I think Ben’s criticism is fair, in that a perfectly rational altruist wouldn’t make it. That is, if you are willing to give up three weeks of income to donate a kidney, you should be willing to work for three weeks and donate all of your income, not just whatever percentage you donate normally. This is not to say that it’s an unreasonable decision in all cases—taking three weeks off of work to donate a kidney has all sorts of other consequences (you probably get to do a lot of reading while you’re stuck in bed), but from a first order altruistic standpoint, at the income level I mentioned it still wouldn’t make sense.
Yes, I agree with that, and it’s worth someone making that point. But I think in general it is too common a theme in EA discussion to compare some possible altruistic endeavour (here kidney donation) to perfectly optimal behaviour, and then criticise the endeavour as being sub-optimal—Ryan even words it as “causing net harm”!
In reality we’re all sub-optimal, each in our own many ways. If pointing out that kidney donation is sub-optimal (assuming all the arguments really do hold!) nudges some possible kidney donors to actually donate more of their income, then great. But I still think that there are people who would consider donating a kidney but who wouldn’t donate an extra half-month’s salary instead.
I think Ben’s criticism is fair, in that a perfectly rational altruist wouldn’t make it. That is, if you are willing to give up three weeks of income to donate a kidney, you should be willing to work for three weeks and donate all of your income, not just whatever percentage you donate normally. This is not to say that it’s an unreasonable decision in all cases—taking three weeks off of work to donate a kidney has all sorts of other consequences (you probably get to do a lot of reading while you’re stuck in bed), but from a first order altruistic standpoint, at the income level I mentioned it still wouldn’t make sense.
Yes, I agree with that, and it’s worth someone making that point. But I think in general it is too common a theme in EA discussion to compare some possible altruistic endeavour (here kidney donation) to perfectly optimal behaviour, and then criticise the endeavour as being sub-optimal—Ryan even words it as “causing net harm”!
In reality we’re all sub-optimal, each in our own many ways. If pointing out that kidney donation is sub-optimal (assuming all the arguments really do hold!) nudges some possible kidney donors to actually donate more of their income, then great. But I still think that there are people who would consider donating a kidney but who wouldn’t donate an extra half-month’s salary instead.