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Altruismul eficient
by Peter Singer
Hmmmm. This book was definitely not what I was expecting! The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically by Peter Singer is a deeply philosophical book. Having never had philosophy in college, I was excited to read about the philosophical ideals around not just "doing good" but around being an effective altruist, or using reason and our resources to do the most good in the world that we can. Some different thoughts that I can take away from this book include:
1. Some people deviate from their desired career path to other career paths to earn more money to donate to causes that will benefit others. Others limit their lifestyle expenditures in order to maintain a high level of donations. Would be nice to see an estimate of what percent of people, or even donors do this.
2. Effective altruists try to use reason vs. emotion to select the charity that they will donate to. Typically, for Americans, this would mean donating abroad, as charities that do things like provide mosquito nets or perform surgeries to correct blindness or pay for girls to go to school in impoverished communities are more effective, reach more people and create greater social impact than donating to (for example) a pet rescue society in the US.
3. It is useful to use meta-charities to vet charities to make sure that not only does most of the money go towards effective programming, but that it has been proven through academic study and research to be impactful. (Self-reporting by the charity to be impactful is not as valued as an academic research study).
4. Another way to be impactful is to support animal rights, especially in the farming industry. There are many laws supporting pet's rights, but if your goal is to lesson suffering of living beings in the world, one way to do this is to ensure that the millions of animals raised for food, fur, in shelters and in laboratories are guaranteed (for example) enough space to be able to move around, and provided ample food, water and medical care.
5. Donating a Kidney fits right in for effective altruists. They basically crunch numbers to compare the value of keeping a functioning kidney vs. the value of someone's life that could depend on receiving that kidney.
6. There was a lot of philosophy discussed here! I googled a lot of different philosophical ideas and philosophers that were cited in these chapters.
Overall, though, this book reads more like a textbook. Possibly because Peter Singer is a teacher at Princeton University. He often mentions a few of his students as examples. One that was going to go to Oxford to get a PhD in Philosophy, his undergraduate major, but who wanted to earn more to donate more, thus became an investment banker. Is this a commonplace switch? Philosopher to investment banker? Maybe at a place like Princeton!
He also likes to compare and contrast what an effective altruist thinks with one particular woman, Melissa Berman, President and CEO of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors at the time he wrote this, for several chapters, making it seem like he has a personal issue with Ms. Berman and how she markets her business.
Other arguments simply fell flat for me. For example, Singer states that nature itself has no intrinsic value, as Singer believes that intrinsic value can only be found in positive conscious experiences. He argues that some effective altruists see nature as negative due to "the intense amount of suffering that wild animals experience." Thus, he determines that supporting the preservation of nature is not for the effective altruist as it has not been proven to be an effective or reasonable investment. No mention of ecosystem services that keep humans alive, like the creation of oxygen or clean drinking water or the beneficial phytochemicals that are found in so many plants.
As I finished this book, I googled "Does anyone LIKE Peter Singer"? The book was leaving me with such a bad taste that I did not expect. One issue that many people have with Singer is when he asks questions along these lines. Why do we value humans over animals? Is it because of "higher intelligence"? If so, many animals are smarter than babies. Should we value animals over babies? Also, a comatose or brain-dead person would have no intelligence, so should we value them less than a typical human? Is a person's suffering more important than an animal's suffering? Why? How do we assign this value? I do understand that he is trying to elicit a type of reasoning that ultimately makes an individual define their values. These are not comfortable questions, though. I think that is OK. However, this wasn't what I was expecting out of this book.
In summary, this book on effective altruism made me think, and sometimes made me uncomfortable. It handed me some new ideas and ways of thinking about things. I did not really enjoy the tone of the book, and several of the examples seemed interesting but not successful or common enough to deserve more than a mention. I would recommend this book to someone who is interested in thinking about the philosophical ideals behind donating to beneficial causes, on an academic level. Some knowledge of famous philosophers would be useful!
1. Some people deviate from their desired career path to other career paths to earn more money to donate to causes that will benefit others. Others limit their lifestyle expenditures in order to maintain a high level of donations. Would be nice to see an estimate of what percent of people, or even donors do this.
2. Effective altruists try to use reason vs. emotion to select the charity that they will donate to. Typically, for Americans, this would mean donating abroad, as charities that do things like provide mosquito nets or perform surgeries to correct blindness or pay for girls to go to school in impoverished communities are more effective, reach more people and create greater social impact than donating to (for example) a pet rescue society in the US.
3. It is useful to use meta-charities to vet charities to make sure that not only does most of the money go towards effective programming, but that it has been proven through academic study and research to be impactful. (Self-reporting by the charity to be impactful is not as valued as an academic research study).
4. Another way to be impactful is to support animal rights, especially in the farming industry. There are many laws supporting pet's rights, but if your goal is to lesson suffering of living beings in the world, one way to do this is to ensure that the millions of animals raised for food, fur, in shelters and in laboratories are guaranteed (for example) enough space to be able to move around, and provided ample food, water and medical care.
5. Donating a Kidney fits right in for effective altruists. They basically crunch numbers to compare the value of keeping a functioning kidney vs. the value of someone's life that could depend on receiving that kidney.
6. There was a lot of philosophy discussed here! I googled a lot of different philosophical ideas and philosophers that were cited in these chapters.
Overall, though, this book reads more like a textbook. Possibly because Peter Singer is a teacher at Princeton University. He often mentions a few of his students as examples. One that was going to go to Oxford to get a PhD in Philosophy, his undergraduate major, but who wanted to earn more to donate more, thus became an investment banker. Is this a commonplace switch? Philosopher to investment banker? Maybe at a place like Princeton!
He also likes to compare and contrast what an effective altruist thinks with one particular woman, Melissa Berman, President and CEO of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors at the time he wrote this, for several chapters, making it seem like he has a personal issue with Ms. Berman and how she markets her business.
Other arguments simply fell flat for me. For example, Singer states that nature itself has no intrinsic value, as Singer believes that intrinsic value can only be found in positive conscious experiences. He argues that some effective altruists see nature as negative due to "the intense amount of suffering that wild animals experience." Thus, he determines that supporting the preservation of nature is not for the effective altruist as it has not been proven to be an effective or reasonable investment. No mention of ecosystem services that keep humans alive, like the creation of oxygen or clean drinking water or the beneficial phytochemicals that are found in so many plants.
As I finished this book, I googled "Does anyone LIKE Peter Singer"? The book was leaving me with such a bad taste that I did not expect. One issue that many people have with Singer is when he asks questions along these lines. Why do we value humans over animals? Is it because of "higher intelligence"? If so, many animals are smarter than babies. Should we value animals over babies? Also, a comatose or brain-dead person would have no intelligence, so should we value them less than a typical human? Is a person's suffering more important than an animal's suffering? Why? How do we assign this value? I do understand that he is trying to elicit a type of reasoning that ultimately makes an individual define their values. These are not comfortable questions, though. I think that is OK. However, this wasn't what I was expecting out of this book.
In summary, this book on effective altruism made me think, and sometimes made me uncomfortable. It handed me some new ideas and ways of thinking about things. I did not really enjoy the tone of the book, and several of the examples seemed interesting but not successful or common enough to deserve more than a mention. I would recommend this book to someone who is interested in thinking about the philosophical ideals behind donating to beneficial causes, on an academic level. Some knowledge of famous philosophers would be useful!