EA - Social Beneficence (Jacob Barrett) by Global Priorities Institute

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: Social Beneficence (Jacob Barrett), published by Global Priorities Institute on July 20, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum.(This working paper was published in September 2022.)AbstractA background assumption in much contemporary political philosophy is that justice is the first virtue of social institutions, taking priority over other values such as beneficence. This assumption is typically treated as a methodological starting point, rather than as following from any particular moral or political theory. In this paper, I challenge this assumption. To frame my discussion, I argue, first, that justice doesn't in principle override beneficence, and second, that justice doesn't typically outweigh beneficence, since, in institutional contexts, the stakes of beneficence are often extremely high. While there are various ways one might resist this argument, none challenge the core methodological point that political philosophy should abandon its preoccupation with justice and begin to pay considerably more attention to social beneficence - that is, to beneficence understood as a virtue of social institutions.Along the way, I also highlight areas where focusing on social beneficence would lead political philosophers in new and fruitful directions, and where normative ethicists focused on personal beneficence might scale up their thinking to the institutional case.I.Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust. The only thing that permits us to acquiesce in an erroneous theory is the lack of a better one; analogously, an injustice is tolerable only when it is necessary to avoid an even greater injustice. Being first virtues of human activities, truth and justice are uncompromising. These propositions seem to express our intuitive conviction of the primacy of justice. No doubt they are expressed too strongly.John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 4A background assumption in much contemporary political philosophy is that justice takes priority over beneficence. When evaluating social and political institutions, or thinking through questions of institutional design or reform, we should focus primarily on justice. This assumption is often associated with various further ideas, such as that justice but not beneficence is enforceable, that justice but not beneficence concerns rights, or that justice involves perfect duties but beneficence only imperfect ones. It is also typically assumed that justice is institutional, while beneficence is personal. There is much talk of social justice, and some talk of justice as a personal virtue, but, for the most part, we talk only of personal beneficence - not social beneficence.This phenomenon extends beyond the academy. A similar concern with justice permeates our political discourse. Justice operates as a conversation stopper. If the status quo is unjust, this is taken as an almost conclusive argument against the status quo; if some policy promotes justice, this is taken as an almost conclusive argument in favor of the policy. In both political philosophy and everyday political discourse, we do, of course, recognize exceptions to this rule. In the face of a serious disaster, we may need to override justice - we shouldn't really let justice be done though the heavens fall. But these exceptions are generally assumed to be rare - the heavens are only seldom falling. For the most part, then, contemporary political philosophy and discourse follows John Rawls's statement in the above epigraph. It operates with an "intuitive conviction of the primacy of justice," albeit, one that is sometimes "expre...