In September 1973, hi-fi sound equipment mogul Avery Fisher built a 10 million dollar giant gift (about $70 million in today’s dollars) to the New York Philharmonic. Thankfully, Lincoln Center has renamed the venue where the orchestra performs Avery Fisher Hall. Fisher was Allegedly reluctant agreed to name the hall after him, but nevertheless, the grant specified that His name will be used “everlasting”.
But in 2015, Lincoln Center wanted more money, and record company billionaire David Geffen wanted to put his name on something. He wanted the hall to be renamed in his honor, though the Fisher name would remain in perpetuity.
give successful with a $100 million gift to Lincoln Center and—perhaps more importantly— Lincoln Center awarded Fisher’s descendants $15 million So they won’t sue. It meant that New York City’s most prominent cultural organization would fire up $15 million to put Geffen’s name on a concert hall.
That $15 million didn’t even go toward renovating the hall—it was just a bribe to Geffen’s own vanity, diverting $15 million from other things Lincoln Center had invested in. Don’t worry though, another $100 million has reportedly helped various “phonological error” In the concert hall.
Meanwhile, approx 586,000 peopleMost of them children under the age of 5, died in 2015 of malaria, a disease that is easily treatable and preventable with cheap interventions that Geffen could have funded instead. But he wanted his name in a theater.
A The New York Times piece this weekHowever, warns that we are in danger of paying too much money to malaria and not enough money to less optimized causes, such as fixing acoustic defects in concert halls. Author Emma Goldberg laments that effective altruism (EA), which asks us to use logic and evidence to find charitable causes that can do the most good per dollar, has become “the dominant way of thinking about charity,” which “argues , basically, that you can’t feel good about doing anything.”
The second claim is so outlandish that it’s hard to know where to start: I’ve been part of the EA community for a decade at this point, and I’ve never heard anyone argue that you shouldn’t feel good about helping others. Most EAs I know have A complex and nuanced sense of how their emotions and their giving are related. In general, if you hear a group describe believing something that is obviously ridiculous, you should consider the possibility that you are being lied to.
But the first claim, that EA has become the dominant way that charity is done in the United States, is more inaccurate and more deceptive. D Best data I’ve ever seen Collective Grants From major functional philanthropic groups — such as donations from Open Philanthropy groups, individual donations through GiveWell, etc. — it was found that EA funders contributed just under $900 million in 2022. These grants were mostly, but not exclusively, US
on the contrary, Total US charitable giving in 2022 was $499 billion. This means that even if all EA funds were in the US, it would be 0.18 percent of all giving. The total awarded to industry alone that year was $24.67 billion, or 27 times more than was allocated based on the EA concept.
Put differently: US philanthropy is still very, very a lot Rich people like David Geffen care more about donating to people dying of malaria, or animal torture on factory farms, or preventing epidemics and deaths from out-of-control AI than having their names slapped at concerts.
Pretending otherwise, however, excludes more complacent philanthropists for refusing to think about the consequences of their actions. Goldberg quotes the author and political philosopher with approval Amy SchillerArguing that philanthropic funds are better spent rebuilding Notre Dame than anti-malarial bed nets: “He wanted to know,” Goldberg wrote of Schiller, “how can one put a numerical value on a holy place?”
The life you didn’t save
Well, here is one way. Restoration of Notre Dame A reported $760 million cost. Leading anti-malaria charity Malaria Consortium And Against Malaria Foundation $8,000 can save a life, taking the highest estimate for the latter.
Let’s double it, if it’s still too optimistic; After all, $760 million, even spread over several years, would require a massive increase in the size of these groups, and at that level of growth they may be less cost-efficient. At $16,000 per life, the Notre Dame recovery budget could save 47,500 lives from malaria.
Functional altruism often involves consideration of quantitative evidence, and as such, advocates are often accused of being more interested in numbers than humanity. But I want Notre Dame champions like Schiller to think about it from the human side.
47,500 people is almost five times the population the city I grew up in Hanover, New Hampshire, where it happens, the college where Schiller now teaches. Walking down Main Street, it’s helpful to imagine stopping at each table Dinner is at Lou’sShake hands with as many people as you can, and tell them, “I think you’d die to beautify a cathedral.” And then going next city And doing this over and over again, until you’ve told 47,500 people why they should die.
Children on top of the cathedral
EA is a branch of it in many ways ConsequentialismSchool of moral philosophy that evaluates moral actions based solely on the goodness or badness of their consequences. One of the main opponents of consequentialism is a theory called “Contractualism” Which instead asks: Are you acting on principles that no one can reasonably reject? Or, put another way, do you think you can protect everyone affected by the rule you are following?
Whatever your philosophical leanings, this is a useful thought experiment. And there are some versions of that conversation that I can imagine. I think it’s fair to tell someone at risk of malaria that they’re not getting pills or bed nets to prevent it because the money is going to develop a vaccine against tuberculosis to save more lives. This is a reasonable policy to work with.
For his part, Goldberg worries that an effective philanthropic philanthropy strategy that emphasizes, among other things, that the lives of foreigners count as equals—a fundamental part of EA—“could create bonds that people already have with local charities like soup kitchens and shelters, eroding civic alienation. “I think it’s worth thinking a little more carefully about the comparison here. Housing vouchers for people experiencing homelessness in the District of Columbia, where I currently live, Invoice up to $30,000 a year. As dire as the situation is for DC-ers facing homelessness, am I willing to let one of my neighbors in West Africa die for a year? I don’t.
That said, it’s a tougher question than Notre Dame. I can imagine convincing kids waiting for bed nets that my tax dollars will help people in need in the US, not in Nigeria, because we live in a democracy, and democracies have to be more responsive to the needs of their citizens, even if the needs are greater in a poor country like Nigeria. more I won’t feel better, but at least there are some valid reasons.
But can I imagine walking down Main Street and telling people that Notre Dame is to die for? Of course not.
If I file effective altruism for its more basic, fundamental truth, it is this: “We should let children die to rebuild a cathedral” is not a principle anyone is willing to accept. Every reasonable person should reject it.
Their philanthropic direction not toward saving the lives of wealthy Westerners like David Geffen but toward improving the acoustics of the New York Phil fills me with visceral disgust.
There are difficult questions in the ethics of philanthropy, but this is not one of them. Maybe when the bed net crew donates more than 0.18 percent, it’s worth asking if we’ve gone too far. But if the question is really Notre Dame vs. Dead Children, there is only one right answer.
