Peter Singer: The why and how of effective altruism

Summary

The video script recounts a tragic incident in China, where a toddler was hit by a van and ignored by passersby, highlighting the moral challenge of bystander apathy. It transitions to discuss global issues like child mortality from poverty-related diseases and introduces the concept of 'effective altruism', urging individuals to donate to highly impactful charities like the Against Malaria Foundation. The talk emphasizes the power of reasoned empathy and strategic giving to make a significant difference in the world, citing examples of individuals and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation who have profoundly impacted lives through thoughtful philanthropy.

Takeaways

• 😢 The script recounts a tragic incident in China where a two-year-old girl named Wang Yue was hit by a van and ignored by passersby, highlighting a societal indifference that led to her death.
• 🔍 It raises a moral question about the difference between ignoring a child in need in person versus those dying from preventable diseases far away, suggesting that distance and visibility should not affect our moral obligations.
• 💡 Peter Singer introduces the concept of effective altruism, urging individuals to use both their heart and head to make a difference by donating to effective charities rather than spending on unnecessary items.
• 🌟 The Against Malaria Foundation is highlighted as an organization that efficiently uses donations to save lives by providing life-saving malaria nets to children in developing countries.
• 📉 UNICEF data is cited to show the significant reduction in child mortality rates from 12 million in 1990 to 6.9 million in 2011, emphasizing that progress is being made but there is still much work to be done.
• 🤔 The script challenges the audience to consider their own potential impact, asking if they would have helped Wang Yue and encouraging them to reflect on how they can help in other ways.
• 💼 The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is presented as an example of effective altruism on a grand scale, with its mission to save lives through intelligent philanthropy.
• 💰 The script discusses the power of individual giving, suggesting that even without being a billionaire, one can make a significant impact through thoughtful donations and lifestyle choices.
• 🤝 The importance of community in effective altruism is underscored, with examples of individuals like Toby Ord and organizations like Giving What We Can that encourage collective action for greater impact.
• 📚 The role of reason and critical thinking in choosing careers and charitable actions that maximize positive impact is emphasized, with a nod to those with backgrounds in philosophy, economics, and math.
• 🌱 The script concludes with a call to action, suggesting that effective altruism can provide a sense of fulfillment and purpose, moving beyond the materialistic treadmill to a life of meaningful contribution.

Q & A

What incident deeply unsettled millions in China and was captured on camera?

A two-year-old girl named Wang Yue was hit by a van and left bleeding in the street by passersby, with the entire accident caught on camera.

What was the driver's reaction after hitting the child in the video?

The driver paused after hitting the child, with his back wheels resting on her for over a second.

How many people passed by Wang Yue within two minutes after the accident?

Within two minutes, three people passed by the injured Wang Yue.

What happened to Wang Yue after the second van ran over her legs?

A street cleaner raised the alarm, and she was rushed to the hospital, but it was too late, and she died.

According to Peter Singer, what is the morally relevant difference between helping a child in the street and helping distant children dying from poverty-related diseases?

Peter Singer argues that the physical distance, nationality, or race of the children does not make a morally relevant difference; what is important is whether we can reduce the death toll and save lives.

How many children under five died from preventable, poverty-related diseases in 2011 according to UNICEF?

UNICEF reported that 6.9 million children under five died from preventable, poverty-related diseases in 2011.

What organization does the speaker suggest donating to in order to help reduce child mortality from malaria?

The speaker suggests donating to the Against Malaria Foundation to help reduce child mortality from malaria.

What is the concept of 'effective altruism' as discussed in the script?

Effective altruism is a growing movement that combines empathy (the heart) and rational thinking (the head) to ensure that charitable actions are effective, well-directed, and aimed at making a significant positive impact.

What is the estimated number of lives saved by the Gates Foundation according to the speaker?

According to the speaker, the Gates Foundation has saved an estimated 5.8 million lives.

What is the main purpose of the organization 'Giving What We Can' founded by Toby Ord?

