Effective Altruism
I’ve been reading Peter Singer on and off for about fifteen years. He is a philosopher and ethicist whose writing is clear, incisive, thought-provoking, challenging, provocative, and sometimes quite controversial.
This TED Talk is no exception, as he challenges all of us to examine the lives we’re leading in relation to how much we can give to those in need. Singer operates out of a branch of philosophy called utilitarianism that seeks to maximize the good and minimize suffering in the world.
Utilitarianism is a powerful philosophy, but the question that is regularly addressed to it is whether it too quickly reduces ethical decisions to mathematical calculations. For instance, is it really worse to invest in training a service dog to help one blind person than give that same amount of money to prevent blindness in many? The tendency to assert that all lives are equal is laudable, but the application apart from any other factors than sheer numbers can sometimes seem rather dubious. Nevertheless, these and other questions that both Singer and his critics raise are important to wrestle with.
Which is precisely what Singer excels at is: making us wrestle. I hope you take the time to watch, listen, think, and pray. It won’t be comfortable, but it will be worthwhile.
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Thank you for posting this. I do not think it is a matter of either/or as in the blind people example but both/and. We need to give locally as well as globally; help individuals as well as large numbers elsewhere. Each of us can do something and it does make a difference no matter how little it seems to us. I tell people to go to a sink and set the tap dripping- one drop at a time. Then put the stopper in the sink. One drop may not seem like much but it does not take long before they combine to flood over the edge of the sink! It is the same with our efforts. Combined they accomplish miracles. Blessings on everyone who does what they can.
I find there is always such a wonderful ethical challenge from Singer – which I appreciate – but I also find myself wondering if he has ever been friends with the blind/ the lame/ the poor. “They” almost end up as ciphers in his speeches: people whose only aim in life is to become not blind/ not lame/ not poor. I find myself thinking of what “those in need” actually say about their lives, as full complex thinking creative souls. As the historic phrase reminds us, many of us do want bread, but “we fight for roses too.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_Roses
Thanks again David for stirring the pot. I chaired our synodical Hunger Task Force for a number of years and struggled with this very notion of effective altruism, or the religious version of what my friend Lita Brusick Johnson called it “moving beyond almsgiving.” Organizations that allow you to “adopt” a hungry child do a fantastic job of tugging at our hearts and raise all kinds of money, but but fail, in my opinion to address the greater systemic issues that create poverty. I’ve spent a considerble amount of time in Latin America in recent years and seen a whole host of charities and NGO’s at work. Some years ago I saw firsthand the results of one of these “adoption” organizations. When they set up shop what it amounted to was basically a beauty contest whereby children were selected to be recipients. They’d get clothes, school supplies, medical treatment which was great for them, but not so great for other children and families in the neighborhood and even brothers and sisters. Needless to say it created a lot of animosity and resentment in the community. To their credit I think that this well known organization has made some changes, but that “almsgiving” approach is still very popular. I’m thankful that our ELCA World Hunger Appeal and partner organizations don’t operate that way, but I was surprised when I went to the givewell.org website Singer references that none of them were listed. I wonder what that’s all about. It seems to me that we do adept at assuaging our collective first world guilt but moving beyond that to question economic systems and structures is dicey. It’s like someone once said. “Feed a hungry child and people call you a saint. Ask why there are hungry children and they call you a Communist.”