The altruism budget idea is plausible. It works well when you’re literally talking about money. For example, it’s really psychologically difficult to face the decision of whether to redirect your funds to charity every time you buy a dinner or go to a movie. It’s much better to take out a fixed fraction of your budget each month and give it away. Then, you can make non-altruistic decisions with your ‘you’ money without feeling selfish. Then, if you want to change the fraction of your budget that you give away, you make that decision at the end of the month or year.
It seems reasonable that something like that should happen with time i.e. that effective altruists should retain a concept of “leisure”!
But maybe it works poorly when things aren’t obviously commodities. Like, I think there’s a place for virtue ethics—just being the kind of person you would want to see in the world. And I think lots of people who take a virtue-based approach could reasonably object that always thinking of good in terms of money could be self-defeating.
Also, some psychological studies apparently show that thinking about money decreases your generosity.
The altruism budget idea is plausible. It works well when you’re literally talking about money. For example, it’s really psychologically difficult to face the decision of whether to redirect your funds to charity every time you buy a dinner or go to a movie. It’s much better to take out a fixed fraction of your budget each month and give it away. Then, you can make non-altruistic decisions with your ‘you’ money without feeling selfish. Then, if you want to change the fraction of your budget that you give away, you make that decision at the end of the month or year.
It seems reasonable that something like that should happen with time i.e. that effective altruists should retain a concept of “leisure”!
But maybe it works poorly when things aren’t obviously commodities. Like, I think there’s a place for virtue ethics—just being the kind of person you would want to see in the world. And I think lots of people who take a virtue-based approach could reasonably object that always thinking of good in terms of money could be self-defeating.
Also, some psychological studies apparently show that thinking about money decreases your generosity.