I enjoyed reading your thoughts on whether the 10% pledge is central to EA’s public perception.
I do not agree with how you relate your positive proposal to the critiques of EA. Two points stuck out to me: the “earning to give” point and the “is 10% the correct amount” point. In both cases, I see no reason to believe “a 2%/8% or 2%/10% fuzzies/utilons standard for an earning to give pledge would be a concrete way to show we’ve taken onboard some of these critiques.”.
Earning to give is weird. You improve the world by becoming a (checks notes) Banker or Lawyer? People that criticize earning to give do not criticize the notion of them donating their money, but typically criticize Banking/Lawyering as a profession where one can do good (e.g. because they believe these jobs are net-negative), or see the pledge as greenwashing one’s otherwise rich life. I do not see how a banker donating 2% to his favorite Opera would change any of these critiques. The critic does not want you to donate to the Opera—they want you to stop saying being a banker may have more positive ethical payoffs than being a social worker.
EA argues for a duty of beneficence and asks members to donate 10%. 10% is an arbitrary shelling point. Why not 11%? Why not 12% (you are here)? But consider: why not 13%? (...) Why not 99%? These worries are a classic critique of duties of beneficence, at least since Singer released Famine, Affluence, and Morality. I am confident that such critiques will not be resolved by setting the donation percentage 2% higher. The critic does not want you to donate 12% - they want you to explain why X% is morally required, but X+1% is not morally required.
I agree with the point that a newcomer to EA may wrongly get the impression of not being allowed to donate to non-effective charities. This would be bad. But I think there are significantly easier ways to signal to them that they can do so than to reform the Giving What We Can Pledge (talking to them/leading by example/putting it in a FAQ).
I also still think your positive proposal would likely be harmful, partly for the same reasons I laid out in a previous post. First, why make fuzzy donations mandatory? Someone with very Utilitarian convictions may be put off by this, or someone who would otherwise donate 10% effectively and donate fuzzies separately may reduce their effective donations while keeping fuzzies constant (this is on the original 8%/2% proposal and does not affect the 10%/2% proposal). When I encountered EA, a pitch of “Donate X% to the most effective ways of improving lives, then spend an additional 2% on whatever you feel like” would have created more rather than less confusion in me. Most people, I reckon, do not need approval to spend the other 90% on things they want to spend them on, including charity that is not effective.
Much more importantly, I think this has a big potential for being a PR disaster, rather than a PR boon. I don’t know how I would explain why my organization has a norm of donating to charities we don’t consider to be effective. I think the reasons you provide are by and large “to improve our reputation”. I am quite confident that EA explicitly foregoing its efficiency principles to mandate a 2% fuzzies tax to improve its reputation would not land well in the press, or with critics. Much of this sounds to me like an attempt at 4d-chessing the public perception of EA. Frankly, even if I were an EA-sympathetic journalist, I would find the idea quite insulting—it’s pretty transparent.
I also agree with Isaac that the initial downvotes and overall vote tally strike me as disagreement with your proposal, rather than a rejection of your discussion.
Hi mhendric. First, thank you for your continued engagement and criticism—it sharpens my own thinking and encourages me to continue. I will respond in greater depth to some of the critiques you’ve made here in my next post.
Briefly:
My wording obviously has been muddy. My proposal is not a mandatory 2%-to-fuzzies-causes pledge, but a 10% pledge of which 80% is allocated to effective causes and 20% is explicitly to whatever cause the donor is passionate about. This discretionary 20%-of-the-10% (i.e. 2% of annual income) could also go to effective causes, but it could also go to the arts, alma maters, or anything else. In this way, this modification encompasses the original GWWC pledge, but also adds a flexible portion for those not comfortable with or who perceive absolutism in its structure.
I agree with you that we can guide EAs to a more sophisticated interpretation of the pledge internally. My concern about the current format of the pledge is that it misdirects conversations with non-EAs, prevents a deeper engagement with these ideas and giving habits, and contributes to EA’s perception of absolutism by that portion of the public that is aware of the movement at all. This is why having a concrete way to address these concerns seems beneficial for structuring conversations about these ideas, and also for increasing the amount of donations we are able to motivate for effective causes. I believe it would make EA a bigger tent community than it is at present.
While I agree strongly that much criticism of earning to give relates to concerns about net-negative professions and greenwashing, I also found in this research that a substantial portion of the critique is specifically about the 10% level and the idea of 100% donations to causes deemed effective. As examples, Trevor Noah, mimics the critique an ordinary person might make in a country without a social safety net, saying ‘maybe you in the UK can afford a 10% donation to charity, but I’m in the USA, where our healthcare is very expensive.’ The Kristof column I link questions the rule that 100% of donations would go to effective charities. These are also impressions non-EAs I’ve spoken with about EA have picked up in conversation and that I have struggled to address.
I agree that 10% is a Schelling point. I believe that a thorough understanding of the logic of Schelling points would overcome the slippery slope objection of “why not X+1%.” Where I believe you and I disagree is the idea that a Schelling point cannot be modified without destroying it. In my view, a Schelling point, once established, is like an elastic tether. The further away from the anchor point you go, the more resistance you meet. But if there are big benefits to marginal moves away from the exact tether point, then you should be able to do so. Metaphorically speaking, if Grand Central Station is the place to converge to find your friend when you’re both lost in New York City, you can sit on a park bench outside, but you can also get a (vegan) hotdog from the stand nearby. I believe that a 2%/8% or 10%/12% modification is comfortably close to the tether point to not break the Schelling point, while providing the benefits I have described.
Each critique you have made deserves a full post in reply, and I anticipate that some or all of them will as I continue this series. These paragraphs are just meant as compressed versions of my beliefs at this time, not comprehensive arguments.
I enjoyed reading your thoughts on whether the 10% pledge is central to EA’s public perception.
