To follow up on Alexander’s point a bit, I think applying the charitable benefits standard to non-charity decisions leads to some really weird results. For example, say someone who identifies as an EA chooses to give 10% of her income each year to a GW charity, and she’s choosing employment between being a schoolteacher for $50K a year or a job that’s not especially prosocial that pays $55K a year; say she has no innate preference between them, prefers to make more money all things being equal, and that being a schoolteacher would be worthmore than the $500 donation.
According to the logic Alexander points to about kidney donation, when deciding whether to forgo the $5000 to choose a socially beneficial job, the right calculus is -- 1. does giving up that money do as much good as donating to a GW charity (i.e. saving a life) and 2. if no, EAs shouldn’t do it. That leads to the really weird result, though, of committing EA ideology to rejecting socially positive choices even if they involve fairly small sacrifices (here $5,000).
Let me give one final thought experiment on this point, which can be a variant of the child-drowning-in-the-puddle—let’s say instead of a child drowning, it’s an older woman, and you’re wearing expensive clothing that’ll be ruined. If the EA standard is—don’t do altruistic acts that aren’t of similar value to GW charitable donations—that principle could very well commit you to not saving the older woman, which, again, seems bizarre.
To be clear, that’s not to say that should mean donating a kidney—far from it. Instead considering kidney donation is a way of broadening the options available to EAs beyond giving money.
To follow up on Alexander’s point a bit, I think applying the charitable benefits standard to non-charity decisions leads to some really weird results. For example, say someone who identifies as an EA chooses to give 10% of her income each year to a GW charity, and she’s choosing employment between being a schoolteacher for $50K a year or a job that’s not especially prosocial that pays $55K a year; say she has no innate preference between them, prefers to make more money all things being equal, and that being a schoolteacher would be worthmore than the $500 donation.
According to the logic Alexander points to about kidney donation, when deciding whether to forgo the $5000 to choose a socially beneficial job, the right calculus is -- 1. does giving up that money do as much good as donating to a GW charity (i.e. saving a life) and 2. if no, EAs shouldn’t do it. That leads to the really weird result, though, of committing EA ideology to rejecting socially positive choices even if they involve fairly small sacrifices (here $5,000).
Let me give one final thought experiment on this point, which can be a variant of the child-drowning-in-the-puddle—let’s say instead of a child drowning, it’s an older woman, and you’re wearing expensive clothing that’ll be ruined. If the EA standard is—don’t do altruistic acts that aren’t of similar value to GW charitable donations—that principle could very well commit you to not saving the older woman, which, again, seems bizarre.
To be clear, that’s not to say that should mean donating a kidney—far from it. Instead considering kidney donation is a way of broadening the options available to EAs beyond giving money.