Future-proof ethics

Holden Karnofsky · 2 Feb 2022

Others here said this too

The best opportunities to do good are the ones almost nobody is paying attention to.

Their wordsIndeed, I think some of the best opportunities to do good in the world come from working on issues that aren't yet widely recognized as huge moral issues of our time.

Also said by Scott Alexander

Read the piece on cold-takes.com ↗

4 korrents from this piece ↓

Holden Karnofsky did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
Ethics based on common sense and the conventions of the time has a horrible track record.

Their wordsEthics based on "common sense" seems to have a horrible track record.
Our reading
The best opportunities to do good are the ones almost nobody is paying attention to.

Their wordsIndeed, I think some of the best opportunities to do good in the world come from working on issues that aren't yet widely recognized as huge moral issues of our time.
Our reading
Counting every being that can suffer, and applying consistent moral weights, yields conclusions its own defenders find uncomfortable and cannot fully endorse.

Their wordsCombining these three pillars yields a number of unusual, even uncomfortable views about ethics. I feel this discomfort and don't unreservedly endorse this approach to ethics.
Our reading
Any harm can in principle be outweighed by a small enough benefit delivered to a large enough number of people.

Their wordsIn theory, any harm can be outweighed by something that benefits a large enough number of persons, even if it benefits them in a minor way.

Keep reading

The other pieces are the ones whose claims are worded most like this one's. That measures language, not agreement: they may argue the opposite.