I do not agree with how you relate your positive proposal to the critiques of EA. Two points stuck out to me: the “earning to give” point and the “is 10% the correct amount” point. In both cases, I see no reason to believe “a 2%/8% or 2%/10% fuzzies/utilons standard for an earning to give pledge would be a concrete way to show we’ve taken onboard some of these critiques.”.
Earning to give is weird. You improve the world by becoming a (checks notes) Banker or Lawyer? People that criticize earning to give do not criticize the notion of them donating their money, but typically criticize Banking/Lawyering as a profession where one can do good (e.g. because they believe these jobs are net-negative), or see the pledge as greenwashing one’s otherwise rich life. I do not see how a banker donating 2% to his favorite Opera would change any of these critiques. The critic does not want you to donate to the Opera—they want you to stop saying being a banker may have more positive ethical payoffs than being a social worker.
EA argues for a duty of beneficence and asks members to donate 10%. 10% is an arbitrary shelling point. Why not 11%? Why not 12% (you are here)? But consider: why not 13%? (...) Why not 99%? These worries are a classic critique of duties of beneficence, at least since Singer released Famine, Affluence, and Morality. I am confident that such critiques will not be resolved by setting the donation percentage 2% higher. The critic does not want you to donate 12% - they want you to explain why X% is morally required, but X+1% is not morally required.
I agree with the point that a newcomer to EA may wrongly get the impression of not being allowed to donate to non-effective charities. This would be bad. But I think there are significantly easier ways to signal to them that they can do so than to reform the Giving What We Can Pledge (talking to them/leading by example/putting it in a FAQ).
I also still think your positive proposal would likely be harmful, partly for the same reasons I laid out in a previous post. First, why make fuzzy donations mandatory? Someone with very Utilitarian convictions may be put off by this, or someone who would otherwise donate 10% effectively and donate fuzzies separately may reduce their effective donations while keeping fuzzies constant (this is on the original 8%/2% proposal and does not affect the 10%/2% proposal). When I encountered EA, a pitch of “Donate X% to the most effective ways of improving lives, then spend an additional 2% on whatever you feel like” would have created more rather than less confusion in me. Most people, I reckon, do not need approval to spend the other 90% on things they want to spend them on, including charity that is not effective.
Much more importantly, I think this has a big potential for being a PR disaster, rather than a PR boon. I don’t know how I would explain why my organization has a norm of donating to charities we don’t consider to be effective. I think the reasons you provide are by and large “to improve our reputation”. I am quite confident that EA explicitly foregoing its efficiency principles to mandate a 2% fuzzies tax to improve its reputation would not land well in the press, or with critics. Much of this sounds to me like an attempt at 4d-chessing the public perception of EA. Frankly, even if I were an EA-sympathetic journalist, I would find the idea quite insulting—it’s pretty transparent.
I also agree with Isaac that the initial downvotes and overall vote tally strike me as disagreement with your proposal, rather than a rejection of your discussion.
Hi mhendric. First, thank you for your continued engagement and criticism—it sharpens my own thinking and encourages me to continue. I will respond in greater depth to some of the critiques you’ve made here in my next post.
Briefly:
My wording obviously has been muddy. My proposal is not a mandatory 2%-to-fuzzies-causes pledge, but a 10% pledge of which 80% is allocated to effective causes and 20% is explicitly to whatever cause the donor is passionate about. This discretionary 20%-of-the-10% (i.e. 2% of annual income) could also go to effective causes, but it could also go to the arts, alma maters, or anything else. In this way, this modification encompasses the original GWWC pledge, but also adds a flexible portion for those not comfortable with or who perceive absolutism in its structure.
I agree with you that we can guide EAs to a more sophisticated interpretation of the pledge internally. My concern about the current format of the pledge is that it misdirects conversations with non-EAs, prevents a deeper engagement with these ideas and giving habits, and contributes to EA’s perception of absolutism by that portion of the public that is aware of the movement at all. This is why having a concrete way to address these concerns seems beneficial for structuring conversations about these ideas, and also for increasing the amount of donations we are able to motivate for effective causes. I believe it would make EA a bigger tent community than it is at present.
While I agree strongly that much criticism of earning to give relates to concerns about net-negative professions and greenwashing, I also found in this research that a substantial portion of the critique is specifically about the 10% level and the idea of 100% donations to causes deemed effective. As examples, Trevor Noah, mimics the critique an ordinary person might make in a country without a social safety net, saying ‘maybe you in the UK can afford a 10% donation to charity, but I’m in the USA, where our healthcare is very expensive.’ The Kristof column I link questions the rule that 100% of donations would go to effective charities. These are also impressions non-EAs I’ve spoken with about EA have picked up in conversation and that I have struggled to address.
I agree that 10% is a Schelling point. I believe that a thorough understanding of the logic of Schelling points would overcome the slippery slope objection of “why not X+1%.” Where I believe you and I disagree is the idea that a Schelling point cannot be modified without destroying it. In my view, a Schelling point, once established, is like an elastic tether. The further away from the anchor point you go, the more resistance you meet. But if there are big benefits to marginal moves away from the exact tether point, then you should be able to do so. Metaphorically speaking, if Grand Central Station is the place to converge to find your friend when you’re both lost in New York City, you can sit on a park bench outside, but you can also get a (vegan) hotdog from the stand nearby. I believe that a 2%/8% or 10%/12% modification is comfortably close to the tether point to not break the Schelling point, while providing the benefits I have described.
Each critique you have made deserves a full post in reply, and I anticipate that some or all of them will as I continue this series. These paragraphs are just meant as compressed versions of my beliefs at this time, not comprehensive arguments.
I hope you will join me for further discussion and debate in my next post, where I dig in deeper to some of the objections you raised here!