What do you think?
Rate this book
Questioning Beneficence: Four Philosophers on Effective Altruism and Doing Good
- GenresPhilosophy
236 pages, Paperback
Published September 30, 2024
3 people are currently reading
19 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 9, 2024
tl;dr - mainly recommended for people already big into philosophy and EA.
I've been looking forward to this release, and I finished reading it in one day.
It’s a discussion of effective altruism and beneficence (actions aimed at helping others) by four philosophers with very different perspectives. Arnold is a socialist concerned about democracy and public life. Brennan is pro-business, soft EA. Chappelle is a hard EA (like me). Davis does not believe in any intrinsic obligations to help others.
I'm glad that I read it. The essays and responses covered interesting territory. I'm also glad that critics of EA are finally engaging in a dialogue, where they cannot get away with straw-manning.
I think that the time has come for an overview of the EA debate, with an informed and thoughtful point-counterpoint format. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if this is the best fit for that, so I'm not sure if I would recommend it for someone looking for that kind of book. For starters, they don’t have an introductory essay defining effective altruism. This wouldn't have been hard - just get MacAskill or someone to write the foreword. Second, they spend a significant amount of space on what are, at best, weakly related topics, such as CSR. I’m also disappointed that they weren’t any final thoughts. The premise of the book was open discussion, so why not have any short reflections?
I did get value out of Chapelle vs Brennan (hard EA vs soft EA, for lack better terms). Although Arnold is not an EA, I think he’s quite sensible and a great discussion partner (and admitted to making a mistake, massive points from me!). Davis, however… I struggled enormously to even entertain his case against the duty of easy rescue. I don't see how someone could strongly support negative duties while strongly rejecting even the most minimal positive duties. It didn't help that I strongly disagreed with every single premise in his supporting arguments from gratitude and resentment, so they did nothing for me.
Overall, this book does advance the debate around EA, mainly because, to my knowledge, this is the first book-form debate on EA. It's useful to see how more moderate philosophers are currently thinking about EA. People heavily into EA and philosophy will get a lot out of this. Personally, I'm still waiting for the EA analogue of Dialogues on Ethical Vegetarianism or Is Morality Real?: A Debate to recommend to my skeptic friends who refuse to read anything about EA that isn't 'balanced'.
I've been looking forward to this release, and I finished reading it in one day.
It’s a discussion of effective altruism and beneficence (actions aimed at helping others) by four philosophers with very different perspectives. Arnold is a socialist concerned about democracy and public life. Brennan is pro-business, soft EA. Chappelle is a hard EA (like me). Davis does not believe in any intrinsic obligations to help others.
I'm glad that I read it. The essays and responses covered interesting territory. I'm also glad that critics of EA are finally engaging in a dialogue, where they cannot get away with straw-manning.
I think that the time has come for an overview of the EA debate, with an informed and thoughtful point-counterpoint format. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if this is the best fit for that, so I'm not sure if I would recommend it for someone looking for that kind of book. For starters, they don’t have an introductory essay defining effective altruism. This wouldn't have been hard - just get MacAskill or someone to write the foreword. Second, they spend a significant amount of space on what are, at best, weakly related topics, such as CSR. I’m also disappointed that they weren’t any final thoughts. The premise of the book was open discussion, so why not have any short reflections?
I did get value out of Chapelle vs Brennan (hard EA vs soft EA, for lack better terms). Although Arnold is not an EA, I think he’s quite sensible and a great discussion partner (and admitted to making a mistake, massive points from me!). Davis, however… I struggled enormously to even entertain his case against the duty of easy rescue. I don't see how someone could strongly support negative duties while strongly rejecting even the most minimal positive duties. It didn't help that I strongly disagreed with every single premise in his supporting arguments from gratitude and resentment, so they did nothing for me.
Overall, this book does advance the debate around EA, mainly because, to my knowledge, this is the first book-form debate on EA. It's useful to see how more moderate philosophers are currently thinking about EA. People heavily into EA and philosophy will get a lot out of this. Personally, I'm still waiting for the EA analogue of Dialogues on Ethical Vegetarianism or Is Morality Real?: A Debate to recommend to my skeptic friends who refuse to read anything about EA that isn't 'balanced'.
Displaying 1 of 1 review