hey all, i was reading this thread ( viewtopic.php?f=25&t=493 ) and thinking that maybe it would be a great idea to start a utilitarian charity rather than one which promotes the idea of wild animal suffering, another for x risks, etc, wouldnt it make more to have one which calculated the benefits of actions and then allocated resources to them

also i was thinking it would be great if there was an organisation handing out information about utilitarianism, in my head i imagine leaflets with information on utilitarianism, poverty, factory farming, possibility of invertebrate suffering, wild animal suffering, x risks, future scenarios and a kinda f.a.q with the kinda questions people usually ask and info about doing something that wont be done otherwise and that kinda stuff.
the founders of utilitarianism didnt know about lots of the problems we discuss all the time now (i presume) and if we can promote utilitarianism then whatever future situation comes to be there will be more utilitarians.

also funding research into what can suffer, does everything suffer similarly (sentience and brain size, etc), how happy/unhappy are wild animals,

also taking action on the kinda problems i was talking about earlier,
perhaps it could be linked with felicifia in some way where people could get more info after reading a leaflet?

could an organisation like this have tax free status?

anyway just some thoughts i was having, perhaps this wouldnt be the utilitarian thing to do at all? i guess it all needs to be calculated

Charity International are a utilitarian charity - or at least they were. From what I've heard, they've decided to rebrand themselves as a happiness promoting charity without mentioning the dirty U word too explicitly. They're aiming to spread out into the rest of the world (they're currently based in Sweden), so if you think that approach is a good one, helping them out rather than trying to start an explicitly utilitarian competitor is surely the best way forward.

Their website's http://www.charity.se/ - I can give you the email of the guy who runs them if you're interested in helping them out - I know he's very keen to get people onboard in the English speaking world at the moment.

cool thank you yea i dunno how utilitarian they are though, the wiki on them says

"The organization functions in two ways. One part of its work involves informing the public of the latest scientific research on effective strategies to enhance personal happiness; how you can make other people happier; and how to avoid causing suffering to others, including non-human animals.
Secondly, Charity International tries to get a happiness agenda into mainstream politics. Its goal is to have politicians base their policy-making decisions on conclusions drawn from the latest scientific studies in order to create better conditions for a happier society and a happier world.
From 2007 onwards[2], Charity International has organized a Happiness Conference where the organization presents the latest happiness research, outlines its future agenda, and provides an arena for discussions both among its members and among international happiness researchers. "

it doesnt seem to me like stuff with calculations behind it, but what do you think?

also i dunno how they're gonna promote utilitarianism without using the word :s it seems it would be much easier if the word was used

if you could give me his email that would be awesome thanks id been trying to get in touch with them

I don't think they're promoting utilitarianism so much as promoting the policy considerations it leads to, but you can ask Ludvig for more specifics.

PMed you his email.

Ruairi, I agree strongly that we need more consciousness-raising -- building support for utilitarianism in the wider community, probably primarily through leaflets distributed on campuses, but also online petitions and groups, books, newspaper articles, conferences, media releases, protests, etc. There are many tens of thousands of college students in philosophy classes over the world who already have a passing knowledge of utilitarianism from their classes and may potentially be amenable to such a movement. Building it then gives you a base for funding charitable projects, lobbying governments, initiating research, etc.

I envision it as a kind of broad-based, non-factional group perhaps simply called the Utilitarian Society.

I can't tell too much about Charity International from the website, it looks great but it doesn't really seem to be dedicated to building a movement in this way (although they do have a conference scheduled -- so who knows).

I'd be interested to know if there are any campus-based utilitarian societies that exist anywhere in the world???

I'd be interested to know if there are any campus-based utilitarian societies that exist anywhere in the world???