The main purpose of 'Giving What We Can' is to unite people who want to share a percentage of their income to fight global poverty and to encourage them to pledge to give 10 percent of what they earn over their lifetime to effective charities.

What career advice does Will Crouch's website '80,000 Hours' offer for those wanting to have a significant positive impact on the world?

Will Crouch's '80,000 Hours' advises people on how to have the most effective career, suggesting that careers in banking or finance can be impactful if the money earned is donated to effective aid organizations.

How much money does it cost to train a guide dog for a blind person compared to curing blindness in a developing country through trachoma treatment?

It costs about $40,000 to train a guide dog and train the recipient, whereas it costs between $20 and $50 to cure a blind person in a developing country with trachoma.

What are some of the websites recommended in the script for finding effective charities?

The script recommends websites like GiveWell, thelifeyoucansave.com, and Giving What We Can to find effective charities.

What is the 'Sisyphus problem' mentioned by the speaker, and how does effective altruism help overcome it?

The 'Sisyphus problem' refers to the never-ending cycle of working hard to earn money and then spending it on consumer goods in pursuit of happiness, which is likened to the myth of Sisyphus. Effective altruism helps overcome this by providing a meaningful purpose and fulfillment through making a significant positive impact on the world.

What did Chris Croy do that was influenced by the speaker's writings, and how does he relate his action to donating money to the Against Malaria Foundation?

Chris Croy anonymously donated his right kidney to a stranger, which started a kidney chain enabling four people to receive kidneys. He related his action to donating money to the Against Malaria Foundation by calculating that the life-years added by his donation was similar to the impact of donating $5,000 to the foundation.

Outlines

00:00

😢 The Tragic Tale of Indifference and the Power of Altruism

The first paragraph introduces a heart-wrenching video of a two-year-old girl, Wang Yue, who was hit by a van and ignored by passersby, leading to her tragic death. It contrasts this with the broader issue of preventable child deaths due to poverty-related diseases, highlighting the moral equivalence of these distant tragedies to the incident caught on camera. The paragraph calls for a shift in perspective, urging individuals to consider the impact they can have by donating to effective charities like the Against Malaria Foundation, which can save lives with relatively small donations. The concept of 'effective altruism' is introduced as a movement that combines empathy with strategic giving to maximize the positive impact of charitable efforts.

05:01

🤓 The Impact of Intelligent Philanthropy and Effective Altruism

This paragraph emphasizes the significance of using both heart and mind in philanthropy, citing the example of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has significantly reduced preventable deaths through strategic giving. It discusses the potential for individuals, regardless of their wealth, to make a substantial difference by donating a portion of their income to effective causes. The narrative includes personal stories of individuals like Toby Ord, who pledged to donate a significant portion of his income to charity, and the establishment of organizations like 'Giving What We Can,' which encourages others to commit to donating a percentage of their income to fight global poverty.

10:04

💼 Careers for Good: The Intersection of Professional Success and Philanthropy

The third paragraph explores the idea that one's career choice can be a powerful tool for philanthropy, especially if it enables earning and donating significant amounts of money to effective charities. It introduces Will Crouch's '80,000 Hours' initiative, which guides people on how to choose careers that maximize their positive impact. The narrative also presents the story of Matt Weiger, who chose a career in finance to earn and donate substantial amounts to effective charities, and the broader 'The Life You Can Save' organization that encourages a culture of ethical sharing and giving.

15:07

🚀 Beyond Money: The Multifaceted Approach to Effective Altruism

The final paragraph delves into the effectiveness of different charitable actions, using the example of the cost comparison between providing guide dogs versus curing blindness in developing countries. It highlights the importance of identifying and supporting the most effective charities, mentioning GiveWell and other resources that help donors make informed choices. The narrative also touches on the importance of ensuring human survival and the various causes that effective altruists might support, from reducing animal suffering to mitigating existential risks. It concludes with personal reflections on the fulfillment that comes from giving and the transformative impact of effective altruism on individuals' lives.

