Effective Altruism is a Trampoline
What a controversial theory tells us about ourselves
On your way to work, you pass a small pond. As you get closer, you see that it is a very young child, just a toddler, who is flailing about, unable to stay upright or walk out of the pond. The child is unable to keep her head above the water for more than a few seconds at a time. If you don’t wade in and pull her out, she seems likely to drown.
Wading in is easy and safe, but you will ruin the new shoes you bought only a few days ago, and get your suit wet and muddy. By the time you hand the child over to someone responsible for her, and change your clothes, you’ll be late for work. What should you do?1
With this vivid scenario, the philosopher Peter Singer laid out a compelling argument for a movement that came to be known as Effective Altruism. At the core of the movement is the observation that we all have the ability to improve others’ lives at little cost to ourselves. The thought of failing to save a drowning child for fear of muddying one’s shoes strikes us as absurd, even monstrous. Why do we not have the feeling when it comes to saving the lives of children across the globe? Surely the geographic distance between us matters little, from a moral perspective.
By encouraging people to dig into their pockets to improve the lives of suffering people around the world, Effective Altruism has done enormous good in the two decades since its popularization. One of the founders of the movement, William MacAskill, claims to have raised over $300 million for charitable causes.
Yet the movement has also endured its share of criticism. Some have suggested it is too cold and calculating in its weighing of harms and benefits. Others have criticized it for being insufficiently diverse. The fact that the disgraced FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was associated with the movement has not helped its image.
It seems that beliefs about effective altruism tend to fall into opposing camps: the movement is either "incredible" or it’s "insufferable"; either it’s “the most exciting cause in the world” or a “bizarre and dangerous ideology.”
Today, by contrast, I’d like to convince that Effective Altruism is neither wholly good or wholly bad. Instead, it’s a trampoline.
Old Beds and Trampolines
To understand what I mean, we must refer to the writings of Daniel Dennett, a philosopher of mind at Tufts University. Dennett is a prolific scholar, having written important books on everything from consciousness to religion to free will.
Dennett has taken some controversial stances on a number of issues. For instance, he has claimed that consciousness is an “illusion”—a view which seems to deny the existence of the one thing we know is real: the experience inside our heads.
And yet one cannot deny that the man has a way with words. Among his memorable phrases:
“Intuition pump”: a thought experiment that leads the audience to a specific conclusion through intuition
“Intentional stance”: the practice of interpreting the behavior of an organism or entity in terms of its mental states (as opposed to its actions)
“Deepity”: A superficial aphorism that seems to be (but is not) profound. (Example: “Love is just a word.”)
One consequence of Dennett’s rhetorical wit is that he can be charming even when he’s verbally cutting your throat.
You can see this mercilessness on full display in one exchange he had with fellow philosopher Jerry Fodor.
Most philosophers are like old beds: you jump on them and they sink deep into qualifications, revisions, addenda...But Fodor is like a trampoline: you jump on him and he springs back, presenting claims twice as trenchant and outrageous. If some of us can see further, it’s from jumping on Jerry.
Is this a backhanded compliment? Or a forehanded insult? Hard to tell, but we can now see a little more clearly what I mean by “trampoline.”
Trampoline: an incomplete or inaccurate idea that nevertheless helps us see the world more clearly.
I think this perfectly describes Effective Altruism.
Let’s explore why.
No Shoes for You
Consider for a moment the central arguments of the theory. The movement is based in a philosophical theory known as utilitarianism, which says that the morally best action is whatever results in the most happiness for the greatest number of people.
Crucially, utilitarianism is identity-blind. This means that someone’s happiness matters equally no matter who or where they are. The wellbeing of a person in Bangladesh matters the same as that of someone in Los Angeles, from a moral point of view.
Under this framework, it is clear that our moral duties are not bound by space or time. We should be just as concerned about people over there as those over here. Indeed, philosophers have argued that we should working to improve the lives of people five hundred years in the future, since there is no reason to prioritize our wellbeing above theirs.
There is no doubt that, to some degree, caring more about those far from home would be a good thing. Countless studies have shown just how egotistical, myopic, and close-minded people can be. As Adam Smith once put it, many people would “prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of [their] finger.” Expanding our moral circle would thus come as a welcome corrective to our selfish nature.
What’s interesting, though, is when you take this argument to its logical conclusion.
Imagine for a moment what the world would look like if we cared equally about the wellbeing of every person on earth. Every time you wanted to do something nice for someone in your social circle—buying new shoes for your daughter, for instance—the utilitarian voice inside your head would ring out:
Stop! Just think about how much good that $60 would do overseas. You could buy five malaria nets with that money, or clean drinking water for a family in Kenya for a month!
