Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: CEA will continue to take a "principles-first" approach to EA, published by Zachary Robinson on August 20, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum.
Introduction
I'm Zach, the new CEO of the Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA). As I step into my role, I want to explain the principles that I think make EA special and share how CEA will continue to promote them.
In this post, I will:
Highlight the principles that I think are core to EA, and explain why CEA will continue to promote them above and beyond any single or set of cause area(s).
Explain what being principles-first means in practice for CEA[1].
Explain how encouraging people to act on EA principles can still lead to some prioritization decisions between causes, how CEA has navigated those decisions in the past, and what factors influence those decisions.
Share a little bit about my background and how I've personally engaged with these principles.
CEA will continue a "principles-first" approach to EA
In my role at CEA, I embrace an approach to EA that I (and others) refer to as "principles-first". This approach doubles down on the claim that EA is bigger than any one cause area. EA is not AI safety; EA is not longtermism; EA is not effective giving; and so on.
Rather than recommending a single, fixed answer to the question of how we can best help others, I think the value of EA lies in asking that question in the first place and the tools and principles EA provides to help people approach that question.
Four core principles that I and others think characterize the EA approach to doing good are[2]:
Scope sensitivity: Saving ten lives is more important than saving one, and saving a thousand lives is a lot more important than saving ten.
Scout mindset: We can better help others and understand the world if we think clearly and orient towards finding the truth, rather than trying to defend our own ideas and being unaware of our biases.
Impartiality: With the resources we choose to devote to helping others, we strive to help those who need it the most without being partial to those who are similar to us or immediately visible to us. (In practice, this often means focusing on structurally neglected and disenfranchised groups, like people in low-income countries, animals, and future generations[3].)
Recognition of tradeoffs: Because we have limited time and money, we need to prioritize when deciding how we might improve the world.
CEA has historically taken a principles-first approach and I don't expect to make big changes to this aspect of CEA's mission[4]. With that being said, I recognize that being principles-first may mean something different to different people, and it may mean something different to me than it did to CEA's previous CEO. In talking with staff who have been around CEA for longer than I, I didn't find consensus in how principles-first was interpreted.
Instead of trying to come up with a comprehensive history for this post, I instead want to focus on some specific actions that CEA has taken in the recent past that reflect this approach, as well as provide clarity on how I interpret a principles-first approach and where I still feel uncertain about how CEA will approach promoting EA principles in the future.
Why principles-first?
CEA will continue to promote these core principles and nurture a community based on them. While we'll sometimes prioritize between causes (see examples and reasoning), cause-specific work won't be CEA's main focus.
I think EA principles are impactful and worth promoting, and CEA is one of the best-suited organizations to promote them[5]. I also think cause-specific field-building can be impactful, and I don't feel confident in sweeping claims about how either a principles-first or cause-specific approach is much better than the other.
I think it makes sense for organizations tryi...
The Nonlinear Library