Keywords

💡Effective Altruism

Effective Altruism is a philosophical and social movement that uses evidence and reason to determine the most effective ways to benefit others. In the video, it is presented as a growing movement that combines empathy with rational thinking to maximize the positive impact of charitable actions. The concept is exemplified through individuals like Toby Ord, who pledged to donate a significant portion of his income to fight global poverty.

💡Preventable Diseases

Preventable Diseases refer to illnesses that can be avoided through measures such as vaccination, sanitation, or other health interventions. The video script highlights that 6.9 million children under five died in 2011 from preventable, poverty-related diseases, emphasizing the urgency and potential for impact through effective altruism.

💡Against Malaria Foundation

The Against Malaria Foundation is an organization mentioned in the script that uses donations to buy insecticide-treated bed nets to prevent malaria, a major cause of child mortality in developing countries. The script suggests that donating to such effective organizations can significantly reduce the death toll from preventable diseases.

💡Global Poverty

Global Poverty is the state of many individuals worldwide who lack sufficient resources to meet their basic needs. The video discusses how individuals can contribute to alleviating global poverty through effective altruism by donating a portion of their income or time to organizations that fight against it.

💡Moral Relevance

Moral Relevance in the context of the video script refers to the ethical significance of the distance or difference in nationality and race when it comes to helping others. The speaker argues that these factors should not morally affect our decision to help those in need, whether they are close by or far away.

💡Rational Understanding

Rational Understanding is the concept of using reason and logic to comprehend and act upon the world's problems. The video emphasizes the importance of not only feeling empathy but also using rational understanding to ensure that charitable actions are effective and well-directed.

💡Philanthropy

Philanthropy is the act of promoting the welfare of others, typically through the donation of money to good causes. The script mentions figures like Bill and Melinda Gates, Warren Buffett, and Andrew Carnegie, who have made significant philanthropic contributions, highlighting the impact of intelligent and effective giving.

💡Guide Dog vs. Cure for Blindness

This comparison in the script is used to illustrate the concept of cost-effectiveness in charity. It points out that the money spent on training a guide dog for one blind person in a developed country could be used to cure blindness for hundreds or thousands of people in developing countries, emphasizing the importance of finding the most effective ways to help.

💡Kidney Donation

Kidney Donation is highlighted in the video as an example of an altruistic act that can save lives. The speaker mentions an individual who donated a kidney to a stranger, which initiated a chain reaction enabling multiple people to receive life-saving transplants, demonstrating personal sacrifice for the benefit of others.

💡Hedonic Treadmill

The Hedonic Treadmill is a psychological concept suggesting that people tend to return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes. In the script, it is used metaphorically to describe the consumer lifestyle, where constant work and spending do not lead to lasting satisfaction, contrasting with the fulfillment gained from effective altruism.

💡Self-Esteem

Self-Esteem in the video is discussed as a solid basis for feeling that one's life has been worth living. The speaker suggests that engaging in effective altruism can provide a sense of meaning and fulfillment, which in turn boosts self-esteem, as opposed to the fleeting satisfaction of material consumption.

Highlights

A two-year-old girl named Wang Yue was hit by a van and ignored by passersby, leading to her death, which deeply unsettled millions in China.

Peter Singer raises the moral question of our responsibility towards distant suffering, comparing it to the ignored toddler.

UNICEF reports a significant reduction in child mortality but still highlights the preventable deaths of 19,000 children daily.

Singer emphasizes the moral irrelevance of distance or nationality in our duty to help those in need.

The Against Malaria Foundation is presented as an effective organization to donate to, in order to save lives.

Effective altruism is introduced as a movement combining empathy and rationality to maximize the positive impact of our actions.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is highlighted for its significant impact and the philosophy of 'All lives have equal value'.

Toby Ord's personal commitment to donate and the founding of Giving What We Can is shared as an example of individual effectiveness.

The concept of effective careers is introduced, with the suggestion to consider high-earning professions to donate more.

Matt Weiger's story is shared as an example of using a career in finance to donate significant sums to effective charities.

