It's known that money has a powerful effect on human psyche, and I strongly doubt that pouring say a million dollar to a charity that is used to manage ~10K$ donations will suddenly multiply its efficency hundredfolds. More likely, that money will be wasted. Or given to local warlords. Or used to pay higher salaries, etc.
Why would you give to charities past the point where they have room for more funding?
The unreasonable assumption here is that there's a direct path from money to utility for other people, as if charities were engines of perfect efficiency that burns money and churns out utility for poor people. Extremely unlikely, even for charities listed top tier on GiveWell.
Life is full of uncertainty, and there's nothing wrong with that. If you're saving lives on expectation, it's worth doing.
I agree that investing in R&D can be a better way to improve the world than donating to traditional charities.
If you're saving lives on expectation, it's worth doing.
Unless you are unhappy with "saving lives" as a proxy for ethical utility. A discussion of which you are surely aware.
I'd like to hear from people about a process they use to decide how much to give to charity. Personally, I have very high income, and while we donate significant money in absolute terms, in relative terms the amount is <1% of our post-tax income. It seems to me that it's too little, but I have no moral intuition as to what the right amount is.
I have a good intuition on how to allocate the money, so that's not a problem.
Background: I have a wife and two kids, one with significant health issues (i.e. medical bills - possibly for life), most money we spend goes to private school tuition x 2, the above mentioned medical bills, mortgage, and miscellaneous life expenses. And we max out retirement savings.
If you have some sort of quantitative system where you figure out how much to spend on charity, please share. If you just use vague feelings, and you think there can be no reasonable quantitative system, please tell me that as well.
Update: as suggested in the comments, I'll make it more explicit: please also share how you determine how much to give.