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Re:Effective Altruism Has a Toxic Culture of Sexual Harassme... by kiba on Friday February 03, 2023 @05:23PM (#34648627)
I do not believe utilitarianism is sound, because its logic can be easily used to justify some obviously horrible things. However the framework appeals very strongly to "rationalist" type people.

If it sounds horrible, then it's probably is?

The logical chain of hurting a human leading to helping two human doesn't sound like something that is moral or dependable.

Giving to charities that focus on the most severe and urgent problem of humanity is a very straightforward idea.

However, not all charities are focused on the most urgent problems. For example, a local charity I frequent does improv and comedy theater, hardly 'urgent' needs. People don't like to hear is that they could donate money to a third world NGO providing vaccines, or fighting corruption in third world countries instead of their local church or community theater.

Don't get me wrong, community theaters/churches/etc are good things. They just aren't saving lives.

Re:Effective Altruism Has a Toxic Culture of Sexual Harassme... by TimPC on Friday February 03, 2023 @07:56PM (#34650091)
Every ethical theory is a mess of contradictions but throwing ethics out entirely isn’t the right answer. As for hurting someone to help others, sometimes someone needs to kill someone like Hitler for the greater good.