In the study of organ and tissue transplantation, the focus tends to be on donation. But where there is “giving,” there is also “getting:” receiving help. Altruism, helping behavior, and the exchange of benefits have received extensive attention from social psychological researchers. The gift exchange described by anthropologist Marcel Mauss provides a framework for reviewing this social psychological research on altruism and exchange and applying it to transplantation. An overall conclusion is that altruistic donation is not so ethically or clinically (...) problematic, while receiving help has a complex psychosocial context that needs to be acknowledged and given more attention. (shrink)

Effective altruism sounds so innocuous—who could possibly be opposed to doing good more effectively? Yet it has inspired significant backlash in recent years. This paper addresses some common misconceptions and argues that the core “beneficentric” ideas of effective altruism are both excellent and widely neglected. Reasonable people may disagree on details of implementation, but all should share the basic goals or values underlying effective altruism.

Effective altruism is a movement which aims to maximise good. Effective altruists are concerned with extreme poverty and many of them think that individuals have an obligation to donate to effective charities to alleviate extreme poverty. Their reasoning, which I will scrutinise, is as follows: -/- Premise 1. Extreme poverty is very bad. -/- Premise 2. If it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything else morally significant, we ought, morally, to do (...) it. -/- Premise 3. Individuals ought to choose the effective option in preventing very bad things. -/- Premise 4. Donating to effective charities is one of the best ways to alleviate extreme poverty. -/- Conclusion. Individuals ought to donate to effective charities working towards extreme poverty alleviation where doing so does not require them to give up anything of moral significance. -/- I will scrutinise each of these premises in turn. -/- For Premise 1, I focus on hedonistic utilitarianism and criticise its outlook on extreme poverty. I claim that hedonistic utilitarianism might be problematic for effective altruism. -/- Premise 2 is Peter Singer's Weaker Principle of Sacrifice. I introduce several possible interpretations of it, and press several objections to it by stressing overpermissiveness, luck, and rights. I defend strengthening the Weaker Principle of Sacrifice without making it overdemanding. -/- I claim that Premise 3 can be attractive to both consequentialists and non-consequentialists. Nevertheless, by showing that effectiveness sometimes violates fairness, I propose a method which avoids always helping the greater number and always giving everyone equal chances of being helped, which is compatible with effective altruism. -/- Against Premise 4, I assess the systemic change objection, which states that effective altruism unjustifiably distracts individuals from systemic change. By considering risk and the moral standing of the future extremely poor, I claim that the systemic change objection is partially successful, but cannot undermine effective altruism. -/- After analysing all of these, I argue that individuals have an obligation to donate to effective charities to alleviate extreme poverty where doing so does not require them to give up anything of moral significance. (shrink)

Altruistic deception (or the telling of “white lies”) is common in humans. Does it also exist in non-human animals? On some definitions of deception, altruistic deception is impossible by definition, whereas others make it too easy by counting useful-but-ambiguous information as deceptive. I argue for a definition that makes altruistic deception possible in principle without trivializing it. On my proposal, deception requires the strategic exploitation of a receiver by a sender, where “exploitation” implies that the sender elicits a behaviour in (...) the receiver that is beneficial in a different type of situation and is expressed only because the signal raises the probability, from the receiver’s standpoint, of that type of situation. I then offer an example of a real signal that is deceptive in this sense, and yet potentially altruistic (and certainly cooperative): the purr call of the pied babbler. Fledglings associate purr calls with food, and adults exploit this learned association, in the absence of food, to lead fledglings away from predators following an alarm call. I conclude by considering why altruistic deception is apparently so rare in non-human animals. (shrink)

Friendship, Altruism, and Morality, originally published in 1980, gives an account of "altruistic emotions" and friendship that brings out their moral value. Blum argues that moral theories centered on rationality, universal principle, obligation, and impersonality cannot capture this moral importance. This was one of the first books in contemporary moral philosophy to emphasize the moral significance of emotions, to deal with friendship as a moral phenomenon, and to challenge the rationalism of standard interpretations of Kant, although Blum’s "sentimentalism" owes more (...) to Schopenhauer than to Hume. It was a forerunner to care ethics, and feminist ethics more generally; to virtue ethics; and to subsequent influential interpretations of Kant that attempted to room for altruistic emotion and friendship, and other forms of particularism and partialism. In addition, the work has been widely influential in religious studies, political theory, bioethics, and feminist ethics. (shrink)

Effective altruism (EA) is a movement devoted to the idea of doing good in the most effective way possible. EA has been the target of a number of critiques. In this article, I focus on one prominent critique: that EA fails to acknowledge the importance of institutional change. One version of this critique claims that EA relies on an overly individualistic approach to ethics. Defenders of EA have objected that this charge either fails to identify a problem with EA's core (...) idea that each of us should do the most good we can, or makes unreasonable claims about what we should do. However, I argue that we can understand the critique in a way that is well motivated, and that can avoid these objections. (shrink)

Just as there are rational requirements on thought, there are rational requirements on action. This book defends a conception of ethics, and a related conception of human nature, according to which altruism is included among the basic rational requirements on desire and action. Altruism itself depends on the recognition of the reality of other persons, and on the equivalent capacity to regard oneself as merely one individual among many.

