Re:Effective altruism is not effective
by Karrot_Kream on Thursday April 15, 2021 @12:01PM
(#26822153)
Well this gets into the absurdity of relative utility of goodness altogether. If I'm comparing a child's happiness from eating a candy to the unhappiness of stepping on a pebble, what are the relative magnitudes?
Regardless, there are lots of criticisms of utilitarianism, and utilitarianism is far from the ascendant moral philosophy, so feel free to find others online.
I'll bite. Probability comes into play. The vast majority of babies do not in future orchestrate a genocide, but instead live lives worth living, and in turn contribute in some way to shared human progress and wellbeing. So the expected value of the baby's life is positive, the baby should be saved.
The very low chance of a future genocide does not weigh highly in this decision.
Presumably by this logic, you'd have no opinion on whether a midwife should save a newborn baby's life, as it's unknowable whether the baby will one day orchestrate a genocide?