Abstract Orthodox decision theory presupposes that agency is invested in individuals. An opposing literature allows team agency to be invested in teams whose members use distinctive modes of team reasoning. This paper offers a new conceptual framework, inspired by David Lewis's analysis of common reasons for belief, within which team reasoning can be represented. It shows how individuals can independently endorse a principle of team reasoning which prescribes acting as a team member conditional on assurance that others have endorsed the (...) same principle. It argues that there can be such assurance even when no individual has an obligation to act on team reasoning. *This paper originated in a lecture that I gave at a Colloquium on Collective Intentions at Erasmus University Rotterdam. I thank participants, and particularly Govert den Hartogh, for comments. The analysis presented in this paper is an offshoot of a larger project, which uses David Lewis's work as the starting point for a reconstruction of the foundations of game theory. That project is joint work with Robin Cubitt. The specific idea of using this approach to analyse team reasoning grew out of a discussion with Michael Bratman. My work was supported by the Leverhulme Trust. (shrink)

Leftwing critiques of philanthropy are not new and so it is unsurprising that the Effective Altruism movement, which regards philanthropy as one of its tools, has been a target in recent years. Similarly, some Effective Altruists have regarded anti-capitalist strategy with suspicion. This essay is an attempt at harmonizing Effective Altruism and the anti-capitalism. My attraction to Effective Altruism and anti-capitalism are motivated by the same desire for a better world and so personal consistency demands reconciliation. More importantly however, I (...) think Effective Altruism will be less effective in realizing its own ends insofar as it fails to recognize that capitalism restricts the good we can do. Conversely, insofar as anti-capitalists fail to recognize the similarity in methods which underlie Effective Altruism thinking about the world, it too risks inefficiency or worse, total failure in replacing capitalism with a more humane economic system. I first argue that Effective Altruism and anti-capitalism are compatible in principle by looking at similarities between Effective Altruist theory and some Marxist writing. I then go on to show that the theoretic compatibility can be mirrored in practice. I demonstrate this by considering and replying to objections to anti-capitalism as they might be raised by Effective Altruists and by replying to objections to Effective Altruism as they might be raised by anti-capitalists. I conclude by suggesting that their reconciliation would lead to better outcomes from the perspective of a proponent of either view. In short, an “Anti-Capitalist Effective Altruism” is not just possible, it’s preferable. (shrink)

Global poverty, hunger, and lack of access to save water raise problems of how to organize human society so that everyone's needs can be met. Philanthropic proposals, such as Peter Singer's and Peter Unger's, are based on a false analogy to duties of rescue and encourage philanthropic responses, thus closing the discourse to discussion of the causes and remedies of poverty. Radical criticism of capitalist social structures are put off the table, and this is a profound error.

Effective altruism is a philosophy and a social movement that aims to revolutionise the way we do philanthropy. It encourages individuals to do as much good as possible, typically by contributing money to the best-performing aid and development organisations. Surprisingly, this approach has met with considerable resistance among activists and aid providers who argue that effective altruism is insensitive to justice insofar as it overlooks the value of equality, urgency and rights. They also hold that the movement suffers from methodological (...) bias, reaching mistaken conclusions about how best to act for that reason. Finally, concerns have been raised about the ability of effective altruism to achieve systemic change. This article weighs the force of each objection in turn, and looks at responses to the challenge they pose. (shrink)

Effective altruism (EA) is a movement devoted to the idea of doing good in the most effective way possible. EA has been the target of a number of critiques. In this article, I focus on one prominent critique: that EA fails to acknowledge the importance of institutional change. One version of this critique claims that EA relies on an overly individualistic approach to ethics. Defenders of EA have objected that this charge either fails to identify a problem with EA's core (...) idea that each of us should do the most good we can, or makes unreasonable claims about what we should do. However, I argue that we can understand the critique in a way that is well motivated, and that can avoid these objections. (shrink)

:Team reasoning is thought to be descriptively and normatively superior to the classical individualistic theory of rational choice primarily because it can recommend coordination on Hi in the Hi-Lo game and cooperation in Prisoner's Dilemma-type situations. However, left unanswered is whether it is rational for individuals to become team members, leaving a gap between reasons for individuals and reasons for team members. In what follows, I take up Susan Hurley's attempt to show that it is rational for an individual to (...) become a team member. I argue that her account fails to show that becoming a team member is necessary to gain the advantages of coordination in Hi-Lo games or cooperation in Prisoner's Dilemma-type situations, and that individuals will often fare better reasoning as individual agents than as members of a team. I argue further that there is a more general problem for team reasoning, specifically that the conditions needed to make it rational for a team member to employ team reasoning make becoming a team member unnecessary. (shrink)

In recent years, the effective altruism movement has generated much discussion about the ways in which we can most effectively improve the lives of the global poor, and pursue other morally important goals. One of the most common criticisms of the movement is that it has unjustifiably neglected issues related to institutional change that could address the root causes of poverty, and instead focused its attention on encouraging individuals to direct resources to organizations that directly aid people living in poverty. (...) In this article, I discuss and assess this ‘institutional critique’. I argue that if we understand the core commitments of effective altruism in a way that is suggested by much of the work of its proponents, and also independently plausible, there is no way to understand the institutional critique such that it represents a view that is both independently plausible and inconsistent with the core commitments of effective altruism. (shrink)