Altruism is a malleable notion that is understood differently in various disciplines. The common denominator of most definitions of altruism is the idea of unidirectional helping behaviour. However, a closer examination reveals that the term altruism sometimes refers to the outcomes of a helping behaviour for the agent and its neighbours – i.e. reproductive altruism – and sometimes to what motivates the agent to help others – i.e. psychological altruism. Since these perspectives on altruism are crucially different, it is important (...) to use a clear terminology to avoid confusion. In particular, we show that the notion of altruism used by biologists profoundly differs from the ones used by philosophers, psychologists and economists in cross-disciplinary debates about human altruism. (shrink)

We begin, in section 2, with a brief sketch of a cluster of assumptions about human desires, beliefs, actions, and motivation that are widely shared by historical and contemporary authors on both sides in the debate. With this as background, we’ll be able to offer a more sharply focused account of the debate. In section 3, our focus will be on links between evolutionary theory and the egoism/altruism debate. There is a substantial literature employing evolutionary theory on each side of (...) the issue. However, it is our contention that neither camp has offered a convincing case. We are much more sanguine about recent research on altruism in social psychology, which will be our topic in section 4. Though we don’t think this work has resolved the debate, we will argue that it has made illuminating progress – progress that philosophers interested in the question cannot afford to ignore. (shrink)

Can economics, which is based on the notion of individual optimization, really model individuals who have a sense of exteriority? This question, derived both from Marcel Mauss's sociological analysis of the social norm of gift-giving and from Emmanuel Levinas's phenomenological analysis of the idea of 'otherness,' leads to the problem of whether it is possible to model altruism with the tool of optimization. By investigating the ways in which economic theory can address this challenge, and by introducing a postulate of (...) methodological altruism following Levinas's theory of the constitution of subjectivity through otherness, this paper uncovers an alternative foundation for the very notion of optimizing calculation - no longer as a self-centered initiative, but rather as an other-centered response. This makes it possible to clarify the implicit content of usual economic individualism, and to see on the basis of which ethical arguments the economic method of optimization may be upheld. The paper studies the consequences of this renewed foundation of optimization for the organization of a fair and efficient interaction between altruists. (shrink)

Effective altruism is a philosophy and a social movement that aims to revolutionise the way we do philanthropy. It encourages individuals to do as much good as possible, typically by contributing money to the best-performing aid and development organisations. Surprisingly, this approach has met with considerable resistance among activists and aid providers who argue that effective altruism is insensitive to justice insofar as it overlooks the value of equality, urgency and rights. They also hold that the movement suffers from methodological (...) bias, reaching mistaken conclusions about how best to act for that reason. Finally, concerns have been raised about the ability of effective altruism to achieve systemic change. This article weighs the force of each objection in turn, and looks at responses to the challenge they pose. (shrink)

This is the first collective study of the thinking behind the effective altruism movement. This movement comprises a growing global community of people who organise significant parts of their lives around the two key concepts represented in its name. Altruism is the idea that if we use a significant portion of the resources in our possession—whether money, time, or talents—with a view to helping others then we can improve the world considerably. When we do put such resources to altruistic use, (...) it is crucial to focus on how much good this or that intervention is reasonably expected to do per unit of resource expended (as a gauge of effectiveness). We can try to rank various possible actions against each other to establish which will do the most good with the resources expended. Thus we could aim to rank various possible kinds of action to alleviate poverty against one another, or against actions aimed at very different types of outcome, focused perhaps on animal welfare or future generations. The scale and organisation of the effective altruism movement encourage careful dialogue on questions that have perhaps long been there, throwing them into new and sharper relief, and giving rise to previously unnoticed questions. In this volume a team of internationally recognised philosophers, economists, and political theorists present refined and in-depth explorations of issues that arise once one takes seriously the twin ideas of altruistic commitment and effectiveness. (shrink)

