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  • [APPLAUSE]

  • PETER SINGER: Thank you very much.

  • It's great to see so many of you here

  • despite the temptations of getting out

  • in the sunshine on a beautiful day.

  • And thank you very much, [? Christine, ?]

  • for having set this up and for that introduction.

  • So I'm talking about an article that I

  • wrote a very long time ago.

  • "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" was originally

  • published in 1972.

  • And it's now been republished together

  • with a couple of more recent essays, and a previously

  • unpublished preface, and a forward by Bill

  • and Melinda Gates as this little book,

  • "Famine, Affluence, and Morality."

  • And I'm delighted that OUP have had the idea that this essay is

  • still relevant today and that it's

  • something that is worth getting out there and reminding people

  • about.

  • But let me just take you back a little bit to the circumstances

  • in which it was written, which most of you

  • will not be able to remember I can

  • see looking around the room.

  • [LAUGHTER]

  • So for those who don't know, there

  • was a time when the country that is now Bangladesh

  • was a part of Pakistan.

  • It was called East Pakistan.

  • There was a movement for independence

  • from what was then West Pakistan and is now just Pakistan.

  • And that movement for independence

  • was very brutally repressed by the Pakistani army.

  • As a result of that repression, nine million people

  • fled across the border from East Pakistan to India.

  • And this is just a small, tiny segment

  • of that mass of humanity that was

  • trying to escape the repression and widespread starvation that

  • also had occurred because of the disruption of infrastructure

  • because of that repression.

  • I was living in Oxford at the time.

  • I was a graduate student at the University of Oxford.

  • And I was troubled by the fact that despite this vast number

  • of people in great need, affluent nations were not

  • doing very much to help.

  • It wasn't that they didn't know about the situation.

  • It was well publicized.

  • The Beatle, George Harrison-- or ex-Beatle, I guess, by then,

  • perhaps-- put on a concert for Bangladesh,

  • and tried to raise money for it, and did

  • raise some money for it.

  • And Oxfam and other organizations

  • were fundraising for it.

  • But they raised I think something

  • like 20 or 30 million pounds.

  • And the World Health Organization

  • was saying that something like half a billion pounds

  • was needed to feed and provide sanitation and shelter

  • for this very large number of refugees.

  • And India was a much poorer country then than it is today.

  • So it was not really going to be able to cope with this burden.

  • So I wanted to write something about this.

  • This was at a time when philosophy, at least

  • English speaking philosophy, was just

  • starting to return to what I see as its roots and true nature,

  • going right back to Athens, and ancient Athens, and Socrates,

  • of suggesting how we ought to live.

  • It was emerging from a period where

  • it was really analyzing the meanings of moral terms

  • in what was sometimes ordinary language philosophy

  • and I think of as a phase that-- you know,

  • it wasn't completely worthless.

  • But it was less interesting than actually

  • trying to grapple with these questions of how

  • we ought to live that traditionally philosophy has

  • been about.

  • So I wanted to write something about this.

  • And this seemed a good example to ask

  • what are our obligations as people living

  • in an affluent society-- pretty comfortable,

  • pretty secure-- in terms of helping

  • in a situation like this?

  • But I didn't want to limit it either just

  • to this particular crisis, which obviously at some point

  • was going to be solved one way or the other--

  • but generalizing to what we ought to do to help people

  • in extreme poverty, which existed all over the world

  • and which was also taking lives.

  • So the argument that I put forward

  • was really a very simple one.

  • And I'll just run you quickly through the premises

  • in the argument.

  • So the first premise I think is very difficult to deny,

  • that suffering and death from lack of food, shelter,

  • and medical care is a bad thing.

  • And that was what these nine million people were being

  • threatened with at the time.

  • So there was a bad thing happening.

  • Second premise, somewhat more controversial--

  • and I'll come back to this and say a little bit

  • in defense of it.

  • But I wanted to claim that if it's in our power

  • to prevent something bad happening without sacrificing

  • something of comparable moral significance, then

  • we ought to do that.

  • You're probably saying, well, what's

  • of comparable moral significance?

  • But I wanted to leave that as a kind

  • of open expression for people to put their own values in.

  • I didn't want to make my judgment, in this article

  • anyway, as to what might be of comparable moral significance

  • to suffering and death from lack of food and so on.

  • I wanted people to ask themselves-- so, you know,

  • I could do something.

  • We're getting obviously to the question of,

  • I could donate to Oxfam's appeal.

  • I could do something.

  • What would I be sacrificing if I were

  • to make a substantial donation to that appeal?

  • Would it be of comparable moral significance

  • to the death and suffering that it would prevent?

  • And I thought that most people living in affluent countries

  • if they were honest with themselves would say, well,

  • I could give quite a lot before I reached the point where I was

  • sacrificing anything that even in terms

  • of my own values, whatever they might be,

  • would be of comparable moral significance

  • to what we would be preventing.

  • So that's the second premise.

