Effective altruism is built on the simple but unsettling idea that living a fully ethical life involves doing the most good one can. In this course you will examine this idea's philosophical underpinnings; meet remarkable people who have restructured their lives in accordance with it; and think about how effective altruism can be put into practice in your own life. All the features of this course are available for free. It does not offer a certificate upon completion.
Reasons for Giving
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JT
Mar 29, 2017
Thought provoking and persuasive, this course is both an excellent introduction to the study of ethics and to the growing movement striving for a better world - effective altruism.
KP
Jan 12, 2019
This course is excellent, especially for those wanting to understand the basics to ethics and Peter Singer’s (and others) thinking. Good amount of detail and well-structured.
De la lección
How Much Ought We Do to Help Others?
In this week you will meet three individuals who in different ways embody the ideal of effective altruism: Zell Kravinsky, Julia Wise and Alexander Berger.
Impartido por:
Peter Singer
Ira W. Decamp Professor of Bioethics
[BLANK_AUDIO]
I'll ask Julia to, to start by just saying a little bit about what is
it that led you to decide to give away a substantial part of your income.
Alright, Alexander so, we'll just say.
>> Hi there.
>> Right, it's right that you're with us.
So I was just introducing our, our other guests.
I think you can't see them, right?
But we got Julia Wise and Zell Kravinsky here,
and I'm going to ask them to just say a
few words about what led them to the decisions they've
made about giving, and then I'm going to come to you.
Okay?
>> Yup, sounds great.
>> Alright.
So, Julia, let's start with you.
>> I guess since the time that I was a
child, it seems that, I had everything I needed and more.
I grew up in a pretty middle class family, went to college, got
a white collar job, and, I've really never lacked for anything that I needed.
And it's always been very striking to me that
there are so many people who lack the basics.
So I've always wanted to do something about that.
And, when I met my husband in college he sort of thought,
you know he hadn't really actually thought about it much at all.
But sort of talked him into joining me in kind of keeping our needs small basically.
We looked at the type of life styles that
we had grown up with as sort of middle class
kids and we didn't find that we needed a lot
of the stuff that we'd had So when you're in
college, you're sort of living in a small space and,
you know, you don't have a lot of material things
anyway and a lot of your enjoyment comes from, you
know, friendships and, you know, people you enjoy being with.
And so we've really kept the focus on that rather than on getting
the, you know, the cars and the big houses and things like that, so.
Just by keeping our needs small.
I think from the time that we were first thinking
about this, it's really been a smooth ride for us.
Where as it might've been harder if we had sort of
had our parents' life style and then decided to come back.
>> Okay.
Thanks very much.
So.
>> I don't know.
To, to me, it always seemed axiomatic that you'd give away all you didn't need.
It, I don't know why precisely, but, it strikes
me as, the other philosophy strikes me as bizarre.
To believe that things that have come your way by happenstance.
By the accidents of birth and, and time.
It should continue with you, and not be distributed to people that need you.
I don't know why we accept that as, as the way.
I was raised, My father and my grandfather said.
So from each according to their ability, to each according to their need.
That was the, the Marxist formula.
But it seemed to me growing up that all the systems that determine,
that gauge the extent of your contribution are, are debatable and
self interested, and questions won't get you into trouble.
So I just went with, to each according to their need because,
at the fringes of need it's easy to see that somebody who
has a lot less than you, needs a great deal of what
you have if you have a lot more than what you need.
>> It's, it's one thing to say that,
though, and a lot of people do say something
like that, you know, to each according to
their need, it's, it's another thing to do it.
And I find, I'm not sure if you mentioned your
father and grandfather saying that, but were they actually practicing it?
>> I guess to an, to an extent my grandfather
was and my, you know my father was Leftist politics.
He, he was against private philanthropy, because he
wanted the edge of revolutionary fervor he felt right.
But I, what I didn't understand about that, I wasn't sure in my mind
if that was two discrete items on a wish list, from each according to
their ability, to each according to their need, or if it was a social
contract, because a lot of people in America will say, well, I'm for that.
A lot of rich people who don't give will say, well that's fine.
To each according to their needs so long as they've, given according
to their ability, and the gauge of what they've given is their salary.
If you make, 100,000, you gave a 100,000 to society.
So they say, that, that formula's fine with them.
>> Mm-hm.
But.
>> But it's a, you, you know, when you start to gauge.
>> Right.
>> It's going to be one or another, a horribly
self-interested project, so, it's so much simpler, to go with need.
>> Okay.
Let's come to you Alexander.
How did you get, involved in this?
>> Probably the, the basic answer is through a class very similar to this one.
I was taking an Ethics class at Stanford, and, you
know, read some of your work, and, you know, some of
the stuff about Zell, and so, sort of heard about,
kidney donation, as something that people could do in that context.
And at first I remember thinking that it, it sounded a
little bit crazy and just not something I identified with at all.
And then, over time, you know, actually I
read it like an undergraduate thesis, that somebody
had written, that sort of mentioned as an aside, just how safe it was to donate.
And then, you know, sort of following up on
that and doing a little more bit more research.
And, it also turns out that the, the benefits for recipients are really large.
You know, something on the order of ten more years of life.
And so, once I started to think in those terms it, it really,
I did, sort of, start to see Zell's perspective a little bit more.
And, start to think of it as I, I really
relatively low cost to myself, running a small personal risk.
