---
title: Is effective altruism new?
author: Issa Rice
date: 2016-07-25
---

*Note: this is a draft. The claims here have not been stress-tested, so
plausibly could turn out to be misguided. The general thrust seems right to me
(especially the existence of past priority-setting efforts in global health),
and the main uncertainty is regarding interpreting claims of newness. In
addition, the parts of EA I claim are new could turn out not to be new (given
further investigation).*

# Summary

Both members of the effective altruism movement as well as opponents explicitly
claim or imply that effective altruism is "new" in the sense that it prioritizes
between different causes and interventions. I claim that effective altruism is
new for:

- bringing the lessons of effective philanthropy to the world of private donors,
- cause prioritization,
- advancing arguments around earning to give, and
- producing a unique movement around the idea of effective philanthropy.

However, the idea of prioritization itself is not new. In particular, I will
draw on the history of priority-setting in global health (one of the main causes
of effective altruism) to show this, and I also consolidate previous critiques
of the effective altruism movement along these lines. I finally suggest
exploring the history of global health, philanthropy, and various movements as a
way to ground the movement in past and current efforts and to guard against
criticisms of arrogance.

# Claims that effective altruism is new

In this section, I collect statements along the lines that effective altruism is
a new idea, specifically for trying to prioritize between interventions. I
include both statements from those in the broader effective altruism community
(though I realize that community membership is a fuzzy notion) as well as from
pieces critical of the effective altruism movement. I also want to emphasize
that there is quite a bit of uncertainty regarding interpreting claims of
newness; in many cases it is not clear what precisely people are claiming or
implying.

[Katja Grace asks why effective altruism is "new and obvious"][katja post] in a
post, and begins by quoting [Ben Kuhn][ben post], who writes:

> Effective altruists often express surprise that the idea of effective altruism
> only came about so recently. For instance, my student group recently hosted
> Elie Hassenfeld for a talk in which he made remarks to that effect, and I’ve
> heard other people working for EA organizations express the same sentiment.
> But no one seems to be actually worried about this---just smug that they’ve
> figured out something that no one else had.
>
> The “market” for ideas is at least somewhat efficient: most simple, obvious
> and correct things get thought of fairly quickly after it's possible to think
> them. If a meme as simple as effective altruism hasn't taken root yet, we
> should at least try to understand why before throwing our weight behind it.
> The absence of such attempts---in other words, the fact that non-obviousness
> doesn’t make effective altruists worried that they’re missing something---is a
> strong indicator against the “effective altruists are actually trying”
> hypothesis.

Katja writes:

> if an idea is too obviously correct for anyone to advocate for, you might
> expect more people to actually be doing it, or trying to do it. I'm not sure
> how many people were trying to be effective altruists in the past on their
> own, but I don't think it was a large fraction.

And concludes:

> If Effective Altruism really stands for pursuing unusual values, and
> furthermore doing this via zealous emphasis on accurate metrics, I'm not
> especially surprised that it wasn't thought of years ago, nor that people
> disagree.

Jeff Kaufman [mentions][sc post] "the paradox of EA being both obvious and new"
in a Facebook post (implying others have talked about this).

[Tyler Cowen writes][cowen]:

> You are lucky enough to have some money to give away: It could be \$100 or \$1
> million. Whether you are prepared to make a small donation or a big one, you
> would like to accomplish something good with it.
>
> But how do you evaluate the best way to deploy your money? Alas, economic
> research until now has offered little guidance.

It's not clear what exactly he means by "economic research" and "until now".

[Lisa Herzog][nonprofit]:

> Whatever your whims or good intentions, there will be lots of organizations
> that tell you to support *their* cause because it’s the most important or
> urgent or compelling. But a new movement called “effective altruism” claims
> that there’s a more neutral and “scientific” approach to the thorny questions
> of philanthropy.

Note that it's unclear about whether she just means that EA itself is new, or
whether the whole idea of prioritizing among causes or interventions is new.

The following are some criticisms of effective altruism that specifically
mention prioritization.

[Charity Navigator][cn]:

> defective altruism \[i.e. effective altruism; the authors decided to call the
> movement "defective altruism" throughout the article\] is---by the admission
> of its proponents---an approach that not only unjustifiably claims the moral
> high ground in giving decisions, but also implements this bold claim *by
> weighing causes and beneficiaries against one another*.
>
> \[...\]
>
> This approach amounts to little more than charitable imperialism, whereby “my
> cause” is just, and yours is---to one degree or another---a waste of precious
> resources. This approach is not informed giving. Were such opinions limited to
> a small audience, we could reasonably dismiss them as a danger only to those
> unfortunate enough to hear them. However, in taking on this cause and using
> the bully pulpit of its website as its forum, GiveWell truly is doing more
> harm than good to both the donor community and those thousands upon thousands
> of organizations that are doing much-needed work in areas that the defective
> altruism fringe deems unworthy.