  • And the third is a factual claim that it is in our power

  • to prevent suffering and death without thereby sacrificing

  • anything of comparable moral significance.

  • So that's obviously a claim that needs

  • to be defended as well in terms of what the factual situation

  • in the world is.

  • And I'll come back to that.

  • But from those three premises, we

  • can draw the conclusion that we ought

  • to do what would prevent the suffering and death from lack

  • of food where we can and if indeed it's

  • the case, that when that's in our power, we ought to do it.

  • So that's the really simple argument.

  • And I think one of the reasons why the article has

  • been very successful, and is still widely known

  • and discussed, and reprinted in many anthologies and textbooks

  • is because that argument is so simple.

  • It doesn't require a great philosophical sophistication

  • to spell out what the argument is.

  • Now some people see that as a disadvantage.

  • Particularly if I go and lecture on this sort of topic

  • in a place like France, they all think, oh, this can't really

  • be philosophy.

  • I can understand that.

  • [LAUGHTER]

  • It's not profound enough.

  • But I think we can get into deeper questions if we want to.

  • And we don't need to make the language more complicated.

  • OK let's, though, look at the defense of the premises.

  • And we'll start with the second premise.

  • So in defending the second premise,

  • I told a little story-- and the story

  • might be the other reason that the article has

  • been so widely read-- called "The Drowning

  • Child in the Shallow Pond."

  • I couldn't find, despite everything

  • that's on the internet-- you'd think everything is there.

  • I could not find a photo of a child drowning in a pond.

  • [LAUGHTER]

  • But I found a photo of a rather happy toddler playing in water.

  • And that's going to have to do.

  • [LAUGHTER]

  • So the story is-- it's laid out here--

  • you're walking across a park.

  • And there's a shallow pond in the park.

  • You know that the pond is shallow.

  • You've been walking through the park on summer days

  • when kids have been playing.

  • And you know that if there's a teenager in the water,

  • it's only up to his waist.

  • But today, it's not summer.

  • There's nobody else around.

  • You wouldn't expect anyone to be in the water at all.

  • But you do see something in the water.

  • And when you look more closely, you

  • see it's a very small child, a toddler.

  • And although the pond, is shallow it's

  • too deep for this child.

  • And this child is apparently drowning,

  • in danger of drowning.

  • Your first response probably would

  • be to look around and say, who's looking after this child?

  • Where's the father, or mother, or babysitter?

  • Somebody has to be taking care of this child.

  • But you can't see anyone.

  • You don't know how it could happen

  • that this small child could be alone and fallen in the pond.

  • But that apparently is what's happened.

  • And there's nobody else there.

  • So it looks like the only way to stop this child drowning

  • is for you to run into the pond, and quickly grab the child,

  • and pull the child out.

  • Not a dangerous thing to do, but you

  • realize there is some cost to you involved.

  • As bad luck would have it, you've

  • dressed in your most expensive outfit,

  • because you're going to meet someone you want to impress.

  • And it's going to get ruined.

  • Your expensive shoes, suit, whatever else it might be

  • is going to get ruined by wading into this muddy pond.

  • It's going to be inconvenient for you.

  • You're going to have to go back and dry off, call your friend

  • and say you're going to be late, whatever.

  • And you're up for the expense of replacing your nice clothing

  • that you bought recently.

  • Nevertheless, most people would think if you said,

  • yeah, well, I don't want to damage my shoes.

  • And after all, this is not my child.

  • And I'm not responsible for this child.

  • Nobody said, you know, please look

  • after this child or anything like that.

  • So why don't I just forget about it and go on my way?

  • If you said that, most people I think

  • would think that you'd done something really bad,

  • something really wrong.

  • I thought of this as a purely hypothetical example.

  • But there are cases of people who

  • neglect to take simple steps that will save a child's life.

  • There was one that got a lot of attention in China

  • three years ago because it was caught on video.

  • This is a street in the city of Foshan.

  • And there is a child here who has been previously hit

  • by a van driving down the street.

  • The child's mother is not aware that this

  • has happened to her child.

  • She's doing something else.

  • And the video camera captures a number

  • of people walking down the street, like this man,

  • basically looking away from the child.

  • It's pretty hard to imagine that this person who

  • has walked from down there has not noticed that there's

  • a child lying in the street.

  • But he's paying no attention to the child.

  • And over a period-- I can't remember

  • exactly how long-- but over a period of 10 minutes

  • or so, something like a dozen people

  • walk down the street without paying any attention.

  • And tragically, a second car hit and ran over the child

  • while she was lying on the street.

  • After that, a woman who was cleaning the street

  • did notice the child and sounded the alarm.

  • The child was taken to hospital.

  • But the injuries were too severe, and the child died.

  • That was then shown in China on national news programs.

  • And there was a huge outcry that this was a terrible thing.

  • What's happening to China?

  • Don't we care about each other?

  • And there was very widespread condemnation,

  • as you'd expect of the people who had done nothing

  • to help the child.

  • So it's not just a sort of local thing.

