We are hearing a great deal recently about effective altruism. We are told that if we see a young child about to drown, we would and should rush over and save the child, even if it spoils our new shoes. So why don’t we care as much about the millions of starving children around the world? We should determine what is the most effective way to help others, and get to work!
But how far must I go to be an effective altruist? Must I drop everything and devote all my energies to relieving world hunger? Must I donate all I have to Oxfam and reduce myself to poverty? If I am a young person, must I choose a career that maximizes humanitarian impact, or is it OK to be the manager of a local grocery? Or perhaps it is enough to make a modest contribution to charity, or to try to make a contribution through the job I have? If an extreme response is not required, what principle guides the level of sacrifice I must make?
Based on a question from a Reuters reporter.
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Ethical Decisions 
The example of the drowning child appeared in a 1997 article by ethicist Peter Singer, the best known proponent of effective altruism. But it is actually much older. The Confucian scholar Mencius (Meng Zi) offered a very similar example 2300 years ago. It is an arresting parable, but it doesn’t support the conclusions often drawn from it. Let me try to explain why.
Singer’s ethical views are based on the utilitarian principle (the “greatest happiness for the greatest number”), introduced by the 18th century reformer Jeremy Bentham. Bentham recognized the decreasing marginal utility of wealth — an extra dollar is worth less to a prince than to a pauper. His principle therefore tells us to give to the poor, sacrificially if necessary, to maximize overall welfare.
The utilitarian principle is right to remind us to care about others. But we get into trouble when we treat it as the only principle that matters, as Bentham and Singer do. For one thing, it is extremely demanding (philosophers awkwardly call this the “demandingness objection”). It requires me to reduce myself to the same level of suffering as the poorest people in the world. As long as I have even a little more than they, I can increase total happiness by giving more to them.
A properly understood utilitarian principle tells us to promote overall welfare only to an extent that is consistent with other, equally valid principles. One of these is the generalization principle. It says that the reasons for one’s action should be consistent with the assumption that everyone to whom the reasons apply acts the same way. Dropping everything to work on behalf of the poor, in order to increase total happiness, fails this principle. Most people in an affluent society can, as individuals, increase total happiness by dropping everything to work on behalf of the poorest. But if all of these people did so, there would be few left to keep the society running. Someone must harvest the crops, build the factories, and pick up the garbage. The affluent society would become a poor society that no longer has wealth to give away. Total happiness would not increase after all.
If I see a drowning child, dropping everything to save the child is, of course, the utilitarian choice, even if my boss fires me for being late for work. It is also generalizable, if my reason for saving the child is that there is a drowning child in front of me. I can achieve my purpose if everyone who sees a drowning child in front of them takes action. So I must act.
The problem starts when we equate the drowning child before us with starving children in distant lands. There are millions of deprived children, and millions of us who could pitch in to help them. Prioritizing these children above all else, simply on the grounds that doing so would increase overall welfare, is not generalizable.
However, judiciously crafted humanitarian policies can satisfy the utilitarian imperative while observing generalizability and other principles (such as respect for autonomy). Even devoting one’s life to humanitarian causes around the world can be generalizable if done for the right reasons. If I do it because I have the necessary talents, I am strongly driven by empathy with others, I am willing to endure hardships and disappointments, and I see a concrete opportunity where I can have a positive impact, then going ahead with it is generalizable, because relatively few people fit this description.
For the rest of us, moderate generosity is an ethical alternative. How much is moderate? First, it must pass the generalization test, which is likely if it is moderate enough. Second, it must be truly utilitarian. It must recognize that most of us can have the greatest positive impact by taking care of ourselves, our family, our friends, our coworkers, and those we serve on the job. This where we have by far the greatest influence and are best positioned to make a difference.
Third, the utilitarian principle asks us to use our remaining time and energy (if any remains) to reach out to a wider world. Effective altruism can help us here. It can tell us how to manage our limited charitable contributions, volunteer work, or political activism for the greatest effect — but not to the point of compromising our duties to those around us, on whom our actions are likely to have a much greater impact than on a distant region and culture we don’t understand.
Effective altruism can therefore promote the cause of ethics, but only if properly applied. It must be careful, for example, not to set unrealistic goals that may initially inspire young people but leave them disillusioned when reality sets in. It must not seek to arouse guilt feelings for failure to do enough. This may be an easy way to grab attention, but guilt is a poor motivator in the long run.
Unfortunately, the drowning child example seems to derive most of its punch by pushing our guilt buttons. This is not the way Mencius used it. For him, it was a way of affirming the positive side of human nature by showing that we have an altruistic impulse to save the child. Following in the footsteps of his great intellectual mentor, he emphasized the importance of cultivating this impulse through education and character formation, rather than shaking his finger at us for not doing enough.
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