Career choice (in effective altruism) is about the ethical and practical considerations relevant to finding a high-impact career.
Although people spend more time on their jobs than on any other activity besides sleep—about 80,000 hours over the course of a typical life[1]—career choice often gets little attention in discussions on how to live ethically, compared to considerations like lifestyle changes (e.g. switching to local produce) or volunteering. But choosing an impactful career may be one of the most promising options for someone who wants to improve the world.[2]
One of the earliest publications on the subject was a youth essay by Karl Marx, who held that we should choose the career “which offers us the widest scope to work for mankind”. Such a career, Marx claimed, would be best not only altruistically but also for the person pursuing it, since “experience acclaims as happiest the man who has made the greatest number of people happy.”[3] In contemporary philosophy, there is a small literature on whether it is permissible to pursue a non-altruistic rather than an altruistic career, but almost no discussion of how ethical different careers are, or how to approach this question.[4]
The organization 80,000 Hours specializes in research about and support for impact-oriented career choice and has developed a framework for comparing the social impact of different careers.
Holden Karnofsky has identified four alternative frameworks for making career choice decisions: paths to particular roles working on particular causes; aptitudes a candidate can build in a variety of roles and causes and apply to a variety of jobs; causes to which a candidate can contribute with their career; and heuristics, such as “Do work you can be great at” or “Do work that builds your career capital and gives you more options.”[5] 80,000 Hours uses the “paths” framework, while Karnofsky has focused mostly on the aptitude framework, though he advises candidates to consider multiple frameworks.
Further reading
Cholbi, Michael (2020) The ethics of choosing careers and jobs, in Bob Fischer (ed.) College Ethics: a Reader on Moral Issues That Affect You, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 878–889.
Argues against the “maximalist” view that we are morally required to choose the careers that do the most good.
MacAskill, William (2014) Replaceability, career choice, and making a difference, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, vol. 17, pp. 269–283.
Todd, Benjamin (2016) 80,000 Hours: Find a Fulfilling Career That Does Good, Oxford: Centre for Effective Altruism.
Todd, Benjamin (2021) Planning a high-impact career: A summary of everything you need to know in 7 points, 80,000 Hours, May 6.
Related entries
career framework | job profile | career advising | personal fit | job listing (open) | constraints on effective altruism | donation choice | research training programs | scalably using labour | working at EA vs non-EA orgs
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MacAskill, William (2014) Replaceability, career choice, and making a difference, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, vol. 17, pp. 269–283, p. 269.
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Todd, Benjamin This is your most important decision, 80,000 Hours website.
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Marx, Karl (1835) Reflections of a young man on the choice of a profession, in Collected Works, Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975.
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Karnofsky, Holden (2021) My current impressions on career choice for longtermists, Effective Altruism Forum, June 4.