  • I think that if we think, yes, you

  • ought to have helped the child in the pond and people in China

  • also I think you ought to help someone in the street,

  • it may not always happen.

  • But the moral judgment that I am looking for,

  • that I am inviting you to make is one ought not to do this.

  • I hope you would be thinking that you yourself

  • if you were in this situation would not do this,

  • that you would help the child.

  • You would think that the cost of replacing your clothes

  • would not be anything of comparable moral significance

  • to saving the child's life.

  • And therefore, that's something you ought to do.

  • So if I do have your agreement on that, your support on that,

  • then I can use that as a way of saying,

  • at least in that particular case,

  • the child in the pond sort of case or the child in the street

  • here, you agree that if it's in your power

  • to prevent something really bad happening without sacrificing

  • something comparably significant,

  • you ought to do it.

  • And that is an important step in the argument.

  • It shows that you're not taking the view that you only

  • have obligations if you have in some way

  • some special responsibility-- let's say you promise to look

  • after the child, or the child is your child,

  • or something like that.

  • If you think that this would be wrong,

  • you're actually saying we do have obligations

  • to help strangers even when we haven't voluntarily taken

  • on those kinds of obligations.

  • And that's part of the judgment that

  • lies behind the second premise that I

  • want to get you to agree to.

  • But of course, you might say, well,

  • I agree in the case of the child in the pond

  • or the child in the street there.

  • But the analogy, if you're going to use--

  • as I presume you've probably already seen

  • the strategy here-- if you're going to use this

  • as an analogy for saying I ought to help strangers

  • in Bangladesh, or refugees from Bangladesh or in India,

  • or for that matter right now that you

  • or to help people in developing countries who

  • are in need who you can help, then that analogy--

  • there's too many differences between the two situations.

  • And so I want to say a little bit about that now.

  • So the question is, yes, there are obviously

  • differences between the situation, many differences.

  • Are they morally relevant differences

  • between those situations?

  • And there's such a lot of differences

  • that I'm not going to be able to mention them all.

  • But I am going to mention some that I

  • think are psychologically relevant in that they would

  • affect, perhaps, the likelihood that people will help--

  • differences between the child in the pond and the global poverty

  • situation today.

  • And maybe they affect the moral judgments

  • that people will make about whether we ought to help

  • or not.

  • So I'll just go fairly quickly through these,

  • because I know we have a limited amount of time.

  • So in the child in the pond, there's an identifiable child.

  • You don't know this child's name or much about this child,

  • but you can see it's that child I'll be helping.

  • It's one particular individual.

  • In global poverty, you don't know who you'll be helping.

  • You may donate to the Against Malaria Foundation,

  • a highly effective charity that distributes bed nets in areas

  • where malaria kills children.

  • And it's been very well documented

  • by the best possible methods, by randomized controlled trials,

  • that distributing bed nets does reduce

  • child mortality at modest cost.

  • But of course, if you contribute to the Against Malaria

  • Foundation, you're never going to know

  • which child's life you saved.

  • Because it's a counterfactual.

  • It's, well, if this child hadn't been sleeping under a bed net,

  • he or she would have got malaria and would have died.

  • And if you distribute enough bed nets,

  • there will be such a child that fills that description.

  • But you'll never know which one it is.

  • And psychologically, we're much readier to help

  • an identifiable individual than a statistical individual.

  • The futility aspect is another little sort

  • of psychological trick that we play on ourselves.

  • When we think of the child in the pond,

  • we think I can save that child.

  • And when I've saved that child, I've solved the problem.

  • There's nobody else needing to be saved around there.

  • But when we think about global poverty,

  • we often think, oh, but there are-- the current World Bank

  • figure is 700 million people living in extreme poverty.

  • There's no way I can help all of them.

  • In fact, the difference that I could make

  • is insignificant compared to the size of the problem.

  • It's a drop in the ocean, we sometimes say.

  • And that is a discouraging factor that

  • makes us less likely to do it.

  • But if you think of it from the point of view

  • of the individual you have helped,

  • it's just as much a benefit for that individual

  • that you've saved their life, or saved the life of their child,

  • or prevented them going blind, or reduced their suffering

  • from a disease.

  • It doesn't reduce the value of that benefit

  • that sadly, there are hundreds of millions of other people

  • who are still in that situation.

  • I think it's still just as important a benefit.

  • The diffusion of responsibility--

  • also in the child in the pond, I said you're

  • the only person who can help.

  • But clearly, that's not the case with global poverty.

  • There are, again, hundreds of millions

  • of people who can help, some of whom are wealthier than you.

  • And some of those people who are wealthier

  • than you are helping like Bill and Melinda Gates, for example.

  • Others who are a lot wealthier than you

  • are not helping at all.

  • So you might say, well, why me?

  • Why am I the one who should do something about this?

  • And again, psychologically, there

  • are all sorts of experiments psychologists

  • have done that show that we are less likely to help others

  • if we are one of a group and we see that others in the group

  • are not helping.

  • It's something that, in a sense, deters us from helping.