Effective altruists either believe they ought to be, or strive to be, doing the most good they can. Since they’re human, however, effective altruists are invariably fallible. In numerous situations, even the most committed EAs would fail to live up to the ideal they set for themselves. This fact raises a central question about how to understand effective altruism. How should one’s future prospective failures at doing the most good possible affect the current choices one makes as an effective altruist? (...) This question is important to answer not only because every effective altruist will face this question due to typical human akrasia, but also because how the question is answered will determine just how demanding effective altruism can be. I argue that no matter how effective altruists answer this question, they will have to take on some commitments seemingly antithetical to their movement. More precisely, I argue that effective altruism is subject to a dilemma. Effective altruists’, at times, implicit actualist assumptions (i) commit them to conclusions seemingly antithetical to what typical effective altruists actually believe, as well as the spirit of the movement and (ii) undermine effective altruists’ arguments against moral offsetting and giving to charities close to the heart. Yet, effective altruists’, at times, implicit possibilist assumptions (iii) also commit them to conclusions seemingly antithetical to what typical effective altruists actually believe, as well as the spirit of the movement and (iv) undermine typical responses to demandingness worries for the normative conception of effective altruism. I argue that the best way out of the dilemma is to accept hybridism, though even hybridism won’t preserve every commitment of effective altruism. (shrink)

The effective altruism movement (EA) is one of the most influential philosophically savvy movements to emerge in recent years. Effective Altruism has historically been dedicated to finding out what charitable giving is the most overall-effective, that is, the most effective at promoting or maximizing the impartial good. But some members of EA want the movement to be more inclusive, allowing its members to give in the way that most effectively promotes their values, even when doing so isn’t overall-effective. When we (...) examine what it means to give according to one’s values, I argue, we will see that this is both inconsistent with what EA is like now and inconsistent with its central philosophical commitment to an objective standard that can be used to critically analyze one’s giving. While EA is not merely synonymous with act utilitarianism, it cannot be much more inclusive than it is right now. (shrink)

One of the main objections against effective altruism is the so-called institutional critique, according to which the EA movement neglects interventions that affect large-scale institutions. Alexander Dietz has recently put forward an interesting version of this critique, based on a theoretical problem affecting act-utilitarianism, which he deems as potentially conclusive against effective altruism. In this article I argue that his critique is not as promising as it seems. I then go on to propose another version of the institutional critique. In (...) contrast to Dietz's version, it targets not the core principles of effective altruism but rather some important methodological assumptions made in EA research, namely diminishing marginal returns and low-hanging fruits. One key conclusion is that it may be time for critics of effective altruism to shift their attention from the theoretical core principles of effective altruism towards the methodological tools actually employed in practice by the EA movement. (shrink)

In this paper, I reframe the long-standing controversy between ‘psychological egoism’, which argues that human beings never perform altruistic actions, and the opposing thesis of ‘psychological altruism’, which claims that human beings are, at least sometimes, capable of acting in an altruistic fashion. After a brief sketch of the controversy, I begin by presenting some representative arguments in favour of psychological altruism before showing that they can all be called into question by appealing to the idea of an unconscious self-directed (...) motive. I will then point out that this argumentative strategy not only debunks the reasons for favouring psychological altruism, but also those for favouring psychological egoism; hence it is no use in settling the dispute between the two views. In the second part of the paper, I will try to break this deadlock by reframing the whole controversy, shifting it away from the concept of motive, towards the broader notion of motivation. As it turns out, this shift enables the debate to centre on altruistic emotions and their motivational power, thereby allowing evolutionary arguments to enter the debate and tilt the balance in favour of psychological altruism. (shrink)

In this entry, we discuss both the definition of effective altruism and objections to effective altruism, so defined.

Effective altruists aim to do the most good that they can do with the resources available to them, without causing themselves or their dependents significant harm thereby. The argument presented in this paper demonstrates that there are no morally relevant dissimilarities between living kidney donation and living kidney selling for effective altruistic reasons. Thus, since the former is allowed, the latter ought to be allowed as well. And, there are important moral differences between living kidney selling for effective altruistic reasons (...) and other reasons for kidney vending, such that standard objections against markets in human kidneys do not attach to those markets designed around principles of effective altruism. The reasonable conclusion to draw from this is that eligible effective altruist kidney donors ought to be allowed to sell their kidneys to others in need, if they so desire. Because of this, law and policy ought to be changed to allow for this exceptional case: current laws that ban kidney selling for everyone, irrespective of their reason for selling, are unjustified. (shrink)

