What Does It Mean to Do the Most Good?: Cases in Population Axiology and Their Implications for Effective Altruism

Author

Trey Dykeman, Ursinus CollegeFollow

Submission Date

7-19-2024

Document Type

Paper

Department

Philosophy

Faculty Mentor

Kelly Sorensen

Comments

Presented during the 26th Annual Summer Fellows Symposium, July 19, 2024 at Ursinus College.

Project Description

Population axiology explores questions like whether it's better to have more people, each with a lower quality of life, or fewer people, each with a higher quality of life, and whether it’s just that some people enjoy lives of luxury, even if they could—at little personal cost—significantly improve the lives of those worse off. Effective altruism (EA) is a social movement that aims to use evidence and reason to figure out how to maximise the good with limited resources, where the good is understood in impartial, welfarist terms. Given that population axiology demonstrates there is no definitive way to maximize global wellbeing while also balancing concerns of equality, it is difficult for effective altruism to achieve its aims because “betterment” always involves tradeoffs. This paper explores emerging views, cases, and implications which have received unjustly little attention in the existing literature and argues for a suffering-based ethics in EA.

Recommended Citation

Dykeman, Trey, "What Does It Mean to Do the Most Good?: Cases in Population Axiology and Their Implications for Effective Altruism" (2024). Philosophy Summer Fellows. 18.
https://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/phil_sum/18