EA Course Syllabus: David Manley's "Changing the World"

By Aaron Gertler 🔸 @ 2021-01-06T04:40 (+25)

This is a linkpost to https://davidmanley.squarespace.com/teaching

I'm crossposting this as an example of someone teaching EA concepts in an academic setting, so that I can tag it for later reference. I don't know when this was last taught, so it may not be up-to-date.

Course Description

Phil 250: Changing the World

We tend to lead with our hearts when trying to do good. This means we focus on causes that are familiar and local, and we don’t think very hard about which causes matter the most, or try very hard to measure how much of a difference we are actually making.

In this course, we will consider the most pressing global problems, thinking rigorously about how to compare their moral significance as well as their tractability. And we will evaluate how we can best use our own comparative advantage to make greatest possible difference.

We will focus on four areas of concern: (i) global health and poverty, (ii) animal welfare, (iii) environmental preservation, and (iv) the long-term survival of human civilization. Our conceptual tools will be drawn from a variety of disciplines. We will use moral philosophy to help us think about which issues we should care about most; and we will evaluate the efficacy of interventions by drawing from economics, sociology, environmental science, and development studies.

The overarching ethical question will be: what are the most important global causes? This raises many more specific ethical questions, like:

• Should we care more about people who live nearby than those who live far away? How can we compare the value of various human goods—for example, bodily health and political freedom?
• Which animals should we care about, and how much? Do species matter in addition to individual animals? What about ecosystems? What is our goal in preserving the natural world?
• Do the lives of present people matter more than the lives of future people, especially those in the distant future? How much should we care about the possibility that humans could go extinct?

The overarching practical question will be: what are the most effective things we can do? This also breaks down into many questions, such as:

• How effective are various efforts to improve global health and poverty? What are the comparative benefits, going forward, of improving technology, education, healthcare, and social institutions around the world?
• How much do farmed and wild animals suffer? What are the most effective ways to reduce animal suffering? What steps can we take to protect the environment with our lifestyles and resources?
• What are the most significant threats to the long-term survival of human civilization? How can we best ensure that technological advances are safe and beneficial?
• And finally, for all of these causes, how can a single individual make the most difference on the margin with a career, volunteer work, or donations?

Syllabus

1. The Question of the Course

• Singer, The Drowning Child and the Expanding Circle

2. Global Inequality & Marginal Utility

• MacAskill, Doing Good Better, ch. 1
• Hillebrandt, Median GDP per capita
• Check out the How rich am I? calculator

3. Motives for Altruism

• Understanding Altruism
• Singer, Famine, Affluence, and Morality
• Optional: this thought experiment
• Soares, Altruistic Motivations

I. How to be less wrong about the world

4. Mindset

• Manley, Reason Better, ch. 2 (use "anonymous guest access")

5. What Most Lives are Like

• Rosling, Factfulness, ch. 1
• Go to Dollar Street and "visit" some of the homes

6. Fear & Media Bias

• Rosling, Factfulness, ch. 4

7. Roots of Apathy 1: Historical Pessimism

• Rosling, Factfulness, ch. 2 & 3
• Here are the Lancet infographics

8. Roots of Apathy 2: Typical Effectiveness

• MacAskill, Doing Good Better, Intro & ch. 3
• Also check out this site

9. Roots of Apathy 3: Scope Insensitivity

• Slovic, If I Look at the Mass I Will Never Act

10. Roots of Apathy 4: Neglecting the Future

• Roberts, Discount Rates

II. Some important global problems

11. Measuring Badness

• MacAskill, Doing Good Better, ch. 2
• Selection from OPHI & UNDP 2020 Charting Pathways

12. Communicable Disease

• Selections from One is Too Many (UNICEF & Johns Hopkins)
• Recommended: IHME's Global Disease Burden tool

13. Gender Disparities in Global Poverty

• Hoijmakers, excerpts from Women's Empowerment Cause Area Report

14. Air Pollution

• Halstead & Ackva, Climate Change Executive Summary
• Excerpts from the Climate Vulnerability Monitor

15. Factory Farming

• Anomaly, What's wrong with factory farming?
• Excerpts from The illogic of the larder
• Optional: Huemer, The conscience of a human being
• Optional: Klein, The moral status of animal suffering (reply to Huemer)

16. Micronutrient Deficiency

• Ritchie and Roser, Micronutrient Deficiency

17. Limits to Free Movement

• Caplan, Why should we restrict immigration?
• Clemens, Don't close the golden door (link doesn't work on the mobile app)
• Optional: Clemens, Economics and emigration
• Optional: CDG Policy Brief, Migration is what you make it

18. Existential Risk

• Halstead, excerpts from Existential Risk Cause Area Report

19. Aging

• de Grey, How we can finally win the fight against aging
• Farrelly, Why aging research?

III. How can we do the most good?

20. Measuring Effectiveness

• MacAskill, Doing Good Better, ch. 4 & 5
• Other readings TBA

21. Poverty Traps and Health

• Banerjee and Duflo, Poor Economics, chs 1 & 3

22. Consumer Choices, Collective Action

• MacAskill, Doing Good Better, ch. 6 & 8
• Wagner, Cold, Hard Economics

23. Careers, Part 1

• Doing Good Better, ch 9
• Todd, The Advocate
• Optional: this interview

24: Careers, Part 2

• Working at Effective Non-Profits
• Working as a Congressional Staffer (Links to an external site.)
• Christian and Niemand, The Science of What Makes People Care