It is easy to see how this approach could lead to a paralysis of concern: you’d be so worried about ensuring each dollar maximizes the happiness of someone across the globe that you neglect the people close to home. Even more: you might find yourself forsaking friends and family in order to do more good far away.
Taken to its extreme, then, Effective Altruism places unrealistic demands on us, asking us to place equal weight on the wellbeing of those far away as those nearby.
Ditching the Moral Calculator
“Hold on a minute!” the Effective Altruist might say. “I’m not saying you need to totally stop giving friends and family preferential treatment. I’m just saying we’d all be better off if we cared less about the people close to home and more about the people far away.”
With this response, Effective Altruism appears to avoid the “slippery slope” argument I laid out above. Under this view, we don’t need to completely relinquish our communal loyalties; we only need to lessen their motivational force. In this way, we can continue to be utility-maximizers without being disloyal to our cohort.
But this response fails to address an even deeper concern about Effective Altruism: namely, its reliance on happiness-maximization as the sole marker of moral goodness.
Let’s return to the case of me buying new shoes for my daughter. Under utilitarianism, there is only one set of considerations you should take into account when performing this action: the sum total of the amount of happiness it would create in the world:
Daughter’s Happiness - Missed Opportunities for Creating More Happiness = Total Happiness
The Utilitarian, therefore, is a Moral Calculator.
But some actions are—and ought to be—beyond calculation. When I buy new shoes for my daughter, I’m not necessarily doing it because I want to increase the happiness in the world. I’m doing it because I want to be a good dad. That is, I’m doing it because of our particular relationship—the particular role I play in her life, and the particular role she plays in mine.
This is a crucial distinction.
Under the utilitarian framework, the North Star of moral goodness—the reason motivating our actions—is focused entirely on happiness. When I am debating about the right thing to do, utilitarianism tells me to consult my happiness compass and travel in that direction.
But morality is about more than maximizing happiness. It’s also about honoring the relationships we have with others: the role we play in their lives, and the responsibilities that arise from those roles. In this view of morality, the question of “What’s the right thing to do?” isn’t fully answered by the question, “What will create the most happiness?” It’s also answered by the question, “What do I owe the people in my life?”
Constitutive Attachments
The philosopher Michael Sandel has a phrase for these relationships. He calls them constitutive attachments. In philosophy, the word “constitutive” describes a relationship in which Thing A comprises a integral component of Thing B—something that defines it.
Consider a house. You could change the color of the walls of a house, and it would still be a house. But if you removed the roof, it would arguably no longer be a house. A roof is thus constitutive of a house.
Thus, when Sandel says that human beings have “constitutive attachments,” he is suggesting that we have relationships with others that define who we are.
These attachments, in turn, shape our moral obligations. They make it such that we can’t always rely on our happiness calculator when deciding on the right thing to do. We also need to honor the unique set of responsibilities that emerge from the relationships we have with people in our lives.
Part of being human is being embedded in a community. And the particular roles we play in those communities are an integral part of our being. Abandoning our commitments to these communities would cause us to lose a part of ourselves.
Getting Theoretical Wit It
Philosophers have a name for this perspective. They call it “Role Ethics.” Interestingly, this point of view is poorly represented in Western philosophy. By contrast, it is richly described in certain Eastern traditions, most notably in Confucian philosophy.
As you can see in the image below, according to this theory, there are two forces that might motivate me to give my daughter new shoes. The first is a desire to increase happiness; the second is the desire to be a good dad. While utilitarianism focuses only on the consequences that an action might have, someone who subscribes to Role Ethics would argue that there are certain obligations that arise from the particular positions I occupy in society that provide moral reasons for action, irrespective of the consequences.
A Big Bounce
What emerges from this picture is an alternative to the utilitarian framework advanced by Singer and his proponents. Morality isn’t just about maximizing happiness. It’s also about recognizing and honoring the particular set of roles and relationships that we occupy in the world, irrespective of the consequences.
The problem, then, is not with Effective Altruism itself. The problem is the moral theory it’s built upon.
In this sense, Effective Altruism, like a trampoline, teaches us about ourselves. By vividly illustrating the limits of utilitarianism, it reveals the areas in our lives where other moral demands may hold sway.
Even further, it shows us that we relational beings, whose lives are embedded in communities.
We can’t live good lives without acknowledging this part of ourselves.
Quote edited for readability.
Likewise.