Extraterrestrial Altruism examines a basic assumption of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI): that extraterrestrials will be transmitting messages to us for our benefit. This question of whether extraterrestrials will be altruistic has become increasingly important in recent years as SETI scientists have begun contemplating transmissions from Earth to make contact. Technological civilizations that transmit signals for the benefit of others, but with no immediate gain for themselves, certainly seem to be altruistic. But does this make biological sense? Should we (...) expect altruism to evolve throughout the cosmos, or is this only wishful thinking? Is it dangerous to send messages to other worlds, as Stephen Hawking has suggested, or might humankind benefit from an exchange with intelligence elsewhere in the galaxy? Would extraterrestrial societies be based on different ethical principles, or would we see commonalities with Earthly notions of morality? Extraterrestrial Altruism explores these and related questions about the motivations of civilizations beyond Earth, providing new insights that are critical for SETI. Chapters are authored by leading scholars from diverse disciplines—anthropology, astronomy, biology, chemistry, computer science, cosmology, engineering, history of science, law, philosophy, psychology, public policy, and sociology. The book is carefully edited by Douglas Vakoch, Director of Interstellar Message Composition at the SETI Institute and professor of clinical psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies. The Foreword is by Frank Drake. This interdisciplinary book will benefit everybody trying to understand whether evolution and ethics are unique to Earth, or whether they are built into the fabric of the universe. (shrink)

Pathological Altruism presents a number of new, thought-provoking theses that explore a range of hurtful effects of altruism and empathy.

Separated from its anchorage in religion, ethics has followed the social sciences in seeing human beings as fundamentally characterized by self-interest, so that altruism is either naively idealistic or arrogantly self-sufficient. Colin Grant contends that, as a modern secular concept, altruism is a parody on the self-giving love of Christianity, so that its dismissal represents a social levelling that loses the depths that theology makes intelligible and religion makes possible. The Christian affirmation is that God is characterized by self-giving love, (...) then expected of Christians. Lacking this theological background, the focus on self-interest in sociobiology and economics, and on human realism in the political focus of John Rawls or the feminist sociability of Carol Gilligan, finds altruism naive or a dangerous distraction from real possibilities of mutual support. This book argues that to dispense with altruism is to dispense with God and with the divine transformation of human possibilities. (shrink)

Abstract.Altruism, defined here as a regard for or devotion to the interest of others with whom we are interrelated, is pitted against two other dispositions in human beings: nepotism and egoism. We propose that to become fully human is to become more altruistic. We describe how altruism is mediated by our physiology, is expressed in our psychological development, is evolving in our social institutions, and becomes the moral communities that enforce our sense of right and wrong. A change in any (...) one of these influences changes our disposition—changes who we are and what we do—potentially making altruism more possible in the world. (shrink)

The self‐interest paradigm that has dominated and defined social science is being questioned today in all the social sciences. Frontline research is represented by C. Daniel Batson's experiments, which claim to present empirical evidence of altruism. Impressive though this is against the background of the self‐interest paradigm, its ultimate significance might be to illustrate the inadequacy of social science to deal with a transcendent reality like altruism.

Altruism and solidarity are concepts that are closely related to organ donation for transplantation. On the one hand, they are typically used for encouraging people to donate. On the other hand, they also underpin the regulations in force in each country to different extents. They are often used indistinctly and equivocally, despite the different ethical implications of each concept. This paper aims to clarify to what extent we can speak of altruism and solidarity in the predominant models of organ donation. (...) It also raises the ethical question of whether these categories are adequate as a basis for such models, bearing in mind that organs are a scarce resource and that a shortage of them may mean that fewer lives are saved or improved. (shrink)

'Altruism' was coined by the French sociologist Auguste Comte in the early 1850s as a theoretical term in his 'cerebral theory' and as the central ideal of his atheistic 'Religion of Humanity'. In The Invention of Altruism, Thomas Dixon traces this new language of 'altruism' as it spread through British culture between the 1850s and the 1900s, and in doing so provides a new portrait of Victorian moral thought. Drawing attention to the importance of Comtean positivism in setting the agenda (...) for debates about science and religion, this volume challenges received ideas about both Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer as moral philosophers. Darwin saw sympathy and love, not only selfishness and competition, throughout the natural world. Spencer was the instigator of an Anti-Aggression League and an advocate of greater altruism in Britain's dealings with the 'lower races'. It also sheds light on the rise of popular socialism in the 1880s, on the creation of the idealist 'altruist' in novels of the 1890s, and on the individualistic philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche, Oscar Wilde, and G. E. Moore - authors considered by some to be representative of fin de siècle 'egomania.' This wide-ranging study in the history of ideas is highly relevant to contemporary debates about altruism, evolution, religion, and ethics. (shrink)

