportunity, not a magnum opus. It's just the permission slip to begin the rest of your academic career. (If that doesn't sound worth pursuing, consider doing something else.)

2

0

22

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

1 year

Disturbing levels of anti-do-gooder hostility shining through here: "It’s almost too easy to feel a certain schadenfreude at the possibility that effective altruism—and its parent philosophy, classical utilitarianism—will really, finally get the pie in the face they deserve."

5

1

22

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

That animal welfare costs completely swamp the climate costs of eating meat turns out to be almost unavoidable once you grant that factory-farmed animal lives are net-negative.

Meat Externalities

Better Beef than Chicken

www.goodthoughts.blog

0

3

23

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

Twitterati reasoning: "Hitler was a vegetarian, EAs care about animal welfare, so EAs are Nazis!" One would *hope* it's sufficiently transparently stupid as to not require engaging with. Alas, some of these idiots do have 150K+ followers, so I guess there's an audience for it...

4

0

21

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

11 months

Roses are red, Violets are blue; Billionaire philanthropists Are better than you. (The fear that seems to motivate some of the loudest critics of effective altruism.)

1

3

20

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

1 year

Twitter discourse on utilitarianism is so bad. I guess that follows from a more general principle. But I'm still shocked by how badly most ppl misunderstand the theory. (E.g. thinking it is a decision procedure.)

4

0

22

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

Important thread. FWIW (as we've no first-hand knowledge of what happened at @bgsu after 2014), Helen & I personally find @coons_christian 's account credible, based on our past experience there.

David Faraci

@d_faraci

2 years

I haven't weighed in publicly about @coons_christian , except for a couple of comments on @DailyNousEditor (). I won't try to make his case for him. But now @bgsu is actively trying to get rid of him, and I want to say a couple of things about the situation.

1

12

34

1

22

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

It just wouldn't do to let anyone outside of govt prevent the next pandemic, I guess.

2

4

19

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

8 months

Intellectual anthropology ("here are the social forces explaining why some people like idea X") can be interesting, but I don't like when it crowds out first-order assessment of the merits of ideas.

1

20

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

@alexbryant_ Peter Singer has to be the most obvious example, right?

1

0

19

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

4 months

@robertwiblin What's more: of any seriously ill person, the nearest possible world in which they undertake such exercise is one in which they aren't ill! So, by Lewis's counterfactual analysis of causation...

0

1

21

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 months

In response to my review lamenting that a book of supposedly "critical essays" was all insults and unsupported assertions -- no real arguments -- one of the contributors thought it would be a good idea to leave a comment doubling down on this methodology.

Sanbonmatsu, John on Good Thoughts

Prof. Chappell's reading of the essays in this book, which I contributed to, is not merely ungenerous but tendentious--he rejects the authors' positions mainly because we reject the faulty epistemic...

www.goodthoughts.blog

5

0

21

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

8 months

If a child is drowning in a pond, and - instead of saving them - a passerby in a fancy suit prioritizes keeping their suit clean and dry so that they can donate it to a medical student, is it "hubris" to judge that this was a poor choice?

Noah Giansiracusa

@ProfNoahGian

8 months

@olivia_p_walker Exactly! We all have our own views and values and preferences, that's what I mean by subjective. Pretending "good" is a measurable number erases that individuality. Let people donate how they want. I think this med school donation is beautiful.

3

0

3

0

19

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

Response to @bryan_caplan 's "Conscience Objection to Utilitarianism": ordinary imperfection is no great burden on our conscience

Caplan's Conscience Objection to Utilitarianism

Does Utilitarianism imply that we're all bad people?

www.goodthoughts.blog

1

0

18

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

11 months

Doing Good Effectively is Unusual

1

6

19

Richard Chappell🔸

@RYChappell

2 years

@itaisher Rights (if not grounded in utilitarianism) are effectively just a way of saying that those in a more privileged default position matter more:

Arguments for Utilitarianism

This chapter explains reflective equilibrium as a moral methodology, and presents several arguments for utilitarianism over non-consequentialist approaches to ethics.

www.utilitarianism.net

3

1

20