“I prefer to give to local organizations.” I’ve heard this a lot.
Imagine a high school student who sits down to study for exams. Her chemistry book is lying closest to her on the desk, so she decides to study chemistry. Her father points out that since she has an A in chemistry and a D in geometry, studying geometry might help her grades more. “But that book is all the way over there in my backpack,” the student points out; “I prefer to study locally.”
If you were her parent, you probably wouldn’t let her get away with this. All things being equal, she would benefit most from studying the subjects where she is most behind. Even though she hasn’t learned all the chemistry there is to know, a few hours of studying geometry will get her farther than spending the same hours on chemistry.
Even within rich countries, we don’t have straight As on our report card. Homelessness, environment, prisons, health, schools – we’re behind where we should be in lots of areas. I’ve seen many of these first-hand, and I care passionately about them.
But these are not our worst subjects. The fact that millions of people every year die of easily preventable diseases, and billions live in grinding poverty – that is a much worse failure. Only it’s not happening right here next to us; it’s happening far away.
The good news is this: the same amount of effort goes a lot farther on our worst subjects. For a few hundred dollars, I can save a life somewhere in the developing world. There’s no local charity (local to me in the United States) where that money will accomplish anywhere near as much.
I’m not saying we should neglect local causes altogether. If our own society falls apart, we’ll be less able to help. But we should put most of our effort – and money – toward areas where we’re failing.
Comments
I couldn’t agree with you more, Julia, and I’d bet that many others would agree too. Most people I’ve talked to, if asked whether helping more people is better than helping less, have given me a kindly look reserved for a particularly slow sort of person. “Of course!”, they’ve said. “Who would save one child when they could save dozens for the same amount?”
At least that’s what they’ve said.
In practice … rationalizations abound!
Why is that? One of my hypotheses is that it’s kind of like eating healthily. Most people think it’s a good thing. There’s no rational reason I’ve ever heard of for not doing it. But there sure are some compelling emotional reasons! The same goes for donating locally. It’s more immediate so it’s more readily warm-and-fuzzies inducing.
Does this mean that people sincerely want a heart attack? Hardly. It just means humans are motivated by many things, and reason is but one of them.
The question to ask then is what motivates people to act according to their professed ideals, which is a question of the psychological sciences and a whole series of posts in itself!
I grant you that spending money on local organizations rather than on cost-effective organisations is quite irrational if one wants to achieve the largest good. However, your conclusion is quite dangerous – it might be even morally wrong in some instances. The dangerous thing is that you suggest that it is better to be average in all domains (chemistry and geometry) rather than exceptional in one domain (chemistry). If the student is a second Marie Curie, it might be the wrong choice to make her learn geometry (that is, that she has sufficient skill in geometry to be allowed to continue to study chemistry).
Applied to charities and the like, my argument would state that it might be morally wrong to donate to charities that are more cost-effective now because other charities might use the money to develop solutions that are much more-cost effective in the future.
My point is, that development matters, and it is not sufficient to look at the now and conclude that it is always best to spend the money on what seems to grant the best benefit in the current situation – although I must admit, that it is nearly always the best option (but nearly always is nearly always!).
Tim- Fair enough. :)
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