I very much doubt it. The hubs of utilitarianism have generally been Melbourne, Oxford and one of the Scandinavian cities that I always forget (Stockholm or Uppsala, probably). I live in Oxford and there isn't one here. Thanks to Holly, Will, Toby et al's effort's, Giving What We Can and High Impact Careers are starting to take off, and they seem to serve a similar purpose. In practice almost all of the core members seem to be utils, and those who aren't who I've spoken to seem to be basically on the way to becoming one.

charity international are changing to the global happiness organization in the next few weeks, which wont be explicity utilitarian anymore but still with what seems to be very similar ideas. the thing i dont like though is that they seem to focus a lot on human happiness even though i dont see how you could justify it as being efficient, i think maybe the idea is to get support like that but i think there are probably a lot of people who just need the idea of utilitarianism presented to them and they'd realise how deadly it is i mean look at the crazy stuff people follow! whereas utilitarianism isnt crazy at all

maybe 2 organizations would be good. one which is explicity utilitarian and one less so so it gets more popular support?

I am skeptical of the idea that having explicitly utilitarian branding will be the way to go. It seems both too abstract and too specific to catch on. Moreover, there are plenty of views that lead to similar conclusions in practice, so I don't see much benefit from gearing things this way. (Views that lead to similar consequences in practice: consequentialism, consequentialism + no violating people's rights, after ensuring a good life for your self and family dedicate remaining resources to doing good.) Plus, people seem to be more motivated by the idea of doing a lot of good than the idea that they are morally obligated to be out doing a lot of good. For these reasons, I think more general branding is a really good idea.

Re utilitarianism promotion I (evidently) lean towards low-budget utilitarian community building schemes that we do in our spare time. I doubt it's worth putting much money into directly, and it's not clear that it would even benefit that much from receiving it, but where our time isn't money (ie we have job with a set number of working hours and no real likelihood of increasing the hours for more money), this seems like an excellent use of it.

One quick thought - I see a lot of value in a network of university student organizations on utilitarianism and/or related topics. One goal would be helping students figure out how to best live their lives. College is an ideal moment for this, as students are selecting majors, planning internships, etc. I think Giving What We Can has done things like this at Oxford, Rutgers, and maybe elsewhere (Princeton?). GWWC seems well set up for that, so maybe people here should reach out to them to set up groups at their universities? Just a thought.

sethbaum wrote:One quick thought - I see a lot of value in a network of university student organizations on utilitarianism and/or related topics. One goal would be helping students figure out how to best live their lives. College is an ideal moment for this, as students are selecting majors, planning internships, etc. I think Giving What We Can has done things like this at Oxford, Rutgers, and maybe elsewhere (Princeton?). GWWC seems well set up for that, so maybe people here should reach out to them to set up groups at their universities? Just a thought.

I second the suggestion of joining GWWC. Though it's not an organization with an explicit policy concerning animal suffering (or some other policies a purely-utilitarian organization may be concerned with), many members of GWWC are utilitarians. Giving What We Can is on large part about aligning one's desires to make the world a better place with one's practice.

I'm a GWWC member and the president of the Rutgers chapter, and you should consider joining. Here's the thread about starting a chapter: viewtopic.php?f=23&t=498

Cheers!

utilitymonster wrote:I am skeptical of the idea that having explicitly utilitarian branding will be the way to go. It seems both too abstract and too specific to catch on. Moreover, there are plenty of views that lead to similar conclusions in practice, so I don't see much benefit from gearing things this way. (Views that lead to similar consequences in practice: consequentialism, consequentialism + no violating people's rights, after ensuring a good life for your self and family dedicate remaining resources to doing good.) Plus, people seem to be more motivated by the idea of doing a lot of good than the idea that they are morally obligated to be out doing a lot of good. For these reasons, I think more general branding is a really good idea.

ok but if more general branding is the way to go then surely we should still be promoting these things alot, would you agree? one person taking a utilitarian course of action is about as good as me doing it and id say i can inspire much more than 1 person to be utilitarian. so how best do you think one would promote the things you mentioned?

gwwc and high impact careers are really cool and not to radical for most people to understand and i see how logically they might go from this to start caring about factory farmed animals but it seems a far cry to go from this wild animals and AI.

is the idea that because the people in these orginizations are utilitarian the utilitarian-ness is going to rub off on the people who join? it seems like something that might work with a small organization, but as it is both these organizations speak specifically about third world problems only it seems

Agree with general idea of creating a large network of utilitarians to collaborate on do-gooding.

