I donate 5% of my income and I’m gradually escalating (only two years out of college). I don’t plan to pledge because I don’t see the need for a commitment device. I don’t like the commitment framing—I think it takes a cudgel to an altruistic motivation that to me feels natural right now. Put differently:
I ran a different version of the [drowning child] thought experiment without language around obligation: “Imagine that – somehow – the universe has deemed me unalterably Good regardless of whether I help. Do I still want to rescue the child?”
...
After rewording Singer’s thought experiment, it dawned on me that I’d been using the frame of an “obligation” as a psychological whip to get myself to do what I already wanted to do. Weird.
When I went looking for the force or deity outside of myself that held the whip, there was nothing there. I was the one holding the whip. This was a revelation. The thing underlying my moral “obligation” came from me, my own mind. This underlying thing was actually a type of desire. It turned out that I wanted to help suffering people. I wanted to be in service of a beautiful world. Hm.
Suddenly the words of my moral vocabulary took on new meanings. Was I obligated to save the drowning child? Did I have a responsibility or moral duty? Was it something that one should or ought do? This language seemed misleading. These words seemed to replace my natural impulse to help with an artificial demand imposed by…nothing and no one.
The natural concern is that I’m naively assuming that my future self will share these values. That is correct.
I donate 5% of my income and I’m gradually escalating (only two years out of college). I don’t plan to pledge because I don’t see the need for a commitment device. I don’t like the commitment framing—I think it takes a cudgel to an altruistic motivation that to me feels natural right now. Put differently:
The natural concern is that I’m naively assuming that my future self will share these values. That is correct.
Thanks for sharing your perspective, Karthik!