Cause.page

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format: mediawiki
categories: Cause_prioritization
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There are several different definitions of "cause" that are used when discussing causes in effective altruism and cause prioritization in particular.

See for instance:

* http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/on-causes/
* http://blog.givewell.org/2013/05/30/refining-the-goals-of-givewell-labs/

{|
! Sense of "cause" !! Definition !! Who uses it, and how they define it !! Situations where this definition is useful !! Examples !! Comments
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| "Cause" as an intervention area (or method?)
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| GiveWell, which [http://blog.givewell.org/2013/05/30/refining-the-goals-of-givewell-labs/ defines] a cause as "a particular set of problems, or opportunities, such that the people and organizations working on them are likely to interact with each other, and such that evaluating many of these people and organizations requires knowledge of overlapping subjects".
| 80,000 Hours [https://80000hours.org/2013/12/why-pick-a-cause/ says] "GiveWell defines a cause from the perspective of external evaluation of an area as a donor, because that’s what they do." In other words, GiveWell seeks to identify the best funding opportunities, and often evaluating opportunities requires a lot of domain-specific knowledge. However, many opportunities require similar domain-specific knowledge, so it makes sense to bundle these together and call it a "cause".
|
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| "Cause" as a goal
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| 80,000 Hours, which [https://80000hours.org/2013/12/why-pick-a-cause/ defines] a cause as "A set of opportunities such that the people working on them tend to share common knowledge, skills and core values".
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| This is important because it's possible to have a goal without knowing how to go about achieving it
|}