Effective altruism has become a worldwide phenomenon. The movement combines empathy and reason in the attempt to improve the world. Adherents don’t let moral gut instincts dictate their altruistic efforts, but use evidence and reflection to do the most good they can. Effective altruism originated, and primarily grew, in strongly secular environments—such as philosophy departments or Silicon Valley. So far, a religious perspective on this movement has been lacking. What can people of faith learn from effective altruism? What may they (...) criticise? What can effective altruism in turn take from religion? This volume offers a first examination of these questions, covering various Christian as well as Jewish and Buddhist perspectives. (shrink)

It is sometimes morally permissible not to help others even when doing so is overall better for you. For example, you are not morally required to take a career in medicine over a career in music, even if the former is both better for others and better for you. I argue that the permissibility of not helping in a range of cases of “compensated altruism” is explained by the existence of autonomy-based considerations. I sketch a view according to which you (...) can have autonomy-based permissions to choose between alternatives when these alternatives differ in terms of the valuable features they instantiate. Along the way, I argue that considerations of moral autonomy do not support rejecting the plausible view that we each constantly face reasons with morally requiring strength to help (distant) strangers. (shrink)

It has become common to distinguish between altruistic and commercial contract motherhood (or ‘surrogacy’). Altruistic arrangements are based on the ‘gift relationship’: a woman is motivated by altruism to have a baby for an infertile couple, who are free to reciprocate as they see fit. By contrast, in commercial arrangements both parties are motivated by personal gain to enter a legally enforceable agreement, which stipulates that the contract mother or ‘surrogate’ is to bear a child for the intending parents in (...) exchange for a fee. She is required to undergo medical examinations and to refrain from behaviour that could harm the foetus. The intending parents are the child's legal parents from the outset. The parties to the contract can, but are not expected to, maintain contact after the transaction is completed. We argue that contract motherhood should not be organized according to the norms of the gift relationship, and that contract mothers should be compensated for their labour. However, we accept that there are good reasons for rejecting the commercial model as a suitable framework for contract pregnancy, and argue, instead, in favour of viewing it as a profession. (shrink)

Altruism has long been taken to be the guiding principle of ethical organ donation in the UK, and has been used as justification for rejecting or allowing certain types of donation. We argue that, despite this prominent role, altruism has been poorly defined in policy and position documents, and used confusingly and inconsistently. Looking at how the term has been used over recent years allows us to define ‘organ donation altruism’, and comparing this with accounts in the philosophical literature highlights (...) its theoretical shortcomings. The recent report from the Nuffield Council on Bioethics reaffirmed the importance of altruism in organ donation, and offered a clearer definition. This definition is, however, more permissive than that of altruism previously seen in UK policy, and as a result allows some donations that previously have been considered unacceptable. We argue that while altruistic motivation may be desirable, it is not necessary. (shrink)

Moral pyschology and cultural analysis of the Sam Bankman-Fried fraud and effective altruism generally, with help from Beauvoir, Aristotle, and Bertolt Brecht.

A number of criticisms of Utilitarianism – such as “nearest and dearest” objections, “demandingness” objections, and “altruistic” objections – arise because Utilitarianism doesn’t permit partially or wholly disregarding the utility of certain subjects. A number of authors, including Sider, Portmore and Vessel, have responded to these objections by suggesting we adopt “dual-maximizing” theories which provide a way to incorporate disregarding. And in response to “altruistic” objections in particular – objections noting that it seems permissible to make utility-decreasing sacrifices – these (...) authors have suggested adopting a dual-maximizing theory that permits disregarding one’s own utility. In this paper I’ll defend two claims. First, I’ll argue that dual-maximizing theories are a poor way to incorporate disregarding. Instead, I’ll suggest that “variable-disregarding” theories provide a more attractive way to incorporate disregarding. Second, I’ll argue that the right way to handle these “altruistic” objections isn’t to permit disregarding one’s own utility, it’s to permit disregarding the utility of those who consent. Together, these two claims entail that the best way to modify Utilitarianism to handle “altruistic” objections is to adopt a variable-disregarding view that disregards the utility of those who consent. (shrink)

