The Most Good You Can Do

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The Most Good You Can Do
The Most Good You Can Do.jpg
Author Peter Singer
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Subject Normative ethics
Publisher Yale University Press
Publication date
April 7, 2015
Media typePrint
Pages272
ISBN 978-0-300-18027-5
Peter Singer lectures on 'What's the most good you can do?' at Conway Hall in 2015.

The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically is a 2015 Yale University Press book by moral philosopher and bioethicist Peter Singer describing and arguing for the ideas of effective altruism. [1] [2] [3] As a follow-up to The Life You Can Save , which makes the moral argument for donating money to improve the lives of people in extreme poverty, the new book focuses on the broader question of how to do the most good. [4]

Contents

Reception

Interviews

Oliver Milman interviewed Peter Singer about the book for The Guardian shortly before the book's release. [5] [6] Hamilton Nolan interviewed Singer for Gawker a week after the release. [7] Singer was also interviewed on ABC Online (an Australian media network) about his book. [6] [8] He also did a longer interview with the Melbourne radio channel of the network. [6] [9]

Singer also participated in an Ask Me Anything on Reddit, fielding questions about his book, on April 14, 2015 (a week after the book's release). [6] [10]

Book reviews

Nicholas Kristof reviewed the book for The New York Times , beginning with a discussion of the earning to give strategy. Kristof had three reservations about the book: (1) it is not clear where to draw the line with respect to altruism, (2) in addition to humanitarian motives, loyalty is also important and many give to universities or the arts out of loyalty, (3) the idea of taking a job solely because it is well-paying made him flinch. Kristof concluded on a positive note: "Singer's argument is powerful, provocative and, I think, basically right. The world would be a better place if we were as tough-minded in how we donate money as in how we make it." [11] [12]

University of Chicago Law School professor Eric Posner reviewed the book for Slate Magazine , concluding: "So what's an effective altruist to do? The utilitarian imperative to search out and help the people with the highest marginal utility of money around the world is in conflict with our limited knowledge about foreign cultures, which makes it difficult for us to figure out what the worst-off people really need. For this reason, donations to Little League and other local institutions you are familiar with may not be a bad idea. The most good you can do may turn out to be—not much." [13] Posner wrote a follow-up post on his personal blog, stressing that in his view Singer's main weakness was that he did not spend enough time working through the ramifications of the importance of institutions. [14]

Minal Bopaiah wrote a blog post favorably reviewing the book for PSI Impact, a website maintained by Population Services International. PSI was one of many charities discussed by Singer in his book as potentially effective places to donate to. [15]

John Abdulla reviewed the book on Oxfam's blog, concluding: "And so the question that remains for me, as I think more about the ideas laid out in this book, is how can I challenge myself to do more good in this world?" [16]

Glenn C. Altschuler, professor of American Studies at Cornell University, reviewed the book for Philly.com, concluding: "Singer opens up worthwhile conversations (and practical applications) related to ethical ideals. At minimum, The Most Good You Can Do can stimulate donors to insist that charitable organizations provide persuasive proof of their effectiveness." [17]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Altruism</span> Principle or practice of concern for the welfare of others

Altruism is the principle and practice of concern for the well-being and/or happiness of other humans or animals above oneself. While objects of altruistic concern vary, it is an important moral value in many cultures and religions. It may be considered a synonym of selflessness, the opposite of selfishness.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Singer</span> Australian moral philosopher (born 1946)

Peter Albert David Singer is an Australian moral philosopher and the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. He specialises in applied ethics, approaching the subject from a secular, utilitarian perspective. He wrote the book Animal Liberation (1975), in which he argues for vegetarianism, and the essay "Famine, Affluence, and Morality", which favours donating to help the global poor. For most of his career, he was a preference utilitarian, but he revealed in The Point of View of the Universe (2014), coauthored with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek, that he had become a hedonistic utilitarian.

<i>Animal Liberation</i> (book) 1975 book by Peter Singer

Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals is a 1975 book by Australian philosopher Peter Singer. It is widely considered within the animal liberation movement to be the founding philosophical statement of its ideas. Singer himself rejected the use of the theoretical framework of rights when it comes to human and nonhuman animals. Following Jeremy Bentham, Singer argued that the interests of animals should be considered because of their ability to experience suffering and that the idea of rights was not necessary in order to consider them. He popularized the term "speciesism" in the book, which had been coined by Richard D. Ryder to describe the exploitative treatment of animals.

