I think I generally agree with the idea that “making altruism a habit will probably increase your net impact”, and thinking of altruistic effort as a finite resource to spend is inaccurate.
My personal recommendation is that people should make altruism a habit where it does not feel like a large personal sacrifice. For almost all this will include generally acting morally under virtue ethics and deontology too, and include things like donating blood and being an organ donor. But depending on the person this can still include donating 10%, going vegan or at least reducing meat consumption etc.
While the idea of moral licensing makes sense to me in theory, I’m not too persuaded by the empirical evidence, at least from the cited meta-analysis—the publication bias is enormous, as the authors note.
I think I generally agree with the idea that “making altruism a habit will probably increase your net impact”, and thinking of altruistic effort as a finite resource to spend is inaccurate.
However I think there are is a force, “moral licensing” (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0146167215572134) pushing in the opposite direction of habit formation.
My personal recommendation is that people should make altruism a habit where it does not feel like a large personal sacrifice. For almost all this will include generally acting morally under virtue ethics and deontology too, and include things like donating blood and being an organ donor. But depending on the person this can still include donating 10%, going vegan or at least reducing meat consumption etc.
While the idea of moral licensing makes sense to me in theory, I’m not too persuaded by the empirical evidence, at least from the cited meta-analysis—the publication bias is enormous, as the authors note.
Glad you mentioned ‘moral licensing’—which is something EAs really need to be aware of!