Altruism is a deep and complex phenomenon that is analysed by scholars of various disciplines, including psychology, philosophy, biology, evolutionary anthropology and experimental economics. Much confusion arises in current literature because the term altruism covers variable concepts and processes across disciplines. Here we investigate the sense given to altruism when used in different fields and argumentative contexts. We argue that four distinct but related concepts need to be distinguished: (a) psychological altruism , the genuine motivation to improve others’ interests and (...) welfare; (b) reproductive altruism , which involves increasing others’ chances of survival and reproduction at the actor’s expense; (c) behavioural altruism , which involves bearing some cost in the interest of others; and (d) preference altruism , which is a preference for others’ interests. We show how this conceptual clarification permits the identification of overstated claims that stem from an imprecise use of terminology. Distinguishing these four types of altruism will help to solve rhetorical conflicts that currently undermine the interdisciplinary debate about human altruism. (shrink)

It is widely agreed that living kidney donation is permitted but living kidney sales are not. Call this the Received View. One way to support the Received View is to appeal to a particular understanding of the conditions under which living kidney transplantation is permissible. It is often claimed that donors must act altruistically, without the expectation of payment and for the sake of another. Call this the Altruism Requirement. On the conventional interpretation, the Altruism Requirement is a moral fact. (...) It states a legitimate constraint on permissible transplantation and is accepted on the basis of cogent argument. The present paper offers an alternative interpretation. I suggest the Altruism Requirement is a moral fiction—a kind of motivated falsehood. It is false that transplantation requires altruism. But the Requirement serves a purpose. Accepting it allows kidney donation but not kidney sale. It, in short, rationalizes the Received View. (shrink)

Proposals for increasing organ donation are often rejected as incompatible with altruistic motivation on the part of donors. This paper questions, on conceptual grounds, whether most organ donors really are altruistic. If we distinguish between altruism and solidarity – a more restricted form of other-concern, limited to members of a particular group – then most organ donors exhibit solidarity, rather than altruism. If organ donation really must be altruistic, then we have reasons to worry about the motives of existing donors. (...) However, I argue that altruism is not necessary, because organ donation supplies important goods, whatever the motivation, and we can reject certain dubious motivations, such as financial profit, without insisting on altruism.Once solidaristic donation is accepted, certain reforms for increasing donation rates seem permissible. This paper considers two proposals. Firstly, it has been suggested that registered donors should receive priority for transplants. While this proposal appears based on a solidaristic norm of reciprocity, it is argued that such a scheme would be undesirable, since non-donors may contribute to society in other ways. The second proposal is that donors should be able to direct their organs towards recipients that they feel solidarity with. This is often held to be inconsistent with altruistic motivation, but most donation is not entirely undirected in the first place (for instance, donor organs usually go to co-nationals). While allowing directed donation would create a number of practical problems, such as preventing discrimination, there appears to be no reason in principle to reject it. (shrink)

While many Christians accept the claim that giving to support the poor and needy is a core moral and religious obligation, most Christian giving is usually not very efficient in EA terms. In this paper, I explore possibilities for productive collaboration between effective altruists and Christian givers. I argue that Christians are obligated from their own perspective to give radically in terms of quantity and scope to alleviate the suffering of the poor and needy. I raise two important potential stumbling (...) blocks for EAChristian collaboration. First, Christians cannot assess outcomes using a straightforward utilitarian calculus of the sort preferred by many EAs, lest they run into a reductio. Second, Christians will want to give to support aims such as worship and evangelism that are not shared by secular EAs and that are not easily commensurable, making the allocation of giving resources more difficult. I conclude with some tentative suggestions about how Christians who are sympathetic to EA might become more effective in their giving. (shrink)

Effective altruism is the use of evidence and careful reasoning to work out how to maximize positive impact on others with a given unit of resources, and the taking of action on that basis. It’s a philosophy and a social movement that is gaining considerable steam in the philanthropic world. For example, GiveWell, an organization that recommends charities working in global health and development and generally follows effective altruist principles, moves over $90 million per year to its top recommendations. Giving (...) What We Can, which encourages individuals to pledge at least 10% of their income to the most cost-effective charities, now has over 3500 members, together pledging over $1.5 billion of lifetime donations. Good Ventures is a foundation, founded by Dustin Moskovitz and Cari Tuna, that is committed to effective altruist principles; it has potential assets of $11 billion, and is distributing over $200 million each year in grants, advised by the Open Philanthropy Project. [...] GPI Working Paper No. 8-2019. (shrink)

‘Altruistic punishment’ (i.e., costly punishment that serves no instrumental goal for the punisher) could serve, as suggested by the pertinent experimental literature, as a powerful enforcer of social norms. This paper discusses foundations, extensions, and, in particular, limits and open questions of this concept-and it does so mostly based on experimental evidence provided by the author. Inter alia, the paper relates the (standard) literature on negative emotions as a trigger of second party punishment to more recent experimental findings on the (...) phenomenon of ‘spontaneous cooperation’ and ‘spontaneous punishment’ and demonstrates its (tight) emotional basis. Furthermore, the paper discusses the potential for free riding on altruistic punishment. While providing valuable insights into the understanding of social order, ‘altruistic punishment’ is thus not the golden keystone of social stability. (shrink)

