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92 reviews for:
The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically
Peter Singer
3.69 AVERAGE
92 reviews for:
The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically
Peter Singer
3.69 AVERAGE
Reading books over the summer for class isn't very fun. Even though this book had it's interesting parts, I probably would have been more into it if I read it during the school year.
Singer's advice comes across at first glance as cold and numbers-driven for those of us practicing what he calls "warm glow" philanthropy. We tend to give a little bit to many different charities without researching their impact. He argues that if we really wanted to do good, we would ask for empirical research demonstrating the effectiveness of the charities to which we give. This is not the same as the ratio of operating costs to mission, which does not say anything about how effective the mission is. In addition to provoking thought about how to be effectively altruistic, Singer references some useful resources to put the ideas into action.
As an admirer of much of Singer's work, the most charitable view I can offer is that effective altruism has not aged well since 2015.
Singer mentions "class" several times in his examples, but in all but one case he means it in the sense of an academic lecture, rather than socio-economic strata. It's quite a telling gap he avoids but there's a constant theme in Singer's examples of virtuous altruists:
•they're are all from relatively privileged backgrounds. Access to generational wealth and connections makes the decision to live on only median national salary less harrowing.
• the concept of establishing a career in the financial sector to then pursue altruism is blind to how the industry itself immiserates the poor and needy the altruist will eventually help.
• the complete bypass of public methods of redistribution and collective action--TAXES! Singer constructs an ethical obligation without a requisite policy obligation throughout. The idea of charities redistributing altruism rather than accountable public institutions (i.e. government) is just such a bizarre neoliberalism oversight to cap it off.
In a sense, Singer is proposing effective altruism as a way to put the current structure of society towards a more ethical distribution. He invests a lot of time praising people who believe they don't need to exploit the structure anymore but issue comparatively little pressure towards an ethical obligation for a change to the exploitation underlying it. Effectively, the altruism Singer is heralding is at best a secular prosperity gospel.
Singer mentions "class" several times in his examples, but in all but one case he means it in the sense of an academic lecture, rather than socio-economic strata. It's quite a telling gap he avoids but there's a constant theme in Singer's examples of virtuous altruists:
•they're are all from relatively privileged backgrounds. Access to generational wealth and connections makes the decision to live on only median national salary less harrowing.
• the concept of establishing a career in the financial sector to then pursue altruism is blind to how the industry itself immiserates the poor and needy the altruist will eventually help.
• the complete bypass of public methods of redistribution and collective action--TAXES! Singer constructs an ethical obligation without a requisite policy obligation throughout. The idea of charities redistributing altruism rather than accountable public institutions (i.e. government) is just such a bizarre neoliberalism oversight to cap it off.
In a sense, Singer is proposing effective altruism as a way to put the current structure of society towards a more ethical distribution. He invests a lot of time praising people who believe they don't need to exploit the structure anymore but issue comparatively little pressure towards an ethical obligation for a change to the exploitation underlying it. Effectively, the altruism Singer is heralding is at best a secular prosperity gospel.
Uncomfortable, and thought-provoking. This book has definitely changed how I view charitable actions and will have an impact on my decisions.
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
This book was my introduction to effective altruism and altruism. It was very informative and gave me a lot of practical tips that I will be taking on board to being more effective with my donations. It is a book designed to direct people to mostly American based charities and charity evaluating organisations, I would have loved a final chapter to signpost people to their country’s equivalent in case any local based charities are doing good as I’m not sure things like Mind etc were included.
I did find the book a little repetitive in themes. Especially how he banged on about misquito nets and kidneys, which could have reduced the page count if the repetition was cut! I found myself skipping through the last two chapters even though they were ones I was most interested in as they felt too wordy. Thus 4.25
I did find the book a little repetitive in themes. Especially how he banged on about misquito nets and kidneys, which could have reduced the page count if the repetition was cut! I found myself skipping through the last two chapters even though they were ones I was most interested in as they felt too wordy. Thus 4.25
informative
reflective
medium-paced
informative
reflective
medium-paced
I read this book straight through from start to finish over the course of a plane ride and found the ideas very compelling. I wanted to tell everyone about it right away. And then I Googled the authors name once I got home and learned about some of his other theories (namely his feelings on those with extreme disabilities and eugenics) and my enthusiasm waned significantly. Nevertheless, I still think this book warrants a read for the very sensible arguments made about charity, global wealth/poverty and making an actual impact.
I read [b:The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty|4722934|The Life You Can Save Acting Now to End World Poverty|Peter Singer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1439433749l/4722934._SX50_.jpg|4787382], [b:Doing Good Better: How Effective Altruism Can Help You Make a Difference|23398748|Doing Good Better How Effective Altruism Can Help You Make a Difference|William MacAskill|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1414351487l/23398748._SY75_.jpg|42955303], and [b:The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically|23168483|The Most Good You Can Do How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically|Peter Singer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1424307874l/23168483._SX50_.jpg|42713701] back to back, so this is a sort of comparative/roundup review of all three.
Despite a few good sections, on the whole this is both redundant and inferior to MacAskill's Doing Good Better. Several of the anecdotes are repeated either from Singer's own earlier books or from authors in the Effective Altruism space. Does that mean that, while this might be a bad book for people who've already a bit about Effective Altruism it might be a good book for those who have yet to? I don't think it is great at that either. It is strangely theoretical and delves into some of the (IMHO) weird rabbit holes of Effective Altruism. That is maybe kinda sorta interesting for people who want to learn more but as an introduction? Singer even concludes his book by saying, eh, let's just ignore all these rabbit holes.