  • But mostly, we think that that's wrong, at least in retrospect

  • when we're outside it.

  • I mean, we think that people should have helped.

  • And the fact that they were part of a society where

  • people didn't help very much doesn't really excuse them.

  • If we think about people who turned a blind eye to what

  • was happening in Nazi Germany, we

  • don't think the fact that they were just one of many

  • is a sufficient excuse.

  • And I think here too, we should think that, well, I

  • can still make some difference.

  • Even if other people won't, I can make some difference.

  • And maybe if I and a few others start helping,

  • that will make it easier for others to join in.

  • We'll build up the critical mass of people helping.

  • And we'll actually counteract this psychological effect

  • of diffusion of responsibility.

  • The child in the pond is near.

  • And the people, the refugees in India, were far away.

  • And other people in extreme poverty

  • are far away from where we are now.

  • Most people when they think about that

  • are pretty clear about that doesn't really make

  • a difference to my obligations.

  • If the distance makes it harder for me

  • to actually do anything, then sure, that makes a difference.

  • But that's relevant to the other premise

  • that I showed you, the one about whether it's

  • in our power to do something.

  • If it's just distance, I think we

  • can see pretty clearly that it's not that critical.

  • You can see the child for yourself

  • and sum up the situation.

  • You don't have to rely on information from others.

  • Psychologically, that makes a difference too.

  • But again, I would say, what really matters

  • is the quality of information.

  • Are you getting good information?

  • Is it reliable information?

  • Could somebody be trying to scam you

  • into sending them a donation or sending

  • a donation to an organization that isn't

  • a bonafide organization at all?

  • All of those are very relevant and proper concerns.

  • But otherwise, whether you actually

  • see it with your own eyes or whether you get information

  • from a source that you believe is fully reliable I don't think

  • should make a difference.

  • So although psychologically these are disanalogies,

  • I want to argue that morally, they're not really relevant.

  • And this is my explanation of what's going on,

  • which owes something to the Harvard psychologist

  • Joshua Greene who has a book called "Moral Tribes," which

  • is about moral psychology and its implications

  • in this kind of area, that I highly recommend.

  • So why do we have these responses

  • that I just described?

  • We have them because we evolved in small face-to-face societies

  • where basically we knew the people we could help.

  • They were identifiable individuals.

  • And they were part of our group.

  • And to that extent, some of these responses

  • are hardwired into us.

  • They're part of our biology.

  • But the world has changed in the last century or two

  • very dramatically.

  • It's changed in the sense that we're living now

  • in a much bigger community.

  • And we have the ability to know what's

  • going on far away from us, which we never had before.

  • And we have the ability to actually help and make

  • a difference, not quite as instantly

  • as we have the ability to know what's happening,

  • but quickly enough.

  • Of course, evolution doesn't work that fast.

  • The biology hasn't changed.

  • We still have the innate responses

  • that are more suited to the many millennia in which we lived,

  • or millions of years, going back to our pre-human ancestors

  • even, in which we've lived in small social groups.

  • So that's why we have these notions.

  • But now we really need to go beyond them-- not that I'm

  • saying we shouldn't have emotions in this area,

  • but we need to use our reason and our ability

  • to reflect in order to go beyond them

  • and think about what we ought to do in a different way.

  • So the psychological differences I'm saying

  • are not always morally relevant.

  • And I've just said-- what's the second part of that slide,

  • so I needn't repeat that.

  • Briefly, I want to make sure that you

  • have time for questions.

  • So I don't want to go on too long.

  • I'll just briefly run through the factual claim

  • I made that it's in our power to do something--

  • has been challenged.

  • Some of you may have read some critiques

  • of aid-- Bill Easterly's book, "The White Man's Burden,"

  • Dambisa Moyo's "Dead Aid."

  • And my Princeton colleague Angus Deaton

  • who this year got the Nobel Prize for Economics

  • also has some criticisms of aid in his excellent book,

  • "The Great Escape."

  • But I think the more sweeping critiques that

  • come from Easterly and Moyo are not

  • applicable to what I'm talking about.

  • They're directed at government aid, multilateral aid,

  • not at the NGOs that I would recommend you give your aid to.

  • Very few of us say we want to give money to the government

  • so we can increase its aid.

  • Even as far as government's concerned,

  • I think Easterly and Moyo are a little unfair, especially where

  • you have governments that have been reasonably thoughtful,

  • as Difford has in this country, in terms of overcoming some

  • of the objections that certainly have existed in the past

  • to aid.

  • And as far as Deatons critique, which is a more nuanced one,

  • Deaton acknowledges that aid, particularly in the health

  • area, has saved millions of lives.

  • And I think there's no doubt about that.

  • You look at the figures-- child deaths have

  • come down very dramatically in the last 50 years

  • or more from 20 million in 1960 to under six million today.

  • So we had less than a third of the number of children

  • who die before their fifth birthday as

  • compared to 50 years ago despite the fact

  • that the world's population has more than doubled.

