Larry Temkin (pt 1): Moral Philosophy, transitivity, critiques of effective altruism, international aid, pluralism

Ben Yeoh Chats

Larry Temkin is a moral philosopher. He has major works on inequality (book: Inequality); transitivity and social choices (when A > B > C, A > C ?; book: Rethinking the Good) and recently on the philosophies of doing good (critiquing some aspects of Effective Altruism, long-termism, international aid, utilitarianism | book: Being Good in a World of Need). As of 2022, he was Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University.

The podcast is in two parts. The second part focuses on Effective Altruism ideas. The first part looks at transitivity, and other debates in philosophy through a pluralist lens. This is part 1.

The whole conversation is 3 hours long, so please feel free to dip in and out of it, and if you are intrigued go and look to Larry’s original works. I provide some links in the blogpost link at the end to his books and some commentary from others (Tyler Cowen, reviewers) and a transcript.

In the podcast, I ask:

How should we value a human life?

What is transitivity? And we discuss the axioms that transitivity underpins for economic, social and moral choices.

I ask how Larry comes up with such unique ideas such as on inequality and transitivity, and the story of how he was rejected by three great philosophers when he first proposed his idea.

Larry explains consequentialist notions of personhood, especially with respect to a question I had on Peter Singer’s view on disability, and even though our general views are more pluralist.

I pose a dilemma I have about the art of a friend who has done awful things, and Larry explains the messiness of morals.

Larry recounts the dinner with Derek Parfit, and Angus Deaton, along with a billionaire and other brilliant philosophers. This dinner gave Larry bad dreams and lead to Larry thinking up many disanalogies to Peter Singer’s classic pond analogy.

We discuss the pond analogy and how it may or may not be a good analogy for doing good in foreign places especially the disaster that was Goma. Larry discusses how he changed his mind on whether international aid may be doing more harm than good and both philosophical and practical reasons behind it.

Larry also discusses some concern on the the possible over-focus on long-termism.

We barely touch on Larry’s work in inequality, but I will mention that it has been influential in how the World Health Organisation and potentially ultimately China has viewed access to healthcare. The work has also highlighted the complexity around equality, and that it may be more individualistic and more complicated than often assumed.

Throughout all of this is the strong sense of a pluralistic view of the world, where we may value many attributes such as fairness, justice, health and that a focus on only one value may lead us astray.

“I've taught many students over the years. I'm coming to the end of my career. I'm retiring. I've had countless students in my office over the years who are struggling with the question of, "How should I lead my life? This is extremely controversial, but being the pluralist that I am, I believe in a balanced life. Now, you can find balance in a number of ways. But just as I'm a pluralist about my moral values, I'm a pluralist about what's involved in being a good person and what's involved in leading a worthwhile human life. I'm signed up in the camp of, "We only have one life to lead."

Transcript and video: https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2022/7/24/larry-temkin-transitivity-critiques-of-effective-altruism-international-aid-pluralism-podcast