Against naive effective altruism

Abstract

I argue that effective altruism poses dangers by allowing for the possibility to be misinterpreted or applied in an unreflective way. Human cognition has its limits and an explicit attempt of doing the most good can therefore sometimes go wrong. An unreflective application of effective altruism can, for example, lead to a disregard of important interpersonal values, bad life choices and psychological harm, unbalanced views, and in the worst case to forms of fanaticism. Being aware of these dangers and their underlying psychological biases can help us develop respective countermeasures.