The organization 'The Life You Can Save' aims to change cultural perceptions about ethical living and sharing resources.

GiveWell is mentioned as a resource for assessing and recommending effective charities.

The comparison between providing a guide dog versus curing blindness in developing countries highlights the importance of effectiveness in charity.

The effectiveness of different charities is discussed, with some being hundreds or thousands of times more effective than others.

The introduction of Effective Animal Activism as a resource for finding organizations that reduce animal suffering.

The significance of reducing existential risks to humanity, such as asteroid collisions, as a focus for effective altruism.

Personal stories of giving, such as Chris Croy's kidney donation, are shared to inspire and demonstrate the impact of altruism.

Singer concludes by reflecting on the fulfillment and meaning effective altruism brings to individuals' lives, beyond material consumption.

Transcripts

Translator: Joseph Geni Reviewer: Morton Bast

There's something that I'd like you to see.

(Video) Reporter: It's a story that's deeply unsettled

millions in China:

footage of a two-year-old girl

hit by a van and left bleeding in the street by passersby,

footage too graphic to be shown.

The entire accident is caught on camera.

The driver pauses after hitting the child,

his back wheels seen resting on her for over a second.

Within two minutes, three people pass two-year-old Wang Yue by.

The first walks around the badly injured toddler completely.

Others look at her before moving off.

Peter Singer: There were other people

who walked past Wang Yue,

and a second van ran over her legs

before a street cleaner raised the alarm.

She was rushed to hospital, but it was too late. She died.

I wonder how many of you, looking at that,

said to yourselves just now, "I would not have done that.

I would have stopped to help."

Raise your hands if that thought occurred to you.

As I thought, that's most of you.

And I believe you. I'm sure you're right.

But before you give yourself too much credit,

look at this.

UNICEF reports that in 2011,

6.9 million children under five

died from preventable, poverty-related diseases.

UNICEF thinks that that's good news

because the figure has been steadily coming down

from 12 million in 1990. That is good.

But still, 6.9 million

is 19,000 children dying every day.

Does it really matter

that we're not walking past them in the street?

Does it really matter that they're far away?

I don't think it does make a morally relevant difference.

The fact that they're not right in front of us,

the fact, of course, that they're of a different nationality

or race, none of that seems morally relevant to me.

What is really important is,

can we reduce that death toll? Can we save

some of those 19,000 children dying every day?

And the answer is, yes we can.

Each of us spends money

on things that we do not really need.

You can think what your own habit is,

whether it's a new car, a vacation

or just something like buying bottled water

when the water that comes out of the tap

is perfectly safe to drink.

You could take the money you're spending

on those unnecessary things

and give it to this organization,

the Against Malaria Foundation,

which would take the money you had given

and use it to buy nets like this one

to protect children like this one,

and we know reliably that if we provide nets,

they're used, and they reduce the number of children

dying from malaria,

just one of the many preventable diseases

that are responsible for some of those 19,000 children

dying every day.

Fortunately, more and more people

are understanding this idea,

and the result is a growing movement:

effective altruism.

It's important because it combines both the heart and the head.

The heart, of course, you felt.

You felt the empathy for that child.

But it's really important to use the head as well

to make sure that what you do is effective and well-directed,

and not only that, but also I think reason helps us

to understand that other people, wherever they are,

are like us, that they can suffer as we can,

that parents grieve for the deaths of their children,

as we do,

and that just as our lives and our well-being matter to us,

it matters just as much to all of these people.

So I think reason is not just some neutral tool

to help you get whatever you want.

It does help us to put perspective on our situation.

And I think that's why

many of the most significant people in effective altruism

have been people who have had backgrounds

in philosophy or economics or math.

And that might seem surprising,

because a lot of people think,

"Philosophy is remote from the real world;

economics, we're told, just makes us more selfish,

and we know that math is for nerds."

But in fact it does make a difference,

and in fact there's one particular nerd

who has been a particularly effective altruist

because he got this.

This is the website of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,

and if you look at the words on the top right-hand side,

it says, "All lives have equal value."