GWWC is explicitly poverty-focused but high impact careers (HIC) is not. In fact, hardcore members of GWWC are heavily interested in x-risk, and I estimate that 10-15% of its general membership is as well. I'd take them seriously as a group for promoting utilitarianism in general. (I'm a GWWC leader)

but HIC always seems to talk about things in terms of "lives saved", ive never heard them mentioning other things to donate to.
but what about the other 85% of gwwc and such organisations? an explicitly utilitarian organisation probably isnt going to inspire as many people but if they managed to convinve one fifth of what gwwc does and if your estimates of the number of people in gwwc who are interetsed in x risks is correct then the first approach would end up with more people thinking about x risks.

That's exactly the right thing for HIC to do. Talk about lives saved with their public face, let hardcore members hear about x-risk, and then, in the future, if some excellent x-risk opportunity arises, direct resources to x-risk. I predict (80% confidence) that HIC will eventually lead to more x-risk reduction than the x-risks careers network.

I bet you wouldn't get 1/5 as many people with an explicitly utiltiarian charity. But we'll see. Plus, GWWC could pretty easily open up to x-risk giving in the future.

There is no way that an explicitly utilitarian charity could assemble even 5% as many members as GWWC or HIC. Even less chance that it could rival Givewell or TheLifeYouCanSAve's pledge...

hmmm yea that does seem likely. we need a rockstar to be utilitarian, everyone would be into it then

so how would you guys consider the best way to promote something like 80,000 hours?

do they need donations or just more members or what?

I plan to support 80,000 hours (also Giving What We Can and the Global Happiness Organisation) by
1. Donating to them
2. Joining them
3. Role-modelling their core messages: making money and donating it to the most cost-effective organisations, including SCI (Schistomiasis Control Initiative)
4. By meeting utilitarians locally who will help me to found local branches of these organisations.

Ruairi wrote:yea i dunno how utilitarian they are though, the wiki on them says

[...]

it doesnt seem to me like stuff with calculations behind it, but what do you think?

By that do you mean that the activities don't sound like the most cost-effective possible? I agree, especially with regard to promoting awareness of the results of happiness research as applied to people's daily lives. Even compared with human poverty in the Third world it seems much less worthwhile, and compared with animal suffering the gap is even bigger. Maybe Global Happiness Organization has a justification in terms of the instrumental value of such efforts, but I'm not sure exactly what strong instrumental value they would have.

thanks ryan!:)!

alan, yea thats exactly what i meant but GHO is looking promising! was just on their site and peter singer has joined them:)

Ruairi wrote:hmmm yea that does seem likely. we need a rockstar to be utilitarian, everyone would be into it then

Perhaps our time has come. Napalm Death (!) has just released an album entitled Utilitarian. The name seems actually to be inspired in the moral theory, as bandleader Mark "Barney" Greenway explains in this interview:

To that end, Utilitarianism is a philosophical concept with many different interpretations, with one of those being that "good" actions make for "good" consequences.

I find it oddly encouraging that such a seemingly "cold and clinical" theory (to quote Robert Wright) can be appealing to at least some heavy metal fans!

haha yeah I saw them on facebook, I hate it when people think its "cold" , its definitely clinical and calculating but its warm and cuddly and clinical

From this essay: "Triage is not an act of harshness; it represents the highest form of mercy and compassion."

I think the Connecticut Yankee quote at the end of the piece is pretty nifty as well.

As Bentham remarked, "Happiness is a very pretty thing to feel, but very dry to talk about."