I found this to be one of the better criticisms of EA that I've read. I appreciate that the tone wasn't highly aggressive or strident, and that it mentioned the virtue of Julie Wise/Scott Alexander-type arguments of "let's keep donating money for bednets."
The New Atlantis (American religious conservative magazine about science and ethics) has an article out about Effective Altruism. It endorses some parts of EA, but is critical of EA as a whole. Main points (although the article is more nuanced than this summary can convey):
He instead recommends a sort of virtue-ethics-ish approach to doing good
I have no affiliation with the people who produced this article, but came across it and thought that it seemed interesting and was better-informed than many of the other critiques of EA that get discussed on here, although I don't agree with all of his points.
I agree with the comments that this post is better-informed than many EA critiques. Lots of the factual content is at least roughly correct (although lots of the judgement calls I don't agree with, e.g. how intertwined EA and rationality are in practice).
As a piece of criticism, though, I don't feel moved by it. (edit: to be clear this is not a criticism of making a linkpost here! I think it's good to be aware of this stuff. I just want to be frank about my take on it.)
The article includes a whole series of things that sound superficially (to my imagined EA-unaware reader) significant, but it just drops them in and shows seemingly no interest in following up on them:
Overall it feels like they had a checklist of points to hit but don't really have much to say about them, instead preferring to remain in a purely abstract critique about the foundation of what it is to be good to another person, which a lot of the other content... doesn't really seem relevant to. At the end it seems decidedly confused about whether contributing to effective altruism is good or bad:
ok, but like, what is the import of that failure? the work is to be celebrated but it doesn't matter that much actually? should we, the virtuous, who consider our fellow person, donate to bednets or what?
I had a similar question to yours about what the essay is trying to say about Givewell-style effective altruism. My interpretation, which could be wrong, was that the author is saying that Givewell-style EA is a good thing, but is not a moral obligation. I responded in a blog post (not aimed at EAs, but people who may share the same hesitancies as the author) "How do you know how to save a drowning child across the world?".
I argue that people who might share the concerns of the author (as I understood them) about EA might want to take the option of donating to direct cash transfers or effective community-based organizations in low- and middle-income countries.Â