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Giv­ing and happiness

TagLast edit: Jan 12, 2022, 1:58 PM by Leo

Giving and happiness refers to the apparent causal relationship that exists between prosocial spending and subjective wellbeing.

When a person donates money that they could have spent on themselves, the resulting change in wellbeing depends not only on the welfare loss from forgone self-interested spending, but also on possible welfare gains associated with the perception that the spending will help other people or promote a worthy cause. The net causal impact of giving on happiness can thus be analyzed as the sum of these two effects.

Within the effective altruism community, the relationship between giving and happiness has attracted some attention because it bears on a number of debates of interest, such as debates concerning altruistic motivation and the demandingness of morality.

Further reading

Dalton, Max (2020) Some extremely rough research on giving and happiness, Effective Altruism Forum, September 9.

MacAskill, William, Andreas Mogensen & Toby Ord (2018) Giving isn’t demanding, in Paul Woodruff (ed.) The Ethics of Giving: Philosophers’ Perspectives on Philanthropy, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 178–203.

Plant, Michael & Julian Hazell (2021) Can money buy happiness? A review of new data, Giving What We Can, June 23.

Sub­mit a chap­ter pro­posal for the 2025 World Hap­piness Report

Barry GrimesMay 9, 2024, 9:14 AM
34 points
0 comments2 min readEA link
(worldhappiness.report)

Giv­ing more won’t make you hap­pier

Milan GriffesDec 10, 2018, 6:15 PM
47 points
24 comments5 min readEA link

Giv­ing Without Sacri­fice? (Some ex­cerpts)

Andreas_MogensenOct 14, 2014, 12:33 PM
8 points
2 comments7 min readEA link

Can money buy hap­piness? A re­view of new data

JulianHazellJun 28, 2021, 1:48 AM
53 points
11 comments5 min readEA link
(www.givingwhatwecan.org)

Giv­ing isn’t de­mand­ing*

William_MacAskillNov 25, 2011, 5:00 AM
22 points
3 comments2 min readEA link

Some ex­tremely rough re­search on giv­ing and happiness

MaxDaltonSep 9, 2020, 8:33 AM
27 points
4 comments1 min readEA link

How to buy hap­piness (for you and oth­ers)

Luke FreemanDec 1, 2020, 11:33 PM
8 points
0 comments6 min readEA link
(www.givingwhatwecan.org)

We’re search­ing for mean­ing, not hap­piness (et al.)

Joshua ClingoSep 1, 2022, 7:34 AM
19 points
2 comments12 min readEA link

Creative writ­ing con­test: Do­ing your best to make oth­ers happy—An effec­tive al­tru­ism story

Ulf Graf 🔹Oct 28, 2021, 5:09 PM
1 point
0 comments14 min readEA link

Ar­bi­trage is a fun word

Ryan AdlerJun 29, 2022, 12:15 AM
6 points
2 comments2 min readEA link

Do­ing good can­not be mea­sured in lives saved: the psy­cholog­i­cal value of community

Alex BergJul 24, 2022, 12:51 PM
11 points
0 comments5 min readEA link