What are some of these rabbit holes? Organ donation (which is only very loosely tied to Effective Altruism), whether effective altruists "are less prone to feel emotional empathy than others", whether giving/altruism makes people happy, and whether effective altruists should -- instead of alleviating the suffering of the global poor -- should instead be donating to research about Artificial Intelligence killing all humans.
A surprising number of Effective Altruists think we should be donating our money to researching ways to avoid "end of civilization" scenarios because the way we can "increase total utility" is to take into account the trillions of human beings who will be born in the future. I've never really been convinced by this line of argument; for one thing it would seem to make abortion immoral by saying that unborn should weigh in our moral calculus like that.
For another, it feels like the usurpation of global philanthropy by a weirdly male technocratic elite. One thing that struck me while reading this book is how almost everyone Singer talks about is a white male with no children. Elie Hassenfeld, Holden Karnofsky, Toby Ord, Will MacAskill, Charlie Bresler, Aaron Moore, Celso Vieira, Matt Wage, Jim Greenbaum, Aveek Bhattacharya, Alex Foster, Simon Knutsen, Ben West, Phil Gruissem, Ian Ross, Jason Trigg, "Gorby" (anonymous male), Chris Croy, Alexander Berger, Zell Kravinsky. Maybe more, I stopped counting.
There are far fewer women in the book: Diana Schott (Charlie Bresler's wife), Julia Wise, Bernadette Young (Toby Ord's wife), Rhema Hokama, and Priya Basil. That's it. (Janina Ochojska and Tzu Chi are both mentioned but they are organizers who have been active for decades and have nothing to do with Effective Altruism; their stories are given simply as examples "that show how much an individual can achieve".)
That said, these "rabbit holes" do show one of the big problems of Effective Altruism. Once you decide you need to figure out how to do "the most good", you engage in a very fraught endeavour. Is saving 139 million chickens a year (and those are just the ones that "suffer to death" before making it to a slaughterhouse) better than saving the 9 million people who die of hunger and hunger-related diseases every year? If we think preventing mass death from asteroid impact is silly then does that undermine our argument for fighting climate change -- which also primarily affects people who are not yet born?
These are all pretty complicated issues, with no clear answers, and not even very accepted terms of argument -- which feel pretty out of place in an "intro to Effective Altruism" book.
Despite a few good sections, on the whole this is both redundant and inferior to MacAskill's Doing Good Better. Several of the anecdotes are repeated either from Singer's own earlier books or from authors in the Effective Altruism space. Does that mean that, while this might be a bad book for people who've already a bit about Effective Altruism it might be a good book for those who have yet to? I don't think it is great at that either. It is strangely theoretical and delves into some of the (IMHO) weird rabbit holes of Effective Altruism. That is maybe kinda sorta interesting for people who want to learn more but as an introduction? Singer even concludes his book by saying, eh, let's just ignore all these rabbit holes.
If these discussions lead in strange directions, never mind.
What are some of these rabbit holes? Organ donation (which is only very loosely tied to Effective Altruism), whether effective altruists "are less prone to feel emotional empathy than others", whether giving/altruism makes people happy, and whether effective altruists should -- instead of alleviating the suffering of the global poor -- should instead be donating to research about Artificial Intelligence killing all humans.
A surprising number of Effective Altruists think we should be donating our money to researching ways to avoid "end of civilization" scenarios because the way we can "increase total utility" is to take into account the trillions of human beings who will be born in the future. I've never really been convinced by this line of argument; for one thing it would seem to make abortion immoral by saying that unborn should weigh in our moral calculus like that.
For another, it feels like the usurpation of global philanthropy by a weirdly male technocratic elite. One thing that struck me while reading this book is how almost everyone Singer talks about is a white male with no children. Elie Hassenfeld, Holden Karnofsky, Toby Ord, Will MacAskill, Charlie Bresler, Aaron Moore, Celso Vieira, Matt Wage, Jim Greenbaum, Aveek Bhattacharya, Alex Foster, Simon Knutsen, Ben West, Phil Gruissem, Ian Ross, Jason Trigg, "Gorby" (anonymous male), Chris Croy, Alexander Berger, Zell Kravinsky. Maybe more, I stopped counting.
There are far fewer women in the book: Diana Schott (Charlie Bresler's wife), Julia Wise, Bernadette Young (Toby Ord's wife), Rhema Hokama, and Priya Basil. That's it. (Janina Ochojska and Tzu Chi are both mentioned but they are organizers who have been active for decades and have nothing to do with Effective Altruism; their stories are given simply as examples "that show how much an individual can achieve".)
That said, these "rabbit holes" do show one of the big problems of Effective Altruism. Once you decide you need to figure out how to do "the most good", you engage in a very fraught endeavour. Is saving 139 million chickens a year (and those are just the ones that "suffer to death" before making it to a slaughterhouse) better than saving the 9 million people who die of hunger and hunger-related diseases every year? If we think preventing mass death from asteroid impact is silly then does that undermine our argument for fighting climate change -- which also primarily affects people who are not yet born?
These are all pretty complicated issues, with no clear answers, and not even very accepted terms of argument -- which feel pretty out of place in an "intro to Effective Altruism" book.