Why and under what conditions are individuals altruistic to family and friends in their social networks? Evolutionary psychology suggests that such behaviour is primarily the product of adaptations for kin- and reciprocal altruism, dependent on the degree of genetic relatedness and exchange of benefits, respectively. For this reason, individuals are expected to be more altruistic to family members than to friends: whereas family members can be the recipients of kin and reciprocal altruism, friends can be the recipients of reciprocal altruism (...) only. However, there is a question about how the effect of kinship is implemented at the proximate psychological level. One possibility is that kinship contributes to some general measure of relationship quality (such as ‘emotional closeness’), which in turn explains altruism. Another possibility is that the effect of kinship is independent of relationship quality. The present study tests between these two possibilities. Participants (N= 111) completed a self-report questionnaire about their willingness to be altruistic, and their emotional closeness, to 12 family members and friends at different positions in their extended social networks. As expected, altruism was greater for family than friends, and greater for more central layers of the network. Crucially, the results showed that kinship made a significant unique contribution to altruism, even when controlling for the effects of emotional closeness. Thus, participants were more altruistic towards kin than would be expected if altruism was dependent on emotional closeness alone – a phenomenon we label a ‘kinship premium’. These results have implications for the ongoing debate about the extent to which kin relations and friendships are distinct kinds of social relationships, and how to measure the ‘strength of ties’ in social networks. (shrink)

Leftwing critiques of philanthropy are not new and so it is unsurprising that the Effective Altruism movement, which regards philanthropy as one of its tools, has been a target in recent years. Similarly, some Effective Altruists have regarded anti-capitalist strategy with suspicion. This essay is an attempt at harmonizing Effective Altruism and the anti-capitalism. My attraction to Effective Altruism and anti-capitalism are motivated by the same desire for a better world and so personal consistency demands reconciliation. More importantly however, I (...) think Effective Altruism will be less effective in realizing its own ends insofar as it fails to recognize that capitalism restricts the good we can do. Conversely, insofar as anti-capitalists fail to recognize the similarity in methods which underlie Effective Altruism thinking about the world, it too risks inefficiency or worse, total failure in replacing capitalism with a more humane economic system. I first argue that Effective Altruism and anti-capitalism are compatible in principle by looking at similarities between Effective Altruist theory and some Marxist writing. I then go on to show that the theoretic compatibility can be mirrored in practice. I demonstrate this by considering and replying to objections to anti-capitalism as they might be raised by Effective Altruists and by replying to objections to Effective Altruism as they might be raised by anti-capitalists. I conclude by suggesting that their reconciliation would lead to better outcomes from the perspective of a proponent of either view. In short, an “Anti-Capitalist Effective Altruism” is not just possible, it’s preferable. (shrink)

This paper presents quantitative data on altruistic cooperation during food acquisition by Ache foragers. Cooperative activities are defined as those that entail a cost of time and energy to the donor but primarily lead to an increase in the foraging success of the recipient. Data show that Ache men and women spend about 10% of all foraging time engaged in altruistic cooperation on average, and that on some days they may spend more than 50% of their foraging time in such (...) activities. The most time-consuming cooperative activity for both sexes is helping during the pursuit of game animals, a pattern that is probably linked to the widespread sharing of game by Ache foragers. Cooperative food acquisition and subsequent food redistribution in hunter-gatherer societies are critical behaviors that probably helped shape universal, evolved, cooperative tendencies that are well illustrated in modern experimental economics. (shrink)

Detection of genuine altruists could be a solution to the problem of subtle cheating. Brown et al. (Evol Psychol 1:42–69, 2003) found that humans could detect altruists using nonverbal cues. However, their experiments can be improved upon in several ways, and further investigation is needed to determine whether altruist-detection abilities are human universals. In our experiment, we used video clips of natural conversations as the stimulus. We asked a sample of Japanese undergraduates to rate their own level of altruism and (...) then to estimate the videotaped targets’ altruism using the same scale. The perceivers were able to estimate the targets’ altruism levels accurately. Perceivers’ altruism score did not affect their ability to discriminate between altruists and non-altruists. Perceivers’ impressions of the altruist and non-altruist targets were also found to be different. Coding of nonverbal behavior of the targets revealed that altruists exhibited more “felt smiles” than non-altruists, which also supports the results of the previous study. (shrink)

