80,000 Hours and Giving What We Can

There is an ongoing discourse spanning the centuries on charitable giving. History will place classical philanthropy in ancient Greece where it was intrinsically philosophical. Practical philanthropy, certainly in the British Isles, can be traced to the Scottish Enlightenment and the works of the English politician, Anthony Ashley-Cooper (1671-1713), who stressed the existence in humanity of a natural moral kind, and the Irish philosopher, Francis Hutcheson (1694-1746), who proposed in opposition to Hobbes’s theories that human beings have an inner desire to do good. This articulation gave rise to charitable and philanthropic activities among several sectors of society.

Over time some have promoted the virtue as something ethical or spiritual while others have cautioned against it for a number of reasons. At one end of the spectrum in a 1972 essay ‘Famine, Affluence and Morality’, Professor Peter Singer argued that ‘we ought to give until we reach the level of marginal utility – that is, the level at which, by giving more, I would cause as much suffering to myself or my dependents as I would relieve by my gift.’ Singer’s excessive advocacy of an ascetic lifestyle would not be appealing to most of us. At the opposite end of the spectrum, while we can’t pull together a literature on the-scrooge-philosophy-of-not-giving, it would not be unreasonable to suggest that some echoes of the miserly protagonist Ebenezer Scrooge from Dickens’s 1843 novel, A Christmas Carol, can sometimes be heard. But here too, Scrooge’s excessive advocacy is not a practice most of us would adhere to.

Toby Ord 

Somewhere in the middle are those who take a moderate view of giving (we give what we can), and those who take a moderate view of not giving (by offering critiques on charitable organisations). A cluster of recent initiatives suggests that the philosophy of giving is making headway in the consciousness of the more philosophically minded. Oxford University scholar Toby Ord founded the society Giving What We Can (www.givingwhatwecan.org) in 2009. Giving What We Can is ‘dedicated to eliminating poverty in the developing world...[and believes]...that our comparative wealth can prevent a significant amount of suffering if only we allow it to do so.’ The members of that organisation have taken a pledge to give at least 10% of their incomes to relieving suffering. Their work also involves examining ‘the effectiveness of different aid programs’ and ‘expos[ing] all the weak arguments against giving’. You can read their deconstruction of eight persistent myths about aid on their website if you are interested.

Peter Singer

On that note is a November 2012 article on ‘How Charity makes Life Worse for Africans’ (http://fw.to/mDOpADW) published by the Telegraph. Researchers from the University of Bristol (in conjunction with Addis Ababa University) found a link between giving to African villages and urban poverty. The study suggests that ‘improving water supplies in villages increased the population, forcing...young people [aged between 15 and 30] to move to the city slums to find work.’ It goes on to suggest that those ‘with access to taps were three times more likely to migrate’ to the city and end up living in slums. While the research itself is in no way suggesting that rural Africa should remain without access to tap water but instead focuses on identifying ‘unforeseen consequences of international development’, the underlying idea of the Telegraph reporters does echo the growing rationale against charitable work in the developing world.

80,000 Hours Team

We will of course never be unified on the topic. Not everyone will give. But if you are already persuaded that giving is a good thing and want to make a difference with the 80,000 hours it’s estimated you will have in your lifetime career then I want to introduce you to an organisation called 80,000 Hours (www.80000hours.org). 80,000 Hours was founded in October 2011 to help people with an altruist vision to use the 80,000 hours they have in their career to make an impact on the world. They ‘provide life-changing one-on-one career coaching...for people who want a meaningful career that makes a real difference.’ Even if you’re not persuaded by the altruist lifestyle you may still want to take a look. Altruism is a dominant movement in the world despite some negative press given to charitable work; and altruists have impacted a countless number of lives over the years. Organisations like Giving What We Can and 80,000 Hours restore faith in humanity in a world where corporate structures have to do with what we can accomplish for ourselves – often at the expense of somebody.