When one lists the defining characteristics of an archetypal Brown student, “socially conscious” is a phrase that inevitably comes to mind. Brown students have a long history of protesting anything and everything as well as a seemingly insatiable thirst for increasing the University’s social responsibility, whether it be through divesting from coal, shutting down speakers with whom they disagree or enforcing Title IX standards. The Main Green wouldn’t be the same without the occasional rally.
Though not a member of Brown’s community, Jason Trigg — a young MIT graduate — commits to making the world a better place by donating half his salary. Trigg works for a high-frequency trading firm and — defying society’s image of the amoral finance worker — practices what is termed “effective altruism.” Like any other form of altruism, effective altruism is the use of one’s time or resources to help others. In particular, it entails optimizing this process through empirical investigation.
Of course, many will say that we should help everyone we can, not just those who are most effectively helped. Naive idealism is alive and fashionable as ever at Brown. And while such idealism might make us sound more socially conscious, it prevents us from actually solving problems.
Like many effective altruists, Trigg was inspired by Australian Moral Philosopher Peter Singer, who, in his paper “Famine, Affluence, and Morality,” asserted that “if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it.”
In the same paper, Singer introduced one of the most famous thought experiments in moral philosophy. Imagine you see a child drowning and could save him at the cost of ruining your clothes. It seems indisputable that you are morally obliged to save the child.
But not donating money to save a starving child in the developing world is no different than not saving the drowning child. We cannot discriminate against the former simply because he has no means to provide an emotionally compelling demonstration of his suffering.
And of course it’s not about saving one child — or all of them. It’s an unfortunate reality that there are more individuals to save than resources to save them. Choosing to give effectively is more important than choosing to give in the first place.
GiveWell is a nonprofit organization that helps quantify these differences — using empirical data to measure the relative efficacy of various charities. Its top-rated charity, the Against Malaria Foundation, estimates that it costs an average of $3,340 to save one life, primarily through purchasing mosquito nets.
Last summer we all heard about the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, which raised over $100 million. In all likelihood, this will save no lives. There are few charitable organizations less monetarily — and thus less morally — efficient than those that treat and research chronic, incurable diseases. But as it turns out, like the drowning child, small numbers of Americans suffering from rare diseases run better ad campaigns than entire malaria-ravaged countries in Africa.
When it comes to effective altruism, there are four exclusive and exhaustive categories of moral behavior into which all Brown students fall.
There are, of course, those who actually do engage in effective altruism. Acceptance of Singer’s argument morally entails striving to be in this category.
Of those who do not engage in effective altruism, there are those who openly admit that they consider helping others unimportant. They either reject Singer’s case for morality or simply admit moral bankruptcy. It probably seems unconscionable that any individual might say he would not feel morally obliged to save the drowning child.
Thirdly, there are those who do not engage in effective altruism, who claim that helping others is an important factor in their conception of morality but are unaware that their methods are inefficient. If you’ve read to this point, it’s impossible for you to be a member of this category.
Finally, there are those who do not engage in effective altruism, claim that helping others is an important factor in their conception of morality and are hypocritically aware that their methods are inefficient.
The vast majority of individuals fall into these last two categories. This is due to social incentives. Ignorant individuals don’t become effective altruists because society rewards generosity itself rather than impact. While it’s easy enough to educate the ignorant, combating the resulting socially rewarded hypocrisy is a more difficult task.
The Christian imagery of self-sacrifice is pervasive in our culture. We romanticize emotionally reactive acts of charity and denigrate mathematically optimized morality as “heartless.” The prevalent notion that ruining our clothes — rather than saving drowning children — is what gets us “moral points” demonstrates a narcissistic preoccupation with self-image more than anything else.
Making videos of dumping cold water on ourselves might make us feel good, but morality isn’t about how good we feel. It’s about how much good we do.
Andrew Powers ’15 can be reached at andrew_powers@brown.edu and rejects Singer’s case for morality.
