Death in a Shallow Pond, with Dav...
Death in a Shallow Pond, with David Edmonds

The Phlexible Philosophy Podcast, Hosted by Hamza King by Hamza King

Episode notes

You're walking past a shallow pond and a child is drowning. You could save them at minimal cost to yourself. Should you?

In 1972, philosopher Peter Singer asked exactly that question — and used it to argue that we are all morally obligated to give far more than we do. That argument gave birth to one of the most influential moral movements of our time: Effective Altruism.

In this episode, Hamza sits down with philosopher David Edmonds to follow the argument from Singer's drowning child all the way to the rise and collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried.

They discuss:

— Why some charities are genuinely 1000x more effective than others

— The trolley problem and what it reveals about our moral intuitions

— Whether moral saints exist and whether we'd even want them to

— Derek Parfit's glass bottle and the ethics of  ... 

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Keywords
Elon MuskGlobal JusticePhilosophyEffective AltruismDavid Edmonds