Effective Altruism as an Ethical Lens on Research Priorities
| Autor: | Robin A. Choudhury, Ricardo I. Alcalá-Briseño, Y. Xing, Duncan Purves, Jennifer Rothschild, Kelsey F. Andersen, Jeremy T. Brawner, Ian M. Small, Ravin Poudel, Joubert Fayette, Karen A. Garrett, Sara Thomas-Sharma, Erik Delaquis |
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| Rok vydání: | 2019 |
| Předmět: |
0106 biological sciences
Crops Agricultural media_common.quotation_subject Plant Science Biology 01 natural sciences Altruism Ecosystem services 03 medical and health sciences Humans Quality (business) Marketing License Ecosystem 030304 developmental biology media_common Plant Diseases Sustainable development 0303 health sciences Food security Agriculture Public good Commons Agronomy and Crop Science 010606 plant biology & botany |
| Zdroj: | Phytopathology. 110(4) |
| ISSN: | 0031-949X |
| Popis: | Effective altruism is an ethical framework for identifying the greatest potential benefits from investments. Here, we apply effective altruism concepts to maximize research benefits through identification of priority stakeholders, pathosystems, and research questions and technologies. Priority stakeholders for research benefits may include smallholder farmers who have not yet attained the minimal standards set out by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals; these farmers would often have the most to gain from better crop disease management, if their management problems are tractable. In wildlands, prioritization has been based on the risk of extirpating keystone species, protecting ecosystem services, and preserving wild resources of importance to vulnerable people. Pathosystems may be prioritized based on yield and quality loss, and also factors such as whether other researchers would be unlikely to replace the research efforts if efforts were withdrawn, such as in the case of orphan crops and orphan pathosystems. Research products that help build sustainable and resilient systems can be particularly beneficial. The “value of information” from research can be evaluated in epidemic networks and landscapes, to identify priority locations for both benefits to individuals and to constrain regional epidemics. As decision-making becomes more consolidated and more networked in digital agricultural systems, the range of ethical considerations expands. Low-likelihood but high-damage scenarios such as generalist doomsday pathogens may be research priorities because of the extreme potential cost. Regional microbiomes constitute a commons, and avoiding the “tragedy of the microbiome commons” may depend on shifting research products from “common pool goods” to “public goods” or other categories. We provide suggestions for how individual researchers and funders may make altruism-driven research more effective. [Formula: see text] Copyright © 2020 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY 4.0 International license . |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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