I first argue against Peter Singer's exciting thesis that the Prisoner's Dilemma explains why there could be an evolutionary advantage in making reciprocal exchanges that are ultimately motivated by genuine altruism over making such exchanges on the basis of enlightened long-term self-interest. I then show that an alternative to Singer's thesis — one that is also meant to corroborate the view that natural selection favors genuine altruism, recently defended by Gregory Kavka, fails as well. Finally, I show that even granting (...) Singer's and Kavka's claim about the selective advantage of altruism proper, it is doubtful whether that type of claim can be used in a particular sort of sociobiological argument against psychological egoism. (shrink)

This paper shows that altruism may be beneficial in bargaining when there is competition for bargaining partners. In a game with random proposers, the most altruistic player has the highest material payoff if players are sufficiently patient. However, this advantage is eroded as the discount factor increases, and if players are perfectly patient altruism and spite become irrelevant for material payoffs.

Reciprocity is a decisive behavioural rule resulting in successful co-operation or deterrence. In this paper, a dynamic model is proposed, where reciprocity is described by changes in altruistic (or malevolent) ties. Multiple steady states may exist in one of which there may be general cooperation (solidarity) and the other being one of universal malice (war of each individual against all other individuals). We apply our theory to a number of examples, illustrating that the agents’ initial preferences determine whether a steady (...) state of solidarity, selfishness or malice will emerge. (shrink)

Acts of helping others are often based on mixed motivations. Based on this claim, it has been argued that the use of a financial reward to incentivize organ donation is compatible with promoting altruism in organ donation. In its report Human Bodies: Donation for Medicine and Research, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics uses this argument to justify its suggestion to pilot a funeral payment scheme to incentivize people to register for deceased organ donation in the UK. In this article, I (...) cast a sceptical eye on the above Nuffield report's argument that its proposed funeral payment scheme would prompt deceased organ donations that remain altruistic . Specifically, I illustrate how this scheme may prompt various forms of mixed motivations which would not satisfy the report's definition of altruism. Insofar as the scheme produces an expectation of the reward, it stands diametrical to promoting an ‘altruistic perspective’. My minimal goal in this article is to argue that altruism is not motivationally compatible with reward as an incentive for donation. My broader goal is to argue that if a financial reward is used to incentivize organ donation, then we should recognize that the donation system is no longer aiming to promote altruism. Rewarded donation would not be altruistic but it may be ethical given a persistent organ shortage situation. (shrink)

This paper discusses the relations between three forms of altruism: behavioural, evolutionary and motivational. Altruism in a behavioural sense is an act that benefits another person. It can range from volunteering to a charity and helping a neighbour, to giving money to a non-profit organisation or donating blood. People often dedicate their material and nonmaterial resources for the benefit of others to gain psychological, social and material benefits for themselves. Thus, their altruistic acts are driven by egoistic motivation. Also, the (...) final goal of an altruistic act may be the increase in the welfare of a group or adherence to a certain moral principle or a social norm. However, at least sometimes, the welfare of others is the ultimate goal of our actions, when our altruistic acts are performed from altruistic motivation. In evolutionary sense, altruism means the sacrifice of reproductive success for the benefit of other organisms. According to evolutionary theories, behaviour which promotes the reproductive success of the receiver at the cost of the actor is favoured by natural selection, because it is either beneficial for the altruist in the long run, or for his genes, or for the group he belongs to. However, altruism among people emerges as a distinctly human combination of innate and learned behaviours. Not only do we benefit the members of our own group, but we are capable of transcending our tribalistic instincts and putting the benefit of strangers at our own personal expense as our ultimate goal. (shrink)

The article argues that altruistic giving based on anonymity, which is expected to promote social solidarity and block trade in human body parts, is conceptually defective and practically unproductive. It needs to be replaced by a more adequate notion which responds to the human practices of giving and receiving. The argument starts with identification of the main characteristics of the anonymous altruistic donation: social separation of the organ donor from the recipient, their mutual replaceability, non-obligatoriness of donation, and non-obligatoriness of (...) reciprocation on the recipient’s part. Since these characteristics are also central to typical market relations, anonymous altruistic donation not only cannot promote solidarity but may encourage proposals for markets of transplantable organs. Thus, transplant ethics needs to be reframed. It needs to be rooted in, rather than promote, the practices of giving and receiving known to human societies. As the basis for such reframing, the idea of sharing in another’s misfortune is proposed. It relies on the human practices of giving and receiving and, with appropriate regulatory safeguards, can provide a better conceptual basis for blocking commercial exchanges of human body parts. (shrink)