The Good It Promises, the Harm It Does Critical Essays on Effective Altruism

"The entries of this book truly help draw attention to just how dangerous EA is...All in all, reading this book would benefit just about anyone." -- Corvus Strigiform, Weight Less State Blog "The story of Effective Altruism is told here not by its proponents, but by those engaged in liberation struggles and justice movements that operate outside of Effective Altruism's terms. There is every possibility that Effective Altruists will ignore what these voices have to sayELThat would be a deep shame, and what's more, a betrayal of a real commitment to bring about a better world." -- Amia Srinivasan, Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at All Souls College, Oxford "Effective Altruism has made big moral promises that are often undermined by its unwillingness to listen attentively to the voices of its detractors, especially those from marginalized communities. In this vital, stimulating volume, we hear from some of the most important of these voices on some of the most important criticisms of Effective Altruism, including its racism, colonialism, and technocratic rationalism. This book is essential, inviting reading for both Effective Altruists and their critics." -- Kate Manne, Associate Professor at the Sage School of Philosophy, Cornell University "What could possibly go wrong when a largely white and male alliance of academics, business and nonprofit arrivistes, and obscenely rich donors reduce complex situations to numbers and plug those numbers into equations that claim to offer moral and strategic clarity about how we should live in a suffering world? In this book, dissenting activists and academics speak passionately and plainly about what has gone wrong--and provide an armamentarium for those keen to free action and imagination from the alliance's outsized grip on the work of liberation." -- Timothy Pachirat, author of Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight "This is a collection of works that embodies the both/and approach: that there can be a unity in purpose, divergence in how that is achieved, and an acknowledgment of the value and legitimacy of all those efforts." -- Michelle Strauss, Journal of International Wildlife Law and Policy