I could save somebody else's life in ways that seem like, really, really like a
positive trade off, and so you know, that's
how I started thinking about donating a kidney.
And then I mean, I have some affinity for both Zell
and Julia's other, other ethical decisions as well, in terms of donating.
and, I came to work through, I give well through some similar thinking.
>> Okay, so, we, we read the article you
wrote for the New York Times, which, I think,
you wrote a day or two before you actually,
donated the kidney, right, that's how it starts off.
So, perhaps you ought to, bring us up to date, and, and, tell us how it went.
>> Yeah, well, it went well.
I'm safe and healthy, and my wrist so I don't need to start a kidney chain.
Often people want to donate to their spouse, or a loved
one, but they're not a match, and so what they do
is they enter a, a chain, so that it's easier to
get a match, and so, you know, I donate to somebody.
A middle school, math teacher in rural
Pennsylvania, who then, her husband donated on
her behalf to, sort of, continue this
chain, which ended up having six connections.
And then, you know, I think I, I think I
said in my op ed, it might be called Relatively painless.
And that, perhaps, was a slight overstatement.
[LAUGH] But overall, the operation is safe, and
it wasn't too bad at all and I'd happily
do it again and you know, [LAUGH] I took
a couple, sort of, went home for Christmas, and
then was back at work in the, in the new year and back to rock climbing a
few weeks after that, so I mean, it hasn't
affected my, like, lifestyle, or decisions at all, really.
But, I'm happy I did it and I would happily do it again.
>> If you had another kidney to spare.
[LAUGH] >> Well, yes exactly.
>> Have you had any contact?
You, you mentioned the, that you've
identified the person obviously who received it.
Have you had any contact with them?
>> Yeah.
We've corresponded a little bit.
You know, I had a tough time deciding initially whether I wanted
to sort of be known to her, or know who she was.
Because you know, I entered the process sort of
randomly it, it wasn't like I picked my recipient.
And so, even though I felt really good
about sort of the average affect of donating.
There was this question for me about you know, when you're thinking about like, the
actual sort of embodied person that you're
giving to, instead of like an abstract idea.
Like, maybe it's somebody who you, you don't end
up liking or maybe they are the one, you know,
a hundred or something where it doesn't work out or
they get sick [COUGH] [INAUDIBLE] number significantly higher than that.
Maybe my kidney, like would just failed for some
reason and she would get sick again the next year.
And so, you know, I, also we decided that given the decision and given who I
was, I knew I would want to be able to thank the person who donated to me.
And so, that seemed to me to be like
the right decision, was to you know, be in touch
so that she could thank me if she wanted
to, because I knew that would be important to me.
But it, it wasn't an, easy decision for me, to make that call.
>> Okay.
Zell, how about you, have you had contact with the person you donated to.
>> Not, not for a while.
>> Mm-hm.
>> And then, you know, it's a little complicated
maybe because my wife still doesn't support the decision and
>> Right.
I think that was.
>> Oh, I had good feelings about the recipient.
>> Yes.
Okay, yeah.
I think that's, that's clear from the, the article that you have some tensions in
your domestic life, because of you, your, your
ideas about what you ought to be doing.
Disagreeing with those of your, of your wife.
>> But I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm wondering if Alexander had the
same, Had somebody in his life who was [COUGH]
from the negative and change their mind afterwards.
You, you know my friend, Alan, didn't want to talk to me about it.
Afterwards, as you know, he became more enthusiastic about it.
>> Right.
Alexander was there someone in your life who was
opposed to what you were doing whose come around?
>> You know I was pretty lucky the, you know
my, my parents initially were enthused to say the least.
But after you know a few months of sort of wearing them down
and continuing forward in the process, I demonstrated that I was serious about it.
They they sort of came around and were ultimately supportive.
I mean I think they both wished I had delayed it indefinitely.
But when push came to shove, you know, they, they were there to,
to see me in the hospital and to help me through the process.
And I really appreciated that.
There were, there was nobody in like sort of my personal life
who was saying, you're making such a huge mistake, don't do this.
You know, I dunno if any of you guys read the, comments on the Times op ed.
Like, you know, there were like 190 out of
like 200 there saying, you're making such a mistake.
Don't do this.
but, I was, I was lucky to be privileged in my personal life with a lot
of sort of, supportive, thoughtful friends who, who
were, happy, happy to help in the process.
>> Okay.
Thanks.
>> So Julie you said in, in your decision you made that jointly with Jeff who
is now your husband I guess, wasn't at the time we were discussing it, is that right?
So that would have made things a lot easier but, but
how about your parents and his parents, did they think that
you ought to be saving more for buying your own home
or for having children in future or something of that sort?
>> My parents have certainly been more conservative
about sort of financial decisions then I have and
I think there were, especially in the early years,
some things I did that didn't exactly help that.
You know, like you know I said that
I wouldn't accept any Christmas presents one year
and if they gave me any, I'd, I'd sell them and give the money to charity.
That didn't go over too well.
I don't recommend doing that.
I, it just upsets your grandmother.
So once I learned to not do things that upset my
grandmother things were a lot smoother, and at this point, you know,
I think they're, they're proud of me, and they see that I'm
not living in a cardboard box, which I think was their fear.
and, you know, that I, I have the things I need and so
I think they're, they feel much more
positive about it than they did, certainly.
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