That's the understanding,

the rational understanding of our situation in the world

that has led to these people

being the most effective altruists in history,

Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett.

(Applause)

No one, not Andrew Carnegie, not John D. Rockefeller,

has ever given as much to charity

as each one of these three,

and they have used their intelligence

to make sure that it is highly effective.

According to one estimate, the Gates Foundation

has already saved 5.8 million lives

and many millions more, people, getting diseases

that would have made them very sick,

even if eventually they survived.

Over the coming years, undoubtably the Gates Foundation

is going to give a lot more,

is going to save a lot more lives.

Well, you might say, that's fine if you're a billionaire,

you can have that kind of impact.

But if I'm not, what can I do?

So I'm going to look at four questions that people ask

that maybe stand in the way of them giving.

They worry how much of a difference they can make.

But you don't have to be a billionaire.

This is Toby Ord. He's a research fellow in philosophy

at the University of Oxford.

He became an effective altruist when he calculated

that with the money that he was likely to earn

throughout his career, an academic career,

he could give enough to cure 80,000 people of blindness

in developing countries

and still have enough left

for a perfectly adequate standard of living.

So Toby founded an organization

called Giving What We Can to spread this information,

to unite people who want to share some of their income,

and to ask people to pledge to give 10 percent

of what they earn over their lifetime

to fighting global poverty.

Toby himself does better than that.

He's pledged to live on 18,000 pounds a year --

that's less than 30,000 dollars --

and to give the rest to those organizations.

And yes, Toby is married and he does have a mortgage.

This is a couple at a later stage of life,

Charlie Bresler and Diana Schott,

who, when they were young, when they met,

were activists against the Vietnam War,

fought for social justice,

and then moved into careers, as most people do,

didn't really do anything very active about those values,

although they didn't abandon them.

And then, as they got to the age at which many people

start to think of retirement, they returned to them,

and they've decided to cut back on their spending,

to live modestly, and to give both money and time

to helping to fight global poverty.

Now, mentioning time might lead you to think,

"Well, should I abandon my career and put all of my time

into saving some of these 19,000 lives

that are lost every day?"

One person who's thought quite a bit about this issue

of how you can have a career that will have

the biggest impact for good in the world is Will Crouch.

He's a graduate student in philosophy,

and he's set up a website called 80,000 Hours,

the number of hours he estimates

most people spend on their career,

to advise people on how to have the best,

most effective career.

But you might be surprised to know

that one of the careers that he encourages people to consider,

if they have the right abilities and character,

is to go into banking or finance.

Why? Because if you earn a lot of money,

you can give away a lot of money,

and if you're successful in that career,

you could give enough to an aid organization

so that it could employ, let's say, five aid workers

in developing countries, and each one of them

would probably do about as much good

as you would have done.

So you can quintuple the impact

by leading that kind of career.

Here's one young man who's taken this advice.

His name is Matt Weiger.

He was a student at Princeton in philosophy and math,

actually won the prize for the best undergraduate philosophy thesis

last year when he graduated.

But he's gone into finance in New York.

He's already earning enough

so that he's giving a six-figure sum to effective charities

and still leaving himself with enough to live on.

Matt has also helped me to set up an organization

that I'm working with that has the name taken

from the title of a book I wrote,

"The Life You Can Save,"

which is trying to change our culture

so that more people think that

if we're going to live an ethical life,

it's not enough just to follow the thou-shalt-nots

and not cheat, steal, maim, kill,

but that if we have enough, we have to share some of that

with people who have so little.

And the organization draws together people

of different generations,

like Holly Morgan, who's an undergraduate,

who's pledged to give 10 percent

of the little amount that she has,

and on the right, Ada Wan,

who has worked directly for the poor, but has now

gone to Yale to do an MBA to have more to give.

Many people will think, though,

that charities aren't really all that effective.

So let's talk about effectiveness.

Toby Ord is very concerned about this,

and he's calculated that some charities

are hundreds or even thousands of times

more effective than others,

so it's very important to find the effective ones.

