This week's learning objectives

If we could work on any problem, which should we choose?

Learning objectives

By the end of this week, you will be able to:

• Use the ITN framework (importance, tractability, neglectedness) to compare cause areas

• Identify how different empirical beliefs and values lead to different cause priorities

• Distinguish empirical uncertainty from moral uncertainty, and use expected choiceworthiness to make decisions when your values are uncertain

• Recognise the limits of any prioritisation framework and where judgement is required

• Form and defend a provisional view on which cause areas deserve the most resources

• Understand the main cause areas that EA community members commonly prioritise, and why

These aren’t just things to know—they’re skills you’ll practise and get feedback on.

Where this week fits

This is the fourth of five weeks. In Weeks 2 and 3 you built the analytical toolkit for evaluating impact: how to read a charity evaluation critically and trace its weakest links (Week 2), and how to reason under uncertainty and build your own back-of-the-envelope estimates (Week 3). Those skills tell you whether one intervention does more good than another within a single problem. This week takes up the prior question: which problem deserves your attention in the first place? The tools introduced here—ITN, moral uncertainty, expected choiceworthiness—are how you compare across problems and across domains.

Next week, Week 5, takes whatever provisional view you form here and runs it through a personal-fit lens. Knowing which cause areas matter most doesn’t automatically tell you what you should do. Your skills, your situation, your career stage, and the bets you can credibly commit to all matter. Next week translates the priorities you form here into a concrete, time-bound plan you can actually execute.

Time commitment

• Reading: ~30 minutes (course text, including moral uncertainty section)

• Quizzes: ~10 minutes

• Exercises: ~65–95 minutes (including optional 30-minute research sprint)

• Total pre-session work: ~2–2.5 hours