"Famine, Affluence, and Morality" is an essay written by Peter Singer in 1971 and published in Philosophy & Public Affairs in 1972. It argues that affluent persons are morally obligated to donate far more resources to humanitarian causes than is considered normal in Western cultures. The essay was inspired by the starvation of Bangladesh Liberation War refugees, and uses their situation as an example, although Singer's argument is general in scope and not limited to the example of Bangladesh. The essay is anthologized widely as an example of Western ethical thinking.

<i>How Are We to Live?</i> 1993 book by Peter Singer

How Are We to Live?: Ethics in an Age of Self-Interest is a 1993 book about applied ethics by moral philosopher Peter Singer. Singer argues that doing the right thing involves attending to the sufferings and preferences of other sentient beings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charity Navigator</span> Charity assessment organization that evaluates charitable organizations in the U.S.

Charity Navigator is a charity assessment organization that evaluates hundreds of thousands of charitable organizations based in the United States, operating as a free 501(c)(3) organization. It provides insights into a nonprofit's financial stability, adherence to best practices for both accountability and transparency, and results reporting. It is the largest and most-utilized evaluator of charities in the United States. It does not accept any advertising or donations from the organizations it evaluates.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charity (practice)</span> Voluntary giving of help to those in need

The practice of charity, which is the voluntary provision of assistance to those in need, serves as a humanitarian act, and is unmotivated by self-interest. Various philosophies about charity exist, with frequent associations with religion.

GiveWell is an American non-profit charity assessment and effective altruism-focused organization. GiveWell focuses primarily on the cost-effectiveness of the organizations that it evaluates, rather than traditional metrics such as the percentage of the organization's budget that is spent on overhead.

<i>The Life You Can Save</i> 2009 book by Peter Singer

The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty is a 2009 book by Australian philosopher Peter Singer, in which the author argues that citizens of affluent nations are behaving immorally if they do not act to end the poverty they know to exist in developing nations.

Giving What We Can (GWWC) is an effective altruism-associated organisation whose members pledge to give at least 10% of their income to effective charities. It was founded at Oxford University in 2009 by the philosopher Toby Ord, physician-in-training Bernadette Young, and fellow philosopher William MacAskill.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Toby Ord</span> Australian philosopher (born 1979)

Toby David Godfrey Ord is an Australian philosopher. In 2009 he founded Giving What We Can, an international society whose members pledge to donate at least 10% of their income to effective charities, and is a key figure in the effective altruism movement, which promotes using reason and evidence to help the lives of others as much as possible.

Good Ventures is a private foundation and philanthropic organization in San Francisco, and the fifth largest foundation in Silicon Valley. It was co-founded by Cari Tuna, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, and her husband Dustin Moskovitz, one of the co-founders of Facebook. Good Ventures adheres to principles of Effective Altruism and aims to spend most or all of its money before Moskovitz and Tuna die. Good Ventures does not have any full-time staff, and instead distributes grants according to recommendations from Open Philanthropy.

Effective altruism is a 21st-century philosophical and social movement that advocates "using evidence and reason to figure out how to benefit others as much as possible, and taking action on that basis". People who pursue the goals of effective altruism, sometimes called effective altruists, may choose careers based on the amount of good that they expect the career to achieve or donate to charities based on the goal of maximising positive impact. They may work on the prioritization of scientific projects, entrepreneurial ventures, and policy initiatives estimated to save the most lives or reduce the most suffering.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">80,000 Hours</span> Non-profit organisation that conducts research on which jobs have most positive social impact

80,000 Hours is a London-based nonprofit organisation that conducts research on which careers have the largest positive social impact and provides career advice based on that research. It provides this advice on their website and podcast, and through one-on-one advice sessions. The organisation is part of the Centre for Effective Altruism, affiliated with the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics. The organisation's name refers to the typical amount of time someone spends working over a lifetime.

