“Against Tautological Motivations” by Richard Y Chappell

This is a link post. tl;dr: Just as not everyone is selfish; not everyone cares about the impartial good in a scope-sensitive way. Claims that effective altruism is "trivial" are silly in a way that's comparable to the error in tautological egoism. Human motivations vary widely (at least on the margins; “human nature” may provide a fairly common core). Some people are more selfish than others. Some more altruistic. Among the broadly altruistic, I think there is significant variation along at least two dimensions: (i) the breadth of one's “moral circle” of concern, and (ii) the extent to which one's altruism is goal-directed and guided by instrumental rationality, for example seriously considering tradeoffs and opportunity costs in search of moral optimality. I think some kinds of altruism—some points along these two dimensions—are morally much better than others. Something I really like about effective altruism is that it highlights these [...] --- First published: June 2nd, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/WLHCwzvDZfs72HwB7/against-tautological-motivations --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.