Charity Navigator restricts its criticism to effective altruism even though it
seems to me that it would apply to priority-setting in global health as well.
This could mean:

-   Charity Navigator is implying that effective altruism is new for its
    prioritization efforts (because nobody else does this sort of
    prioritization).
-   Charity Navigator only intended to restrict its criticism to effective
    altruism, and had it had more time, would have extended its criticism to
    prioritization efforts in global health and elsewhere.
-   Charity Navigator for some reason restricts its criticism of prioritization
    efforts to private donations, but is fine with prioritization efforts done
    by national or international bodies.

[Iason Gabriel][gabriel response]:

> effective altruists do not care about who benefits from an intervention or in
> what way, only that the greatest total gain in well-being is achieved. This
> means they often overlook the weakest and most vulnerable members of a
> population, who are frequently illiterate, victims of discrimination, and
> consigned to geographically remote places. Many of them also suffer from
> disabilities that place out of reach the welfare gains able-bodied people can
> achieve. Therefore effective altruists tend to focus their efforts elsewhere.
> This approach leads to systematic neglect of those most in need, something
> that strikes many people as unjust.

As with the Charity Navigator quote above, Gabriel is possibly implying that
effective altruism is new (by not extending the criticism to others who do the
same sort of prioritization).

In contrast, some, like [Catherine Tumber][tumber], make it clear that they are
responding to utilitarianism itself, and are simply *instantiating the
criticism* because they happen to be talking about effective altruism:

> Utilitarianism, with its bent toward quantification, for regarding people as
> abstract units, is the ethical system of distant administrators. It is no
> coincidence that it emerged in the nineteenth century with the rise of large,
> impersonal corporate entities. Singer's variation rejects the ethical
> philosophy's pleasure-or-pain calculus as too subjective and, potentially,
> hedonistic. His own *preference utilitarianism* seeks to rescue ethics from
> categorical abstraction while restoring grounds for subjective rational
> choice.
>
> \[...\]
>
> The suffering are units to be managed effectively; the more of them so
> managed, the better from an ethical perspective. \[...\] That is what happens
> when you reduce self and others to quantifiable widgets, much as the global
> financial markets regard us.

It's difficult to decisively claim that people think effective altruism is
totally new, and in fact I would expect that if pushed, people would say they're
not entirely sure. But I still think it *is* notable that people omit discussion
of priority-setting efforts in global health and treat effective altruism as a
new movement *because* they prioritize between interventions. It's also
difficult to convey the "vibe" through quotes; there are probably several more
like the ones above that I've missed, as well as a more implicit belief that
effective altruism is new.

TODO: look at <http://benjaminrosshoffman.com/effective-altruism-not-no-brainer/>

# Previous remarks that effective altruism isn't new

Several people have noted that effective altruism isn't new. The instances of
this I could find are all in response to [Ben Kuhn's post][ben post] that was
mentioned above.

[Brian Tomasik][tomasik comment]:

> Honestly, I think this idea is one of EA's bigger oversights -- not that
> people haven't noticed that EA is recent, but that people don't realize
> that it's *not* recent. The components of EA have each existed for
> millennia, and movements combining several parts are also ancient. This
> particular combination may be a little different from past movements, but
> not more than past movements have been from each other.
>
> On the whole, I think EAs vastly overestimate their value relative to
> everyone else in the world who are actually doing some really important
> work as well but don't happen to be part of our social circles. I agree
> that EAs (myself included) would do well to explore more different
> perspectives on the world beyond the boundaries of their community.

From the framework of "components of EA", I will only examine priority-setting
and the evaluation of nonprofits. Moreover for the former, I have only looked
for precedents in global health.

Similarly, [Philip\_W][philip] comments that the Rotary Club has some of the
aspects of effective altruism.

And [Ishaan][ishaan]:

> Consolidating an old idea under a catchy brand using the momentum of the
> internet / being the most recent innovator does not mean you've invented
> an idea. EA's stand on the shoulders of many people who have been trying
> to do the same thing before them. Notions of things such as "QALYs", for
> example, have been around for 50 years.

# Previous and ongoing prioritization efforts in global health and philanthropy

Now I aim to show that prioritization itself is not new in global health or in
philanthropy in general. Consider the following:

-   The ["Timeline of nonprofit evaluation"][timeline ne] on Wikipedia
    (initially written by me but expanded significantly by Vipul Naik) documents
    some of the history of evaluating nonprofits, including the [Scientific
    Charity Movement][scm]. Various aspects of prioritization like
    data-collection, the idea of a charity watchdog, and outcome-based
    prioritization were in existence for at least several decades before the
    effective altruism movement emerged. Note that this isn't to imply that
    effective altruism has not refined these ideas.
-   ["Priority-setting in global health"][psigh] on Wikipedia (written by me)
    shows that *explicit prioritization* in global health has been going on
    since at least the 1970s -- around 30 years before the effective altruism
    movement even formed.
-   ["Charity should begin with worthiness league table, says philanthropy adviser"](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/sep/29/charity-league-table-philanthropy-morality "Robert Booth (September 28, 2010). The Guardian.") (this article is from 2010, so after the EA movement began, but doesn't mention EA, suggesting that Martin Brookes came up with the idea independently).

# Criticisms of priority-setting in global health

It is interesting to compare criticisms of effective altruism to those of
priority-setting in global health.