Take, for example, providing a guide dog for a blind person.

That's a good thing to do, right?

Well, right, it is a good thing to do,

but you have to think what else you could do with the resources.

It costs about 40,000 dollars to train a guide dog

and train the recipient so that the guide dog

can be an effective help to a blind person.

It costs somewhere between 20 and 50 dollars

to cure a blind person in a developing country

if they have trachoma.

So you do the sums, and you get something like that.

You could provide one guide dog

for one blind American,

or you could cure between 400

and 2,000 people of blindness.

I think it's clear what's the better thing to do.

But if you want to look for effective charities,

this is a good website to go to.

GiveWell exists to really assess the impact of charities,

not just whether they're well-run,

and it's screened hundreds of charities

and currently is recommending only three,

of which the Against Malaria Foundation is number one.

So it's very tough. If you want to look for other recommendations,

thelifeyoucansave.com and Giving What We Can

both have a somewhat broader list,

but you can find effective organizations,

and not just in the area of saving lives from the poor.

I'm pleased to say that there is now also a website

looking at effective animal organizations.

That's another cause that I've been concerned about

all my life, the immense amount of suffering

that humans inflict

on literally tens of billions of animals every year.

So if you want to look for effective organizations

to reduce that suffering,

you can go to Effective Animal Activism.

And some effective altruists think it's very important

to make sure that our species survives at all.

So they're looking at ways to reduce the risk of extinction.

Here's one risk of extinction that we all became aware of

recently, when an asteroid passed close to our planet.

Possibly research could help us not only to predict

the path of asteroids that might collide with us,

but actually to deflect them.

So some people think that would be a good thing to give to.

There's many possibilities.

My final question is,

some people will think it's a burden to give.

I don't really believe it is.

I've enjoyed giving all of my life

since I was a graduate student.

It's been something fulfilling to me.

Charlie Bresler said to me that he's not an altruist.

He thinks that the life he's saving is his own.

And Holly Morgan told me that she used to battle depression

until she got involved with effective altruism,

and now is one of the happiest people she knows.

I think one of the reasons for this

is that being an effective altruist helps to overcome

what I call the Sisyphus problem.

Here's Sisyphus as portrayed by Titian,

condemned by the gods to push a huge boulder

up to the top of the hill.

Just as he gets there, the effort becomes too much,

the boulder escapes, rolls all the way down the hill,

he has to trudge back down to push it up again,

and the same thing happens again and again

for all eternity.

Does that remind you of a consumer lifestyle,

where you work hard to get money,

you spend that money on consumer goods

which you hope you'll enjoy using?

But then the money's gone, you have to work hard

to get more, spend more, and to maintain

the same level of happiness, it's kind of a hedonic treadmill.

You never get off, and you never really feel satisfied.

Becoming an effective altruist gives you

that meaning and fulfillment.

It enables you to have a solid basis for self-esteem

on which you can feel your life was really worth living.

I'm going to conclude by telling you

about an email that I received

while I was writing this talk just a month or so ago.

It's from a man named Chris Croy, who I'd never heard of.

This is a picture of him showing him recovering from surgery.

Why was he recovering from surgery?

The email began, "Last Tuesday,

I anonymously donated my right kidney to a stranger.

That started a kidney chain

which enabled four people to receive kidneys."

There's about 100 people each year in the U.S.

and more in other countries who do that.

I was pleased to read it. Chris went on to say

that he'd been influenced by my writings in what he did.

Well, I have to admit, I'm also somewhat embarrassed by that,

because I still have two kidneys.

But Chris went on to say that he didn't think

that what he'd done was all that amazing,

because he calculated that the number of life-years

that he had added to people, the extension of life,

was about the same that you could achieve

if you gave 5,000 dollars to the Against Malaria Foundation.

And that did make me feel a little bit better,

because I have given more than 5,000 dollars

to the Against Malaria Foundation

and to various other effective charities.

So if you're feeling bad

because you still have two kidneys as well,

there's a way for you to get off the hook.

Thank you.

(Applause)