“Altruism and Vitalism Aren’t Fellow Travelers” by Arjun Panickssery

This is a link post. Summary: In his most recent post (“Altruism and Vitalism as Fellow Travelers”), Scott Alexander tries to reconcile EA-style altruism with Nietzschean “vitalism.” He claims that the philosophies argue for different goals only in extreme cases, while having similar goals in reality. But his definition of vitalism misses the point: the goal isn’t to increase vital traits in the population, but to uplift rather than impede the vital type of person. So he fails to realize that the philosophies have different goals even in reality. They can still be reconciled but not in the way he thinks. Definitions The problem comes from his definitions: Define altruism as “try to increase happiness and decrease suffering across a society” and vitalism as “try to increase strength and decrease weakness across a society”, where “strength” is defined as ability to achieve goals (and, in a tie-breaker, ability to win [...] ---Outline:(00:44) Definitions(02:40) Differences(04:05) Synthesis--- First published: August 9th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/prwd9rEKLKCwLyJjv/altruism-and-vitalism-aren-t-fellow-travelers --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.