Earning to give involves deliberately pursuing a high-earning career for the purpose of donating a significant portion of earned income, typically because of a desire to do effective altruism. Advocates of earning to give contend that maximizing the amount one can donate to charity is an important consideration for individuals when deciding what career to pursue.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William MacAskill</span> Scottish philosopher and ethicist (born 1987)

William David MacAskill is a Scottish philosopher and author, as well as one of the originators of the effective altruism movement. He is an associate professor in Philosophy and Research Fellow at the Global Priorities Institute at the University of Oxford and Director of the Forethought Foundation for Global Priorities Research. He co-founded Giving What We Can, the Centre for Effective Altruism and 80,000 Hours, and is the author of Doing Good Better (2015) and What We Owe the Future (2022) and the co-author of Moral Uncertainty (2020).

<i>Doing Good Better</i> 2015 book about effective altruism by William MacAskill

Doing Good Better: Effective Altruism and How You Can Make a Difference is a 2015 book by William MacAskill that serves as a primer on the effective altruism movement that seeks to do the most good. It is published by Random House and was released on July 28, 2015.

Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE), formerly known as Effective Animal Activism (EAA), is a US-based charity evaluator and effective altruism-focused nonprofit founded in 2012. ACE evaluates animal charities and compares the effectiveness of their different campaigns and strategies. The organization makes charity recommendations to donors once a year. Its stated purpose is finding and promoting the most effective ways to help animals.

<i>Slate Star Codex</i> Blog focused on psychology, philosophy, artificial intelligence, and futurism

Slate Star Codex (SSC) is a blog focused on science, medicine, philosophy, politics, and futurism. The blog was written by Scott Alexander Siskind, a San Francisco Bay Area psychiatrist, under the pen name Scott Alexander.

<i>What We Owe the Future</i> 2022 book about longtermism by William MacAskill

What We Owe the Future is a 2022 book by the Scottish philosopher and ethicist William MacAskill, an associate professor in philosophy at the University of Oxford. It argues for effective altruism and the philosophy of longtermism, which MacAskill defines as "the idea that positively influencing the long-term future is a key moral priority of our time."

References

  1. ↑ Singer, Peter (7 April 2015). The Most Good You Can Do . Yale University Press. ISBN   978-0300180275.
  2. ↑ Singer, Peter. "The Most Good You Can Do". Archived from the original on 23 February 2017. Retrieved 11 April 2015.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  3. ↑ Singer, Peter. "The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically". Yale University Press . Retrieved 11 April 2015.
  4. ↑ "The Most Good You Can Do". The Life You Can Save. Retrieved 8 October 2019.
  5. ↑ Milman, Oliver (26 March 2015). "Peter Singer: I want to shame charities into proving the worth of their spending". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 8 October 2019.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Singer, Peter. "The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas about Living Ethically". Text Publishing. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
  7. ↑ Nolan, Hamilton. "How to Save Lives: A Conversation With Peter Singer". Gawker. Retrieved 8 October 2019.
  8. ↑ "Philosopher Peter Singer: Think before you give". ABC Online. 26 March 2015. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
  9. ↑ Standish, John (27 March 2015). "Making the most of your opportunities" . Retrieved 20 April 2015.
  10. ↑ Singer, Peter (14 April 2015). "I'm Peter Singer (Australian moral philosopher) and I'm here to answer your questions about where your money is the most effective in the charitable world, or "The Most Good You Can Do." AMA". Reddit . Retrieved 20 April 2015.
  11. ↑ Kristof, Nicholas (4 April 2015). "Opinion | The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 8 October 2019.
  12. ↑ "Nicholas Kristof Shouldn't Follow Peter Singer". National Review. 5 April 2015. Retrieved 8 October 2019.
  13. ↑ Posner, Eric (26 March 2015). "Donating to a Little League Should Not Make You a Moral Monster". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 8 October 2019.
  14. ↑ Posner, Eric (27 March 2015). "The Most Good You Can Do" . Retrieved 11 April 2015.
  15. ↑ Bopaiah, Minal (8 April 2015). "Book Review: The Most Good You Can Do by Peter Singer". PSI Impact. Retrieved 11 April 2015.
  16. ↑ Abdulla, John (27 March 2015). "Want to do the most good you can do in the world? Follow these 3 steps". Oxfam . Retrieved 11 April 2015.
  17. ↑ Altschuler, Glenn C. (19 April 2015). "'Peter Singer's 'Most Good' makes rational case for good life". Philly.com . Retrieved 20 April 2015.
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