To an ordinary person, the world’s problems seem overwhelming. Cancer, racism, climate change, poverty… and the list goes on. What can one do in the face of all these problems? How can an ordinary person make a difference?
A radical new philosophy, effective altruism, may provide an answer. Created in 2012 by Peter Singer, effective altruism advocates for doing the most good possible with our resources and abilities. Although it seems obvious at first glance, effective altruism utilizes economic tools many well-intentioned do-gooders have not considered.
In the book "Doing Good Better" (2015) by William McAskill, the author outlines the philosophies, considerations, and advantages of practicing effective altruism. In order to define “doing good”, he uses a measurement called a Quality of Life Year (QaLY). The lives of others can be improved in two primary ways—either by extending (“saving”) lives or improving the quality of lives. These two factors are what makes up a QaLY. Life years extended is an easy quantity to measure. Many causes that prevent early, non-natural deaths contribute to the extension of life years. An increase in quality of life, however, is harder to measure. In this case, quality of a life is measured as a percent, with 100% being an “optimal” life and 0% being a quality of life so poor it is equivalent to being dead. This measurement is subjective, but can be improved by surveying large amounts of people and asking those surveyed to visualize trade offs. If one lives with a health condition that causes their quality of life to be at 50%, this means that this person is indifferent to living ten more years with their health condition and living five years in perfect health. The average decrease in quality of life caused by various conditions can be measured over a large population. Thus, one QaLY is defined as one year of life in perfect health. In the lens of helping others, change in QaLYs is most important. Therefore, when discussing improving the lives of others, we should look at the numbers. One avenue of helping others is to donate to charity. But when one’s personal income is limited and the number of both causes and charities too large, where should a person spend their money? To do the most good, statistically, one should focus their money on causes in poorer countries. In rich countries such as the US, it takes large amounts of money to save or improve one life. In poorer countries such as Somalia, the money of a person from a rich country goes further. There, people are plagued with problems such as malaria, intestinal worms, and absolute (not relative) poverty that are nearly eradicated in the developed world. There, solutions that improve lives cheaply such as mosquito nets are not widely implemented, while in a rich country, most avenues of improving lives in a less costly way have already been exhausted. Therefore, when seeking causes to donate money to, one should try to optimize the amount of QaLYs they can give to others with a set amount of money.
However, there is another factor to keep in mind when attempting to do good — namely, what would have happened otherwise had you not taken that action. Becoming a doctor seems altruistic. To become a doctor, one must go through years of schooling and training in order to save and improve the lives of patients. However, the lives saved through one’s career as a doctor cannot be examined in a vacuum. The improvement and good one does cannot be measured in absolute terms, but rather as a comparison to what would have happened otherwise. If you never became a doctor, what would have happened instead? The answer is rather sobering — many more people apply to medical school than those who get accepted, and if you never went down that road in the first place, somebody close to equally qualified would have taken your place. Therefore, the marginal good you would have accomplished from becoming a doctor is rather small. This does not mean that becoming a doctor is a pointless endeavor. Doctors make a hefty salary — on average, 180,000 dollars a year. If a large portion of this money was donated to worthwhile causes, then you would be making a large improvement over what would have otherwise happened, as doctors on average do not donate large portions of their salary.
Is making large donations the best way to make a significant difference? Donating is effective and reliable, but larger, riskier endeavors can reap even bigger payoffs. Pursuits like research, entrepreneurship, activism, or politics have a low chance of success but large payoffs if success is achieved. Groundbreaking research, new legislation, or innovative solutions provide much larger benefits than donating thousands of dollars a year, showing that these endeavors are worth pursuing even with a low chance of success.
Detractors of effective altruism feel that it takes a cold approach to the world’s problems and neglects empathy in favor of treating people as numbers. They argue that though effective altruism appears to be a logical, efficient strategy, it contradicts what many of us feel and believe about helping others. What about empathy, domestic issues, and direct involvement in problems we feel passionate about? Simply donating money to help a cause feels like an easy way out—a substitute for truly getting involved in important causes. Others feel that it is incorrect to prioritize all people around the globe equally and that instead domestic issues should be prioritized above international ones even if it is less efficient at saving lives. Effective altruism has also been criticized for “missing the forest for the trees”—for example, focusing on donating money to poor people without trying to alleviate the causes of poverty.
Effective altruism is not perfect. However, it is a philosophy a person who wants to do more good should consider. Researching and donating to cost effective charities, approaching career choices with the attitude of assessing opportunity cost, and applying economic thinking can go a long way. In the hands of you, reader, there is the power to save and improve lives.