Summary
“Effective Altruism”
Effective altruism is “a philosophy and social movement which applies evidence and reason
to working out the most effective ways to improve the world.” Take Matt Wage as an
example of an effective altruist. He turned down a prestigious postgraduate position at the
University of Oxford to pursue a career on Wall Street. Within a year, he began donating half
his salary to effective charities, and soon he was well on his way to meeting his personal goal
of saving 100 lives every year throughout his lifetime. Some effective altruists choose highpaying careers and live modestly so they can donate as much as possible. They spread the
word about effective giving to attract more people to the movement.
Research and Reason
Effective altruists investigate which charities are most successful at helping others and then
decide where to place their donations. Compare their choices with those of “warm-glow
givers,” those who make small donations to several charities that touch their emotions. For
example, the Make-A-Wish Foundation makes dreams come true for children who are
suffering from potentially fatal illnesses. Granting wishes to gravely sick children resonates
emotionally with effective altruists. Yet they might donate to the Against Malaria Foundation
instead, knowing their contribution would save the lives of several children.
“Although using our income to buy more stuff does not make us happier, it turns out that
using it to help others does.”
Effective altruists reduce suffering and save lives by putting donations to work where they
believe the money will do the most good. They consider the suffering of people of different
backgrounds or religions as important as that of people like themselves. They know it’s
natural for people to help their own children before aiding strangers, yet this doesn’t mean
lavishing their kids with material goods or bequeathing wealth to them when others are in
greater need.
Effective Altruism Pioneers
Pioneers of the effective altruism movement include author Peter Singer, who wrote the 1972
article “Famine, Affluence and Morality,” which posits that people should give as much as
they can to disaster relief funds. In 2009, Singer published The Life You Can Save, which
included a giving scale based on income. In 2004, The New Yorker profiled real estate mogul,
Zell Kravinsky, who gave almost all his $45 million fortune to charity.
“Perhaps it is not love that motivates effective altruists but empathy, the ability to put oneself
in the position of others and identify with their feelings or emotions.”
MIT economic professors Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo founded the Abdul Latif Jameel
Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) to research the most effective interventions against poverty.
Holden Karnofsky and Elie Hassenfeld set up GiveWell, an organization that evaluates the
efficacy of charities. Oxford students Toby Ord and Will MacAskill created Giving What We
Can, a society dedicated to doing away with poverty. MacAskill and his friends also
established 80,000 Hours, which recommends careers that do the most good.
Doing Good on a Budget
Citizens of affluent societies can make a huge difference in the lives of people in developing
countries by donating around 10% of their income, even if they earn a less than average
salary. Julia Wise and her husband Jeff Kaufman live modestly so they can donate half their
income. Determine how much of your income you can give to philanthropic efforts while still
living comfortably. Making yourself miserable so you can donate larger sums is
counterproductive. Decide how much you want to donate, and enjoy the rest of your money
without guilt.
“Effective altruism is an advance in ethical behavior as well as in the practical application of
our ability to reason.”
Rhema Hokama has found a way to practice effective altruism on a modest salary. A doctoral
student at Harvard University, she earns around $27,000 a year as a freelancer and researcher.
This low income still places her among the world’s richest 4.4%. She saves 5% of her income
to donate at year’s end to charities she finds effective, including Oxfam and the Fistula
Foundation.
Make More, Give More
Jim Greenbaum practiced effective altruism long before he knew the term. As a child, footage
showing people in Nazi concentration camps so moved him that he committed to a lifetime of
fighting suffering. He decided to make as much money as possible so that by age 40, he could
stop working and help others. He founded and sold a telecommunications company, Access
Long Distance, and at age 41, pledged to contribute 85% of his $133 million net worth. He
enjoys a luxurious lifestyle, but values material things less and prefers to use his money to
help others.
“Effective altruists “give to the cause that will do the most good, given the abilities, time and
money they have available.”
For many years, German professional poker player Philipp Gruissem enjoyed his winnings by
traveling the world and living the high life. When this lifestyle ceased to satisfy him, he
turned to effective altruism. He donated generously from his 2013 winnings of $2.4 million
and founded a charity to encourage other poker players to donate called Raising for Effective
Giving. Ian Ross earned more than $400,000 in 2014 and – by living on about $9,000 a year –
he donated more than 95% of his after-tax earnings to charities to ease animal suffering or
support public health. Starting an organization can be an important step in effective altruism.
In 1966, Buddhist nun Cheng Yen, now in her 80s, founded Tzu Chi, which helps families in
need, establishes hospitals and trains medical staff. It has become a global organization with
10 million members in 51 countries. Cheng Yen started her charity with 30 housewives
donating pennies each week and now has more than seven million members in Taiwan alone,
nearly 30% of the city’s population.
Altruistic Careers
Many people with philanthropic leanings decide to work for a charity rather than earning
money to give away. Consider whether this path contributes effectively toward making the
world a better place. For example, unless you have a unique set of skills, other people could
fulfill the job requirements at a charity just as well. As a donor, your financial support may
enable the charity to hire more workers whose output could exceed what you could achieve as
a single employee.
“People with special talents and lots of determination may be able to maximize their positive
impact on the world by starting an organization.”
Choosing an ethical career makes a positive contribution to the world. Working within an
organization to influence its direction also can make a huge difference. For example, an
executive joined the World Bank despite his reservations about its effectiveness. In time, he
convinced the bank to shift $400 million to more productive family planning programs in
developing countries.