I've compiled some of the criticisms of priority-setting in global health at
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priority-setting_in_global_health#Reception>,
though I expect there to be others I haven't encountered. Tentatively, I find it
interesting that while criticisms of effective altruism's prioritization focus
on whether it is okay to prioritize, the criticisms of priority-setting in
global health focus on the specific approaches taken.

# In what ways is effective altruism new?

-   New in the sense that it spreads lessons from effective philanthropy to the
    world of private donors, and does so online.
-   Takes the final step back in terms of prioritization level to reach *cause
    prioritization* (maybe). GiveWell [outlines in a post][cause selection] that
    "philanthropists seem to be least thoughtful and to ask the fewest critical
    questions" when picking causes. But just as well, they say that the
    subsequent steps -- namely developing a cause-specific "foundation strategy"
    and evaluating grantees and potential grantees -- "seem likely to lead to at
    least reasonable results if carried out by people who listen well and keep
    their minds open". I interpret this as evidence that GiveWell realizes that
    within causes, philanthropy has already done reasonably well in terms of
    prioritization.
-   Earning to give: the idea itself did not seem to originate within the EA
    movement, but the EA movement seems to have popularized the idea and also
    combined it with considerations of replaceability. For more on this, see
    Jeff Kaufman's posts: parts [I][etg i], [II][etg ii], and [III][etg iii].

# Conclusion

-   Suggest people to look more into history of philanthropy and so forth (e.g.
    look at GiveWell's work)
-   Claims of newness are inherently strong, because they say something about
    everything that happened before some point in time. Humility requires one to
    explain where and how one searched before concluding that something is new.
-   ~~Give me examples of other systematic prioritization efforts so I don't
    have to do the work myself.~~ Are there other instances of systematic
    prioritization within philanthropic movements?

[ben post]:         http://www.benkuhn.net/ea-critique#non-obviousness "Ben Kuhn. “A critique of effective altruism” § Non-obviousness. December 2013."
[cause selection]:  http://blog.givewell.org/2012/05/02/strategic-cause-selection/ "Holden Karnofsky. “Strategic Cause Selection”. May 2, 2012. GiveWell."
[cn]:               http://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_elitist_philanthropy_of_so_called_effective_altruism "Ken Berger and Robert M. Penna. “The Elitist Philanthropy of So-Called Effective Altruism”. November 25, 2013. Stanford Social Innovation Review."
[cowen]:            http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/upshot/effective-altruism-where-charity-and-rationality-meet.html?_r=0 "Tyler Cowen. “Effective Altruism: Where Charity and Rationality Meet”. August 14, 2015. The Upshot – The New York Times."
[etg i]:            http://www.jefftk.com/p/history-of-earning-to-give "Jeff Kaufman. ‘History of “Earning to Give” ’. September 18, 2012."
[etg ii]:           http://www.jefftk.com/p/history-of-earning-to-give-ii "Jeff Kaufman. “History of Earning to Give II”. August 25, 2013."
[etg iii]:          http://www.jefftk.com/p/history-of-earning-to-give-iii-john-wesley "Jeff Kaufman. “History of Earning to Give III: John Wesley”. October 1, 2013."
[gabriel response]: https://bostonreview.net/forum/logic-effective-altruism/iason-gabriel-response-effective-altruism "Iason Gabriel. “The Logic of Effective Altruism”. July 1, 2015. Boston Review."
[ishaan]:           http://lesswrong.com/lw/j8n/a_critique_of_effective_altruism/a51z "Ishaan. Comment on “A critique of effective altruism”. December 2, 2013. LessWrong."
[katja post]:       http://effective-altruism.com/ea/8t/why_is_effective_altruism_new_and_obvious/ "Katja Grace. “Why is effective altruism new and obvious?” September 30, 2014. Effective Altruism Forum."
[nonprofit]:        https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2016/02/24/can-effective-altruism-really-change-the-world/ "Lisa Herzog. ‘Can “Effective Altruism” Really Change The World?’ February 24, 2016. Nonprofit Quarterly."
[philip]:           http://lesswrong.com/lw/j8n/a_critique_of_effective_altruism/ajwj "Philip_W. Comment on “A critique of effective altruism”. February 12, 2014. LessWrong."
[psigh]:            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priority-setting_in_global_health "“Priority-setting in global health”. Wikipedia."
[sc post]:          https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/801128155632 "Jeff Kaufman. July 23, 2016. Archived at https://archive.is/q4WBM."
[scm]:              http://www.jefftk.com/p/scientific-charity-movement "Jeff Kaufman. “Scientific Charity Movement”. July 17, 2016."
[timeline ne]:      https://timelines.issarice.com/wiki/Timeline_of_nonprofit_evaluation "“Timeline of nonprofit evaluation”. Timelines Wiki."
[tomasik comment]:  http://lesswrong.com/lw/j8n/a_critique_of_effective_altruism/a57z "Brian Tomasik. Comment on “A critique of effective altruism”. December 2, 2013. LessWrong."
[tumber]:           https://bostonreview.net/forum/logic-effective-altruism/catherine-tumber-response-effective-altruism "Catherine Tumber. “The Logic of Effective Altruism”. July 1, 2015. Boston Review."