  • So effectively, the death rate for children under five

  • is less than one sixth of what it was.

  • That's very good news.

  • Aid can't claim all the credit for that.

  • Obviously, economic development in countries

  • like China in particular has made a huge difference here.

  • But I think it's clear that aid has also made a difference.

  • And there's data on that which I could go into.

  • But I think that the data is pretty clear in some cases

  • that aid programs have made an important difference

  • in reducing child mortality, also

  • in doing other things like reducing incidence

  • of preventable blindness from trachoma,

  • and dealing with a whole range of other conditions

  • that cause a lot of suffering, providing

  • more education, particularly education for girls,

  • providing information about family

  • planning, a whole lot of different things

  • that aid has done.

  • So I think the factual premise is justified.

  • We do have it in our power to do things

  • as long as we choose carefully and thoughtfully about what

  • we're doing with our resources.

  • So the only thing that I do want to correct

  • here, having said that, is in the original article,

  • I said, like, for the cost of your ruined pair of shoes,

  • you could save a life.

  • Well, you're going to have to really

  • be very much at the top end of the shoe market--

  • [LAUGHTER]

  • --for that to be true on the more recent research.

  • Because whereas I thought earlier maybe

  • there was some suggestions that for a couple of hundred dollars

  • you could save a child's life, more recent research

  • suggests that it's significantly more than that.

  • It might be in $1,000 or two range.

  • But it's still, I think, not something that's-- most of us

  • would not have to give up something comparably

  • significant in order to achieve that.

  • OK, aren't I giving through my taxes?

  • Well, yes, if you pay taxes in the UK,

  • you are giving to one of the countries

  • that now, thanks to a bipartisan pledge that's actually

  • being fulfilled, is among the better nations in the world.

  • And that's really good, much better

  • than where I spend part of each year, Australia,

  • and better still than where I spend

  • the other part of each year.

  • The US is really pretty miserable on this scale.

  • But still, this line is 0.7% of gross national income,

  • so not very much.

  • 70 pence in every 100 pounds the nation earns is not very much.

  • I think we could do a lot better than that.

  • So this is sort of the big, big question

  • about the whole thing is, well, how much should we give?

  • What is this level of comparable moral significance?

  • Doesn't it make life very demanding

  • to go all the way there?

  • And when the article, the "Famine, Affluence,

  • and Morality" article, first came out,

  • it was used, as I said, in a lot of classrooms.

  • Professors gave it to their students to read,

  • because they could read it.

  • And they could be challenged by it.

  • But I've heard from a number of people

  • that the-- the way in which it was used

  • was basically, look, here's a rather plausible argument.

  • The premises seem like they're plausible.

  • Certainly, the conclusion follows

  • if you accept the premise.

  • But the conclusion is so demanding,

  • it must be wrong, right?

  • So your job is to show where the argument goes wrong.

  • And that was something that to work quite well as a teaching

  • tool.

  • But one of the interesting things that's

  • happened more recently, and perhaps one of the reasons

  • why OUP thought it would be good to have the article out there

  • again, is that, in fact, more people now

  • are seeing this not as an objection

  • but as a reason for doing something about it.

  • And that relates to what's now known

  • as effective altruism, a new movement,

  • certainly within the last 10 years, that

  • is trying to publicize the idea of living

  • as if that argument actually mattered

  • and as if we could do something about it.

  • So here's one of the founders of this movement.

  • It's sort of not a single organization

  • that's got it going.

  • There are a number of different people,

  • different organizations.

  • One of them is Toby Ord, who is now a research

  • fellow in philosophy at Oxford.

  • He read the article as a student.

  • He decided that he wanted to live so as to make

  • the world a better place.

  • So he thought, well, I'm doing OK as a student.

  • I'm on this graduate studentship.

  • I think it was around 16,000 pounds or maybe 14,000 pounds.

  • He said, yeah, I could maybe have a little bit more.

  • But, you know, I'm not really missing anything.

  • And I'm heading for an academic career.

  • After I get my DPhil, I'm probably

  • going to get an academic job.

  • I'll be earning a lot more than my studentship.

  • Suppose that I just continue to live

  • on this studentship, or inflation

  • adjusted amount of this studentship,

  • or a little bit more.

  • So he's pledged to live on that amount adjusted for inflation--

  • it's probably a bit higher than that by now,

  • because he made that pledge a few years ago--

  • and to give away the rest.

  • And he worked out what he might do with that.

  • He picked, as a highly effective thing to do,

  • preventing blindness from trachoma, the largest

  • cause of preventable blindness in the world that

  • affects people in developing countries--

  • pretty cheap to prevent.

  • He, because he likes doing maths, and sums,

  • and so on, he decided to work out

  • how much he would be able to give away

  • if he had a normal academic trajectory at the kind

  • of salaries that academics are likely to have until retirement

  • and continued to live on this amount.

