Mencius already refuted EA in Mencius 3A:5,<p>"I have heard that this MacAskill is an Effective Altruist. Now Singer considers that in the regulation of funeral matters a spare simplicity should be the rule. MacAskill thinks with EA doctrines to change the customs of the kingdom - how does he regard them as if they were wrong, and not honor them? Notwithstanding his views, MacAskill buried his own parents in a sumptuous manner, and so he served them in the way which his doctrines discountenance.<p>…<p>"Heaven gives birth to creatures in such a way that they have one root, and MacAskill makes them to have two roots. This is the cause of his error. In the most ancient times, there were some who did not inter their parents. When their parents died, they took them up and threw them into some water-channel. Afterwards, when passing by them, they saw foxes and wild-cats devouring them, and flies and gnats biting at them. The perspiration started out upon their foreheads, and they looked away, unable to bear the sight. It was not on account of other people that this perspiration flowed. The emotions of their hearts affected their faces and eyes, and instantly they went home, and came back with baskets and spades and covered the bodies. If the covering them thus was indeed right, you may see that the filial son and virtuous man, in interring in a handsome manner their parents, act according to a proper rule."<p>EA is based on our natural emotional responses: pain is bad, pleasure is good, etc. But it rationalizes until it has lost its own roots. Suddenly we're debating about making lions extinct because they hunt prey and converting the universe to hedonium. You must preserve the root!