Have you ever felt like you could be doing more good?
As a community of activists working together to positively impact the world, this is a question that we at Novel Hand ask often. In our new Novel Hand book club, our first event tackled this question. Peter Singer’s The Most Good You Can Do sparked a vibrant discussion about philanthropic giving, ethical careers, and the effective altruism movement. Here are some of the highlights of our discussion, including some of the questions that motivated our conversation.
Singer and the Effective Altruism Movement
Peter Singer is a lecturer of philosophy and one of the early pioneers of the effective altruism movement. He has been called “the world’s most influential living philosopher” in response to his work advocating for those living in extreme poverty around the globe. Singer also works outside of the classroom through his talks and charitable organization to generate awareness of humanitarian issues. The Most Good You Can Do follows in his recent work to promote the effective altruism philosophy and encourage individuals to become more thoughtful givers.
In The Most Good You Can Do, Singer describes the effective altruism movement and offers examples of effective altruists making a difference in the world today. He provides a strong argument for individuals to adopt the effective altruism philosophy (which you can read more about in Erika’s article) in order to do the most good that they can. Whether or not you are fully convinced by his argument, Singer proposes many small ways that individuals can come closer to living their lives as effective altruists in the book.
Doing the Most Good
Effective altruism is based on a very simple idea: we should do the most good we can.
Peter Singer, The Most Good You Can Do
Singer emphasizes that effective altruists do “the most good” throughout the book. While his definition seems closely tied to effective monetary giving, we had a rich discussion during the book club about other ways to think about doing the most good. Rather than focusing solely on stretching our dollars the furthest to save the most lives, the book club participants offered other ideas about what “the most good” actually looks like for each of us.
Doing the most good may look like donating to organizations that have a national presence, which can be a signal of effectiveness and reason to trust the organization’s programs are impactful. The most good may also look like donating to local organizations which make a visible impact in the communities we live and work in. We also discussed how doing the most good may not look like donating money at all, but rather offering time, effort, and other non-monetary resources to reduce suffering in the world.
Bridging Global Divides through Effective Altruism
Singer adamantly contends that extreme poverty, as experienced in lesser developed countries in the Global South, is the most important issue of our time. We see this through the examples of effective organizations he describes in the book. Many of these organizations provide substantial improvements in the welfare of the individuals that they serve. During the discussion, we considered the truly global nature of many of the most pressing humanitarian problems, and how effective altruism can provide a bridge for solving these issues.
If we only address extreme poverty in the least developed countries, we may miss out on opportunities to be effective altruists in our own communities. While we largely agreed with Singer that extreme poverty is one of the most important issues we can address, we also considered other humanitarian problems that could benefit from effective altruists.
Tzu Chi is one example of this at work. This organization responds to natural disasters locally in Taiwan by rebuilding schools and supporting the community where it was founded. Yet, Tzu Chi also provides assistance to others who have faced natural disasters, including New Yorkers in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Effective altruists can work to address more than extreme poverty alone, while also responding to humanitarian needs in their local, national, and global contexts.
Reflections on The Most Good You Can Do
In addition to these short reflections from the discussion of The Most Good You Can Do, we also talked about other questions that emerged from the book. We invite you to read these questions and to think about how you might incorporate the effective altruism philosophy into your own life. This is something we discussed at length, finding that we each took away different perspectives from the book and attitudes toward the effective altruism philosophy more generally.
- Singer argues that effective altruists think logically about where to donate in order to do the most good, rather than relying on emotional empathy and reasoning to make their charitable decisions. How do you make decisions about which organizations to donate to or what types of causes you want to support?
- The effective altruism philosophy emphasizes monetary giving more than any other form of humanitarian action. This makes effective altruism less accessible for people who lack the financial security to make donations. How can you envision making effective altruism a more inclusive option for individuals who lack the ability to give up a consistent proportion of their income to effective nonprofits?
- An effective altruist may choose to accept a career where they can make more money in order to donate more to effective organizations. Singer mentions several individuals who made this choice, often at the expense of choosing careers where they could have more direct impact over humanitarian issues. Would you make the choice to earn more money to donate, or would you rather try to work for a non-profit or in some other enterprise where you can make a direct impact through your work?
If you enjoyed this article, check out the conversation that Alexa and I had to recap the book club in our podcast episode. In the next few weeks, we will host our next book club tackling Clothing Poverty by Andrew Brooks. We look forward to an engaging discussion about labor ethics and poverty in the clothing industry and sharing what we learn with the broader Novel Hand community.
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