  • And so he got this large sum of money,

  • notional a large sum of money, divided it

  • by the cost of preventing blindness from trachoma,

  • and ended up with a figure of 80,000-- 80,000 cases

  • of blindness that he alone, not a very rich person,

  • no Bill Gates or Warren Buffet-- he alone

  • would be able to prevent.

  • And he thought that was very impressive.

  • He was sort of thrilled to think that he could

  • do that much good in the world-- and decided

  • to tell people about it.

  • So he founded this organization, Giving What We Can,

  • encouraged people not to take a pledge as tough as the one he

  • did, but to pledge to give 10% of their income

  • to effective charities.

  • Here's somebody who came to this completely independent,

  • Julia Wise, a woman living in Boston who sort of thought

  • that learning how much better she is than other people wanted

  • to give quite a lot to help people and could live on less--

  • persuaded her then boyfriend now husband

  • to join her in doing this.

  • And incidentally, he worked-- Jeff Kauffman

  • works for Google in Boston.

  • But even before he got this job at Google,

  • they were already donating a substantial amount

  • of their income.

  • They were I think donating something like 30% of it

  • even when their total income was no more than around $50,000

  • a year.

  • Now that Jeff has a nice Google job,

  • they've upped this to 50% of their income.

  • And if you want to read about how Julia feels about it,

  • she writes this engaging kind of personal blog

  • at givinggladly.com.

  • And you can see what she does, and how she lives,

  • and why she thinks this is important by looking at that.

  • And this is probably the most impressive sort

  • of a case of the influence of philosophy on direct behavior.

  • This is not somebody that I've ever met.

  • But I got an email out of the blue a few years ago telling me

  • that as a result of discussing "Famine, Affluence,

  • and Morality" in class, the sort of discussion

  • went, well, you know, there's this argument.

  • And it leads to saying you should give away

  • a lot of money.

  • And then somebody else they read said,

  • well, you know, if that argument were true,

  • it wouldn't just apply to giving money.

  • You could help people for example

  • by donating a kidney to a stranger.

  • And again, this was seen as a reductio ad absurdum

  • that morality couldn't be that demanding that that's

  • what we ought to do.

  • But Chris, after thinking about it

  • and discussing it with other people--

  • he didn't rush into this-- took some months

  • to reach this decision-- decided that was what he wanted to do.

  • And you see him here just after doing that.

  • I've continued to be in touch with him.

  • And he's very happy about what he's done.

  • He's in good health.

  • He's been in contact with the person who

  • received the kidney who was a man in his 40s

  • who was a schoolteacher teaching in an underprivileged school

  • in St. Louis, so he feels really good about that.

  • Of course, you never know who you're going to give to.

  • It could've been someone who was a conservative Republican

  • or whatever.

  • [LAUGHTER]

  • Chris might have felt less happy.

  • But that's-- it turned out well for him, anyway.

  • [LAUGHTER]

  • So there are a few people who do this.

  • I think it's probably, for most people including me,

  • it may be a step too far.

  • But it's an example of the way that philosophy

  • can make a difference.

  • OK, I'm nearly done.

  • So this is this movement, effective altruism.

  • You can look it up on Wikipedia now.

  • So it's pretty new.

  • It wasn't there a few years ago-- stresses the idea

  • about applying evidence and reason.

  • And here's one way of doing this.

  • An organization-- this is American rather than UK--

  • but an organization called GiveWell

  • that reviews charities, finds ones for which there's

  • really clear evidence, and recommends them--

  • so just this thin slice.

  • That doesn't mean that all these other charities that

  • have been reviewed are actually not effective.

  • What it means is they have not been

  • able to produce good enough evidence to satisfy

  • the rigorous assessment that GiveWell

  • does that they are effective.

  • And that's a very different question.

  • But GiveWell is kind of driving the movement to get more data,

  • to get independent studies, to get good analysis so

  • that we can know which are the really effective charities.

  • And that's certainly helped the whole effective altruism

  • movement.

  • Here again is the one that Toby Ord started.

  • And if you go to their Where to Give tab,

  • they also recommend charities more

  • suited for purposes for the UK, if you're

  • interested in tax deductibility for donations in the UK.

  • And there's one that I've involved

  • with that started as the title of a earlier book of mine,

  • "The Life You Can Save"-- somewhat more global

  • in the charities that it recommends,

  • slightly less rigorous in the evidence required than they

  • GiveWell, because we wanted a broader group of organizations.

  • But if you're interested, have a look at any of those websites.

  • And at that, I'm going to stop so that we still

  • have some time for questions.

  • Thanks very much.

  • [APPLAUSE]

  • SPEAKER 1: Great.

  • So we have two microphones.

  • We've got Jan with a microphone over there.

  • I've got one.

  • I'm going to start with a question, if I may.

  • I love the link between this book

  • and the ideas around effective altruism.

  • I wonder though about what your thoughts

  • on the immediacy of social media and the immediacy of what we're

  • able to do now in order to bring us closer to things happening

  • on the other side of the globe-- does that change our behavior?

  • Or do we suffer from information overload?

  • PETER SINGER: I'm hoping that we'll change our behavior.

