Cause Prioritization

Abstract

Cause prioritization is the most effective way to allocate altruistic resources. People are naturally biased toward causes they encounter, often assuming their chosen cause is most important without further investigation. A more systematic approach is needed. While a typical progression through causes (e.g., from global poverty to animal welfare to wild animal suffering to longtermism) demonstrates a laudable evolution of values, it may be inefficient. Cause prioritization attempts to determine the most important causes more directly. It is a meta-level analysis that considers which causes offer the greatest potential impact, rather than simply optimizing efforts within a pre-selected cause. Future work will explore a framework for cause prioritization and identify key causes and research questions to pursue. – AI-generated abstract.