“A small number of the charities are outright frauds, but a much bigger problem is that very
few of them are sufficiently transparent to allow donors to judge whether they are really doing
good.”
Medical research offers other opportunities to help humankind. Science has developed
vaccines for polio and smallpox, saving millions of lives. Food research, such as creating
high-yielding grain varieties, helps millions of people. “Prioritization research” for
underserved causes, can yield many good results. In the area medical altruism consider people
who donate regenerative body parts such as blood, stem cells and bone marrow, which is
becoming more commonplace. Six million people in the US and 11 million globally are
registered potential blood marrow donors. Donating a kidney to a stranger is more unusual
and was illegal in the United Kingdom until 2006. This donation is relatively safe for the
donor and adds 10 years to the recipient’s life.
Why Altruism?
Most people react more strongly when viewing a picture of a hungry child than when
imagining thousands of nameless hungry children. Effective altruists try to temper emotional
empathy with practical assessment and use data to ensure that their donations are as effective
as possible. They believe people should do as much good as they can with their available
resources. Some studies show that effective altruists experience lower levels of empathic
concern. They may have sharper abstract reasoning abilities, or they may simply rely more on
analytical information, unlike warm-glow donors who focus on the feel-good aspects of
giving.
“A person living on the median income can…donate 10% to effective charities, save 10% for
the future and still have enough to live comfortably and enjoyably.”
Even a high level of abstract reasoning ability doesn’t explain the growing momentum of
effective altruism. When the people in a significant portion of the population have enough
money to satisfy their needs, they look for a purpose in life. Altruism fulfills this need.
Additionally, a generation is coming of age that is comfortable using technology and
understanding data. They’re primed to practice philanthropy based on where they can do the
most good, rather than being governed by traditional measures. Most effective altruists don’t
see what they’re doing as a sacrifice. Living ethically by acting to increase the well-being of
humankind makes them happy.
Relative Poverty
Wanting to help people in your own country before helping others is a natural instinct. Yet, a
poor person in the United States lives far better than an impoverished person in a developing
country. “In 2012, the US government poverty threshold for a family of four was…$16.34 per
day.” Contrast that with the extreme poverty line set by the World Bank (in 2014 dollars) of
$1.53 per day. Impoverished Americans may receive food assistance and medical care
benefits that are unavailable in most poor countries. The US also provides citizens with safe
drinking water. Donations go much further in developing countries than in affluent nations.
Providing $1,000 to a family living in extreme poverty in Africa, for example, gives them six
months of income compared with one month of income in the United States. Many people
donate to causes that aid poor people in the United States, while citizens of poor nations have
less to give. The principle of “altruistic arbitrage” shows that your money goes further helping
people in poor countries than helping people in rich nations. For instance, training and
supplying a guide dog for a visually impaired American costs $40,000. Treating trachoma to
prevent blindness costs $20 to $100 per person, so the same $40,000 can help 400 to 2,000
people in developing countries.
How to Choose
Instead of seeking the most urgent cause to support, ask where your dollars will have the
greatest positive impact. For example, compare two different but urgent causes: climate
change and malaria. Scientists agree that addressing climate change is crucial and many
environmental organizations are rallying behind this issue, but your private donation may
have less impact there. Providing mosquito nets to protect children from contracting malaria
may seem less urgent that protecting the Earth, but your financial support makes a much
greater difference. Most animal rescue organizations focus on helping cats and dogs. But
factory farm animals endure horrendous suffering. The US raises and slaughters 9.1 billion
animals for food every year. You might ask whether animals suffer as much as humans and
whether their suffering matters as much as human suffering. Reducing animal suffering is
inexpensive. Educating the public and reducing consumption are also effective tactics.
“We do not have to make self-sacrifice a necessary element of altruism.”
Should you donate to prevent low probability but high-risk situations? Some scenarios put the
survival of humankind in question. These include the changes of a large asteroid hitting Earth,
nuclear war, a pandemic, global warming and unfriendly artificial intelligence. Taking steps
to limit the danger of human extinction, such as reducing the consumption of animals,
conserving energy and decreasing the spread of viruses through factory farming can be
effective choices.
“QALY” and “DALY”
How can you choose between, say, curing blindness or feeding the starving? Health
economists and organizations use measurements to address these decisions. The National
Institute for Health and Care Excellence calculates a “quality-adjusted life year” (QALY)
metric to assess the value of medical interventions. One QALY equals one year of good
health. The World Health Organization uses the “disability-adjusted life-year” (DALY) to
assess the negative effects of different diseases. For example, if one QALY equals a year of
good health, untreated blindness discounts the quality of that year by 0.2 DALY per year.
Thus, “one year when blind is equivalent to 0.8 years of healthy life.” Meta-charities such as
GiveWell and Animal Charity Evaluators valuate the efficacy of charities, yet most people do
little or no research before donating. Researching a charity isn’t easy. Previously, the only
major resource was the Charity Navigator website’s ratings of around 7,000 charities. The
website’s primary metric is percentage of revenue devoted to administration and fundraising
but not program outcomes – so it’s statistics don’t tell the whole story.
“If doing the most you can for others means that you are also flourishing, then that is the best
possible outcome for everyone.”
Effective altruists pursue the goal of using their money to do as much good as possible.
Having solid data about whether $100,000 will “restore health to X people or save the lives of
Y infants” would enable donors to make decisions that align with their convictions.