  • It probably already is changing our behavior,

  • but I haven't seen good enough data on that.

  • Obviously, you know, all of these things

  • have positives and negatives.

  • I would like sort of the positive

  • that we feel more closely connected to people

  • on the other side of the world.

  • So I like the idea of, you know, Mark Zuckerberg's internet.org,

  • that everybody in the world eventually

  • is going to be on the net.

  • And we can communicate with them in some way.

  • I think it will be excellent if that spreads.

  • Sometimes the social media get people

  • to focus on a particular thing that goes viral.

  • And it may not be the most effective thing.

  • We had the ice bucket challenge a year or so ago.

  • You know, that was fine, but it was

  • dealing with a fairly rare disease in affluent countries.

  • If we want to use our resources most effectively

  • to help people suffering from diseases,

  • there are others affecting people in developing countries

  • where it would be much more cost effective to donate.

  • SPEAKER 1: Perfect.

  • AUDIENCE: So there's two elements of this.

  • Is this on?

  • Yeah.

  • PETER SINGER: Yeah, yeah.

  • AUDIENCE: And one of them is getting people to donate more.

  • And the other one is donate to effective charities.

  • For example, Against Malaria Foundation from what I know

  • is about 100 times more effective than the ALS ice

  • bucket challenge per dollar.

  • Which of those areas do you find it is easier

  • to convince people to make an improvement?

  • And what sort of strategies have you learned

  • from writing your books and so on

  • and how you have managed to convince

  • those people to do that?

  • PETER SINGER: Yeah, that's a good question.

  • I don't really have good data to say which of them

  • have I found more successful.

  • I've certainly-- I do know people

  • who've started giving because of arguments that I and others

  • in the effective altruism movement have put forward.

  • I know quite a lot of people who've

  • taken that up and perhaps in some way responded

  • to that argument-- maybe thought they should do something

  • before, but didn't get around to doing it.

  • So that's certainly possible.

  • Probably though, you typically get more resistance

  • when you tell people they ought to be giving

  • or they ought to be giving more than if you tell them

  • they ought to be giving more effectively, at least the kind

  • of audiences that I talk about.

  • But I do get pushback from that as well.

  • I get pushback from-- some people say, but look,

  • you're taking the emotional component out of giving.

  • You're telling people to think about it.

  • And if people don't feel emotionally,

  • then they're not going to give at all.

  • I've don't accept that I'm taking the emotional component

  • out of it.

  • I'm trying to change the emotional component

  • in some way.

  • And I also get pushback, I should

  • say, from people in the philanthropy sector

  • as such, so professional philanthropy advisors, those

  • who are involved in organizations

  • for promoting philanthropy.

  • They want to be cause neutral.

  • Because they don't want to turn people away.

  • If they're find to be advisors, and potential clients

  • come to them and say, we'd like your advice on how to give,

  • or we want to give away some of our money,

  • or leave our estate to something--

  • and then they say to you, and we're

  • really passionate about music, so we want to endow a new opera

  • hall for our city.

  • And if you then say to them, well, I

  • don't really think a new opera hall

  • is what the world most needs, you know,

  • should be helping to prevent blindness in Africa,

  • then they're worried that those people would just

  • go away and find somebody else to talk to so.

  • So they kind of have this official idea

  • that we can't judge.

  • We can't judge between different causes.

  • I think that's wrong, but I can sort of

  • understand from their point of view why they're saying that.

  • We had someone in the back there.

  • Yeah.

  • AUDIENCE: Yeah, I was going to ask actually

  • a really similar question but with the example

  • of International Rescue Committee who

  • were really praised, because they did this large scale

  • monitoring and evaluation process.

  • And it turned out that their most expensive, longest running

  • program had no impact.

  • And there was debate, should she publish that or not?

  • Because it will be so psychologically discouraging.

  • It is a moral thing to publish that finding or not?

  • You just answered it.

  • But yeah--

  • PETER SINGER: Yeah.

  • AUDIENCE: Thank you.

  • PETER SINGER: No, I think it's great

  • that people do those trials and that they

  • are prepared to publish them.

  • Best of all is if they commit themselves

  • in advance of the trial by announcing

  • that they're doing a trial.

  • And that's what some organizations are doing.

  • One very transparent organization is GiveDirectly.

  • GiveDirectly has pioneered handing out one-off cash grants

  • to poor families in East Africa.

  • It sort of finds poor families, gives them $1,000,

  • makes it clear that that's what they're

  • going to get-- it's not a permanent thing--

  • and then sees what they do with it

  • and whether they come out better.

  • And they announced beforehand that they were

  • going to do a randomized trial.

  • So they were committed to publicizing

  • the results of the trial however they came out.

  • They did come out well.

  • They're now actually trying a guaranteed minimum income

  • scheme to see whether if they do give regular minimum amounts,

  • what that does to people.

  • And again, they've announced that they

  • will do a trial on that without knowing

  • how it's going to come out.

