New releases

The wider consequences of giving away money

Blog post by · Published July 22nd, 2012

Like most of the people here, I’m asking myself what I could do that would have a positive impact on others – about what would have the most positive impact on others. One important part of this is making decisions about what to do with money. This matters for anyone with more money than they feel they need for themselves and those close to them; and it matters especially for people who plan to do good by earning a lot and giving a lot away. I think it’s fair to say that, so far, this site has generally answered this question by focusing on the good that can be done by giving to well-functioning charities. There is a lot to be said for this. The questions, though, seem wider to me. I’ll try to explain here why I think so…

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Why do people love charity workers? pt 1

Blog post by · Published July 16th, 2012

Many careers guides and agencies suggest that ethically minded folks go into the nonprofit sector. And some use the phrase “ethical careers” as a near-synonym for charity work. Of course, some charity workers do a lot of good. But there seem to be many career options that do at least as much good as charity workers. Why, then, do people love charity workers..?

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Biases in career choice: Don’t be misled by the category ‘high impact career’ when deciding between careers

Blog post by · Published July 11th, 2012

I’ve noticed a bias in my thinking about career options that I’d like to help you avoid: I often group several careers together into a ‘high impact’ category even when the careers are very different in their potential to make an impact…

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The high impact PA: how anyone can bring about ground-breaking research

Blog post by · Published July 9th, 2012

Suppose you could identify a really important research topic – one that could yield huge benefits to millions of people … something like ending ageing, developing a cheap, clean supply of energy, or discovering a cheap vaccine for HIV/AIDs. Suppose you think that carrying out this research is one of the most important things for humanity to do.

At this point, it’s easy to think ‘how can I get involved with this field..?’

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Following in Schindler’s footsteps

Blog post by · Published June 29th, 2012

Can it be ethical to take a job working for an immoral corporation if one does so with the aim of making the world a better place?

Suppose, for example, that you could work for an arms company, supplying munitions to soldiers fighting an unjust war, in order that you could earn enough money to save thousands of lives? You know that, if you don’t take that job, someone else more ruthless than you will take it, hurting more people than you would.

Is that sufficient? Intuitively, it seems that it just can’t be ethical to do this. But a historical case suggests otherwise…

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On triage

Blog post by · Published June 20th, 2012

Effective altruism focuses on efficiency. Any action that fails to effect the maximum possible reduction in suffering is considered suboptimal. But isn’t this standard for use of one’s time and money too harsh? As long as one is making some sort of positive impact on the world, isn’t that enough? Can’t one live ethically without devoting all of one’s energy and attention to helping others?

I believe that the answers ought to be ‘no’…

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How to be a high impact philosopher

Blog post by · Published May 8th, 2012

Philosophy is often impractical. That’s an understatement. It might therefore be surprising to think of a career as a philosopher as a potentially high impact ethical career – the sort of career that enables one to do a huge amount of good in the world. But I don’t think that philosophy’s impracticality is in the nature of the subject-matter. In fact, I think that research within certain areas of philosophy is among some of the most important and practical research that one can do. This shouldn’t be surprising when one considers that philosophy is the only subject that addresses directly the fundamental practical question: what ought I to do?

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The haste consideration

Blog post by · Published April 16th, 2012

Here’s a crucial issue for altruists.

The Haste Consideration: Resources for improving the world are vastly more valuable if you have those resources sooner.

I’ll first explain one way to see that the haste consideration is true, and then I’ll talk about one important implication of this consideration.

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Heuristics for a good life

Blog post by · Published March 29th, 2012

I wondered what careers or the like help other people the most. Tyler reposted my question, adding:

(Let’s) rule out ‘become a billionaire and give away all your money’ and ‘cure cancer’ by postulating that said person ends up at the 90th percentile of achievement in the specified field but no higher.

Unfortunately calculating the net costs and benefits of all the things one could do with oneself is notoriously impossible. So how about some heuristics for discerning what types of jobs tend to be more socially beneficial?

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The replaceability effect: working in unethical industries part 1

Blog post by · Published March 26th, 2012

High earning careers are often perceived as unethical careers. It’s not just that people think earning lots of money is bad, it’s also that a lot of the careers that make you really rich involve things that also seem immoral… This article will look at something called the replaceability effect. It’s the idea that, often, if you don’t take a job, someone else will take it. For some types of jobs, this is a very safe assumption, and it makes the harm you do by taking a job in an unethical industry much smaller than you might first guess.

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Why doesn’t everyone use match funding?

Blog post by · Published March 21st, 2012

For the last two years whenever I have felt charitable, rather than directly give away the money – to Village Reach incidentally – I have offered to match donations made by my Facebook friends 1:1. Initially I could only raise a few hundred dollars in matching donations, but most recently I attracted almost $2000 with little effort. I always kept the maximum amount I was willing to match above what I expected would be forthcoming, so that matchers were apparently inducing me to donate more. Is all this a good thing to do?

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Review of Dead Aid

Blog post by · Published March 20th, 2012

Dambisa Moyo’s best-selling 2009 book Dead Aid caused a considerable stir upon its release; written by a young African woman, it stood out in a field dominated by ageing, white academics. It stands, along William Easterly’s The Elusive Quest for Growth and The White Man’s Burden, as the central work of foreign aid scepticism…

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