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artsyhonker comments on Efficient Charity: Do Unto Others... - Less Wrong
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I disagree. Giving money to charity is not different from spending money on a latte at Starbucks. I spend money according to my values. And I still buy lattes. I am not Zachary Baumkletterer. Even Jesus said, "The poor you will have with you always", to justify spending an INCREDIBLE amount of money (enough to buy ten people's entire lives, in an era with no inflation, making it comparable to ten million US dollars today) on pouring perfume once on Jesus' feet. The guy was tired and depressed and about to be crucified and wanted his damn perfume, like I want my damn latte.
Similarly, people who gave money to keep a painting in a museum, might also spend considerably more money to buy paintings to hang in their houses, than it would take to save a life in another country. These people value art, and they value benefitting others. Draw a 2D plot, and label the axes "selfish ... unselfish" and "spiritual ... physical" ("spiritual" standing for art and other "impractical" values). One person might
And each of those things could have similar utility for them.
I don't think this is irrational. Irrational is spending any money at all on "charity" instead of spending it according to your utility function.
This post contains the hidden presupposition that charity, using a collective utility function, is more moral than self-oriented actions; and therefore, following our utility functions is immoral. This is an assertion about morality and rationality that has huge implications! It is resonant with a very common meme that says that "moral" behavior is behavior that we don't want to do, because we are fundamentally immoral. I say, instead, that morals are part of our utility function - that we have these things called morals because part of us really wants to be nice to other people. They are just another part of our utility function.
Encouraging unselfish behavior can be done by manipulating peoples' selfish desires to produce "unselfish" behavior (give to charity and get social benefits, or stay out of Hell), as a mechanism to solve PD problems with a given payoff matrix. But it can also be done by treating people in ways that encourage what natural unselfish tendencies they have - solving PD problems by changing people's payoff matrices.
Apply Kant's imperative. This post suggests that we have 2 utility functions, one for everyday life, and another for charity; and that the one for charity is more moral. But if everyone used such a charity utility function for everything they did, it would result in a global race to the bottom as economies imploded after spending all national wealth on ameliorating suffering while undercutting all private motivation. Therefore, it is less moral. It is not only not obviously moral, it is immoral, if that means anything, for a government, or a person, to spend every last dollar on helping the unfortunate before spending any money on education, roads, defense, art, or even entertainment.
This seems a false dichotomy; the unfortunate will also be helped by money spent on education, roads and other measures which increase the common good (so long as they do not make the plight of the unfortunate worse).
Whether to spend money on medicine for the sick, education for those who cannot get access to it with their own resources, or art and etertainment by which a culture might examine these problems strikes me as being a bit like medical triage in an emergency room. Perhaps it makes sense to treat personal resource management similarly.
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Thanks.
Well, think of it this way: What would an economy look like, if everyone in it obeyed the maxims of Peter Singer?
It seems to me it would be a complete mess, far worse than what we have today.
Now, if everyone in the world gave just a small amount of their income (5%? 10%?) to a wide variety of charities they care about---e.g. scientific research, medicine, economic development, and yes, arts and culture---we would get all the benefits of our present system and eliminate a lot of the worst flaws. US GDP is $14 trillion. US development aid and private charity are more like $300 billion (about 2% if you're playing at home). Step that up to $600 billion, or $1 trillion, and what we could accomplish!
But I don't think we're going to get there by making people feel guilty about supporting one thing rather than another. Far better, it seems, to get them to just make a habit of writing a check---think of it like another bill to pay---and not worrying so much about whether it is going the best possible place.
They would donate up until the point of diminishing marginal returns as determined by experts in the relevant fields and then spend on themselves.
Seems like a pretty good world.
It seems like a world in which most resources are controlled by "experts in relevant fields." When I consider this possible world should I imagine it with the experts we have now, or with more idealized experts?
How about the existing experts that the existing Singer recommends in his existing books, and not some straw Singer as pnrjulius seems to be thinking of?
Singer wants us to donate to these organizations. Seemingly, he wants us to donate a lot, but not so much as he personally gives.
I don't know what Straw Singer wants us to do.