Giving Compass' Take:

• distortedtimes unpacks the logical inconsistencies of effective altruism, arguing that there are no true effective altruists. 

• If there is no true effective altruism, donors must find their own balance between doing good well and personal happiness. What is your balance? 

• Learn how to get started with effective altruism. 

The logic of Effective Altruism is plain and simple: that if it is in your capacity to save someone and it carries a small moral cost to you, you should do what you can to help, and as effectively as possible. The problems of EA, however, stem not from the formulation of such a principle, but rather the gross simplification of such an idea void of a coherent moral framework, and myopic in its considerations.

One criticism directed towards utilitarianism is that it is “too demanding”; it claims morality necessitates you to maximise good in all (or most, as per rule-utilitarianism) circumstances, and this is impossible to achieve. The same, arguably could be applied to EA.

Setting aside the issues concerning this argument vis-a-vis utilitarianism, I think this would be an unfair criticism towards Effective Altruism. It seems almost in every article I have read on the subject, the advocates permit some extent of living a comfortable life for individual Altruists. Furthermore, Singer, in the Boston Review, implies that there could be some scope for acting less “effectively” than otherwise. For example, he notes, that a parent whose child has died from Leukaemia should feel absolutely within their right to donate to a charity researching into Leukaemia cures.

This, it seems, is quite a problem for Effective Altruism. After all, the persuasiveness of EA as being a genuine altruist who acts, donates, and gives not on the basis of feeling good but actually doing good diminishes quite quickly.

From an objective, third-person perspective, the death of your own child is no more significant than the thousands dying from a famine. And so why should you even feel more strongly about your child in the first place? The only reasonable explanation, it appears, would be to concede that after all we are just human, and it is only human to slip into such mistakes.

This, in my view, is precisely the problem with EA. On one hand, it seeks to maintain some of basic, non-consequential moral instincts that we hold- say, reciprocity to your friends and family, abiding by the law etc.- and the idea of maximising good. It falls short of drawing a clear distinction between the two.

Why not sacrifice all of my time and money, even to the extent of depriving my dependents of a decent western standard of living, so I could save some people in poorer countries. After all, even if I can’t afford to send my child to school and 80% of income has gone, we would still be significantly better off than the dying Bengali. They will die if I don’t donate. My family will still live. Clearly, a bad life > no life at all; the two are not of comparable moral significance. Why should I not spend everything on giving to effective charities then?

Read the full article about the problems of effective altruism at distortedtimes.