Imagine youre walking down the street and see a building on fire, he says. You run in, kick the door down—smoke billowing—you run in and save a young child. That would be a pretty amazing day in your life: Thats a day that would stay with you forever. Who wouldnt want to have that experience? But the most effective charities can save a life for $4,000, so many of us are lucky enough that we can save a life every year through our donations. When youre able to achieve so much at such low cost to yourself…why wouldnt you do that? The only reason not to is that youre stuck in the status quo, where giving away so much of your income seems a little bit odd. [...] Walking into an interview with a philosopher, never mind one with a focus on altruism, I think I could be forgiven for expecting a lot more moralism and perhaps some browbeating for my (averagely) slothful, selfish ways. Instead, it was notable how little MacAskill talked about what we ought to do at all, and how completely focused he was on altruism as an opportunity. Despite the fact that he was telling me stories and facts and figures that (lets be honest) he has presumably recited in similar ways on countless previous occasions, MacAskill got visibly excited when talking about the very best charities; he had a genuine, childlike awe for how much one person can do to alleviate suffering in the world. It struck me that, through the effective altruism movement, MacAskill seemed to have solved some of the big psychological problems of being a fortunate person in a wealthy country in the modern world. Through the predictability of the pledge, he had overcome the strange malaise of knowing intellectually that youre in the top percentiles of the income distribution out of all the people who currently exist—on average, the bottom 5 percent of the U.S. income distribution has a higher income than the top 5 percent of the Indian income distribution, even after adjusting for the cost of living—and yet spending your days consumed by jealousy because the magical square in your neighbors pocket is ever-so-slightly newer than the magical square in yours. Through rigorous research into effective charity, MacAskill had discovered ways to use his resources to save lives at surprisingly little cost. And through building a network of people committed to the same ideas, he had found a community and sense of meaning that all too many of us feel we lack. This is not at all to say that the philosophy side of things doesnt matter—the details of MacAskills approach come down to taking seriously complex arguments about how to evaluate the impact we have, and he would be the last person to claim Well, so long as we feel warm and fuzzy then what were doing must be okay. But the reasons he does what he does, and encourages others to do the same, depend much less on moral reasoning than I expected: He just sees an amazing opportunity to have a more satisfying life for oneself through doing more good for others. As such, more than anything, MacAskill seems like a person who has just discovered some kind of cheat-code for the universe. And to be honest—while its clearly impossible from a few interactions with someone to really get a measure of their innermost emotional state—one of MacAskills notable features is that he seems to have attained a quiet, personal satisfaction and a sort of inner peace and confidence that I dont believe would be possible to fake. I came into the interview expecting to feel that, by devoting so few of my resources to altruism, I was doing something morally shaky; I came away just feeling that I might be missing out.
Posted on: Sun, 26 Oct 2014 04:28:01 +0000
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