The most good you can do
Reg Naulty welcomes a provocative argument by a leading philosopher
The intent behind The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically, by the controversial philosopher Peter Singer, is deeply constructive. It is arguing for a new ethical ideal: that people do the most good they can. The book is directed particularly at giving, such as to charities, most of which is emotion driven. Singer argues that if it were more thoughtful, it would be more effective. So, we should check up on our charities. When people do that now, they usually enquire about what percentage of their gift goes to administration and what percentage to the ultimate recipient. But the really important question is how effective are the funds that get to the end of the line.
This question can now be answered by international ‘meta-charities’, such as The Life You Can Save, GiveWell, and Giving What We Can, which compare the results obtained in the field by different organisations. For example, what does the most good, organisations which train guide dogs, or organisations like the Fred Hollows Foundation, which perform operations to cure common forms of blindness in developing countries? Your money does much more good in the latter cause. Fred Hollows can cure blindness for the price of a hardback book, but it takes over £27,000 to train a guide dog.
Is it possible that effective altruists are moved by universal love? Not necessarily, replies Singer, who seems to have reservations about that motive, and, in any case, there is something better: effective empathy, which is ‘the ability to put oneself in the position of others and identify with their feelings or emotions’. That is the cognitive aspect of empathy, but it has an emotional aspect as well, which is evoked by individuals and pictures of them. For example, in one study, people were shown a photo of a child, given her name and age, and told that to save her life, some £180,000 needed to be raised, and they were asked to donate. Then another group was shown photos of eight children, given their names and ages, and told that £180,000 was needed to save all their lives, and they were asked to donate. The first group donated more. Effective altruists consider that absurd and that it proves the inadequacy of emotional empathy. Cognitive empathy takes a longer view.
Someone remarked that ‘empathy is the grand theme of our time’. Let us hope so. Are there any questions we should ask about it? The most obvious one is: ‘What is the greatest good?’ Different cultural perspectives give different answers. In 1990 Vandana Mataji, an Indian Christian theologian, wrote that it would have been much better if Christianity in India, instead of building schools and hospitals, had produced some genuine gurus. The function of a guru is to transmit their experience of God to their pupil.
Singer’s position on intrinsic value is a little unusual. Instead of finding it in things like simplicity, peace, integrity, community, fairness, and so on, he locates it in ‘positive experiences’ – negative experiences are pains, nightmares, embarrassments, and so on. Singer’s position lets in the guru’s experience. Singer does not intend that, since he is a long time campaigner for unbelief, but experiences of God are positive, if any are.
Finally, it is worth remarking that ‘Big Brother’ is now watching everyone – at work. That started about sixty years ago with time and motion studies of factory workers, and it has now spread everywhere. No policeman or professor is exempt. With respect to the latter, how many hours of teaching do they do, per week? How many publications have they had over the last five years? Are they in peer-reviewed journals?
Now, ‘meta-charities’ are checking up on charities. What kind of performance are the meta-charities turning in? That question opens up the prospect, beloved of philosophers, of an infinite regress of checkers.
The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically by Peter Singer, Yale University Press. ISBN: 9780300219869. £10.99.
