[ReadEvalPost]

The article's thesis is that EA's moral realism stance (which finds it's apotheosis in utilitarian moral calculus) is ill-supported and highly questionable, especially when combined with theological anti-realism.

It's definitely not written to win over any EA supporter, that's for sure.

[ineptech]

Is EA predicated on moral realism? That seems like a straw man. I don't see any contradiction between abandoning realism (i.e. admitting that there is no objective way to measure goodness or other moral qualities) and EA.

We probably just define EA differently. When I'm elected dictator, it'll be illegal to write an essay like this without supplying your working definition of the thing you're against.

[telotortium]

In my view, EA generally means "taking utilitarian ethics ('the greatest good for the greatest number (of humans, or perhaps of other lifeforms)', with (premature) death as the worst outcome) literally and seriously in philanthropic work, usually to the exclusion of other philanthropic goals (aesthetic, religious, etc.)". Perhaps there is a form of EA that isn't at its core utilitarian, but then it's just reduced to technocratism and seems unlikely to inspire the almost religious devotion that EA current does.

[hither_shores]

> realism (i.e. admitting that there is no objective way to measure goodness or other moral qualities)

Moral realism is the position that mind-independent moral facts exist; it doesn't entail any particular belief about how or whether we can come to know them.

[cedilla]

Who is this written for then? It seems to me that the author just builds up a few explicit strawmen and expects that the reader is already on board with the idea that they are obviously idotic.

[archon1410]

It's not really against EA then, it's against all morality and ethics as such. Rightly title the article "Against trying to be a decent person" and it's obvious why it's a piece of junk.