The Why And How Of Effective Altruism: A Companion Piece To My Charity Science Christmas Fundraising

The Why and How of Effective AltruismA companion piece to my Charity Science Christmas fundraising

tw/c: discussion of disability.

What do we owe to the world’s poor? When does charity become duty?These are just some of the questions the 1971 essay, Famine, Affluence, and Morality asks us to consider. It was written at a time of immense humanitarian need in East Bengal, where, through civil war, as many as nine million people had been displaced. The international response, Singerargues, was woefully inadequate. Although Britain had given, at the time of his writing, £14,750,000 in relief funds, a comparably greater sum than was given by other wealthy nations, it had given (in nonrecoverable development costs) in excess of £275,000,000 to the Anglo-French Concorde project. The implication, rightly or wrongly surmised, was ‘that the British government value[d] a supersonic transport more than thirty times as highly as […] the lives of nine million refugees.’ Today, Britain’s budget for foreign aid is set at 0.7% of GDP, roughly £12bn, a target first agreed upon by the UN 45 years ago. Ostensibly it is the first G8 nation to meet that target. Of its budget, pound1bn has been given to refugees in Syria in similar circumstances to those in East Bengal more than 40 years ago.

But we could, and should, be doing much more.

While 1.4 billion people still live in extreme poverty, a billion others live in relative affluence. For those fortunate to be reading this blog, and I hope considering donating here or elsewhere this Christmas, the indubitable circumstances of our being among the world’s wealthiest are striking. Such is our fortune that compared with our great-grandparents we can expect to live thirty years longer. In the most affluent nations, where one child in every ten died in infancy one hundred years ago, only one in two hundred die today. Each of us enjoys something without which we remain comfortably well-off, without fear of irregular access to clean water or sanitation. As I wrote in my fundraising descri ption, for the cost of that cup of coffee you could save the life of a child.

That many of us donate, perhaps even regularly, to charitable organisations, often giving much more than the equivalent cost of a cup of coffee is then significant. Last year (2014) in Britain eight out of ten people surveyed by the CAF (Charities Aid Foundation) reported participating in ‘at least one charitable giving or social action activity.’ Of those who gave regularly, the average monthly donation was £14.00. Yet many of these donations, however generous, fell short at seriously improving the lives of the most destitute. As the CAF reports, while only 12% of donors gave to religious causes donors of religious causes gave the most generously amounting in monetary terms to 14% of all donations in 2014. The category ‘overseas’ received by comparison only 12% of all such donations, although 20% of donors, a group nearly twice as large, reported having made such donations. A further two-thirds of donors surveyed reported giving variously to the categories ‘medical’ and ‘children,’ and a further 12% to the category ‘disabled.’ Perhaps the most popular recipient of charitable donations in the category ‘disabled,’ Guide Dogs for the Blind reported creating 820 new partnerships last year dramatically improving the well-being of 820 people for five to six years (the average working life of a guide dog).

But at an estimated average cost of pound32,400 per partnership, and a further £12,800 after training, we must ask how, indeed if, we are justified in donating large sums of money ineffectively where we might give less and do more good elsewhere. Indeed in developing countries, where more than 21 million people have an active trachoma infection (a bacterial infection causing blindness) and where prevention is available for as little as 35p per person per year preventing blindness for 820 people may cost as little as £287.00 a figure substantially less great than the estimated average cost of one guide dog partnership and still significantly less great even than the further cost of £12,800 after training. Further still, treatment of an active trachoma infection may cost as little as pound8.00 per person. Multiplied again by 820, this figure, at £6560, is till substantially less great than the cost of initial training for one partnership and still nearly two times less expensive than the further cost after training needed to support such a partnership.

In The Why and How of Effective Altruism, the subject of my blog, Singer argues similarly. ‘You could provide one guide dog for one blind American,’ he remarks, ‘or you could cure between 400 and 2000 people of blindness. I think it’s clear what’s the better thing to do.’ In my fundraising, then, I ask not only that you donate rather than buy me a gift this Christmas, but also that you think about how you might do the most good. You wouldn’t, walking by a pond, ignore the splashing of a drowning child for fear of ruining your shoes. Instead, you would wade in to rescue them no matter the damage to your shoes. Across the world, there are millions of people living in destitution whose lives you could significantly improve for the cost of a pair of shoes, and indeed often much less.

We owe a great deal to the world’s poor.

Charity becomes duty precisely when at little disadvantage to our own well-being we might drastically improve the lives of others.