  • AUDIENCE: So you explain your moral argument

  • with sound logic that applies to NGOs.

  • But there are many ways in which entities

  • try to target helping the developing world, sometimes

  • even extreme such as military interventions.

  • So my question is, how do you think--

  • to what extent do you think your moral framework applies

  • to such ways of helping out rather than just directly

  • through NGOs?

  • I think the overriding framework applies.

  • I'm focusing on NGOs, because I'm

  • addressing people who might have decisions about what

  • to do with surplus income, or sometimes with time

  • that they might be prepared to volunteer, or whatever it is.

  • Nobody-- none of you will have the power to say,

  • oh, we ought to be intervening in Syria, so let's do that.

  • I mean, you might decide to write a letter to a paper.

  • Or you might decide to vote for someone who

  • thinks you ought to do that.

  • But very marginal effect that you can have there.

  • But I do think if you're considering something

  • like intervention, you ought to be weighing out

  • the costs and benefits of what that ought to be.

  • And that's why some cases I think

  • we've missed opportunities to get huge benefits at rather

  • small costs.

  • Rwanda would be the classic case of that

  • where according to the Canadian leader of the UN forces

  • that were there before, another 5,000 well-trained troops could

  • have stopped the massacre that took 800,000 lives.

  • I think it's very regrettable that that didn't happen.

  • But other people have called for intervention-- for example,

  • at the time of the Kosovo intervention against Serbia,

  • other people said, well, what about what

  • Russia is doing in Chechnya?

  • Isn't that just as bad as what the Serbs are doing in Kosovo?

  • And the answer might well be yes, it was just as bad.

  • But who wants a war with a major nuclear armed power, right?

  • The costs are going to be absurd.

  • So I do think the ultimate framework is

  • applicable to those situations.

  • AUDIENCE: With your argument, how should we compare

  • individuals to corporations?

  • So if a company such as Google, what level

  • should we be giving a percentage of our profits

  • back to charities?

  • PETER SINGER: What level should Google give?

  • [LAUGHTER]

  • AUDIENCE: Corporations in general.

  • PETER SINGER: Yeah.

  • You know, corporations are in somewhat different situations

  • in that they have fiduciary responsibilities

  • to their shareholders.

  • Of course, they can give.

  • And they can justify this in terms of being good

  • for the image of the company.

  • So there is a fair amount of flexibility.

  • And I think Google would enhance its reputation

  • by giving quite a lot.

  • I know that it does have google.org.

  • And its funding a lot of projects through that.

  • And some of those I hope will do a lot of good.

  • So it's hard for me to put any kind of specific figure

  • on that.

  • But that's an important thing.

  • And then also in terms of what the company is doing,

  • the sort of corporate social responsibility policies,

  • I think are also important.

  • And there's quite a lot of thought

  • going into that has also had beneficial consequences

  • on a number of different companies.

  • So that's not a very specific answer.

  • I'm sorry.

  • If you have suggestions about what kind of level

  • ought to be set, I'm interested in listening to them.

  • But I don't feel I have the knowledge to be more specific.

  • SPEAKER 1: OK.

  • We've got time for two more questions.

  • Go ahead.

  • AUDIENCE: I like your initial three-step argument.

  • I wonder, where do you stop?

  • So in the example of a child that is drawing,

  • if somebody told me, you can have a meal,

  • or you can skip lunch today and you'll save a child,

  • I'll probably skip lunch today and save a child.

  • So if I give all my spare money to charity today,

  • I could still probably miss a meal one day and save

  • a child's.

  • So I should do that.

  • And then I could probably get another job

  • and donate that money to charity and save even another life.

  • Because that's what I would do for a child if somebody told me

  • you have to work an extra two hours today

  • to save a child here.

  • And the same goes as why only focus on donating money?

  • You know, I walk home, and there is a homeless person.

  • And that person would probably be hungry and cold tonight.

  • I could take him home.

  • So why shouldn't I do that?

  • It's a bit of a tricky question.

  • But I think I understand your moral framework.

  • And I like it.

  • I just wonder as such a simple moral framework,

  • if you would do anything to save a child that is drowning right

  • here, then where do you stop?

  • Like, where do you put the boundary between how much

  • are you willing to give?

  • Because with such a simple analogy,

  • what occurs to me is that I should stop

  • or everybody should stop doing everything

  • and give 100% or more 100%-- like, make a massive effort

  • to donate everything.

  • PETER SINGER: Well, you probably shouldn't stop working,

  • because that's the source of your income.

  • [LAUGHTER]

  • And, you know, you actually should

  • be trying to work to-- if you're fortunate enough

  • to have a well-paying job, you should be using that income

  • and perhaps maximizing that income.

  • Some people in effective altruism movement

  • have deliberately chosen higher income careers.

  • I had a student at Princeton who could

  • have gone to graduate school and probably

  • had a career as a philosophy professor.

  • But because he had a strong maths background,

  • he also had very good offers from Wall Street

  • to go and work there-- and decided to do that.

  • And he's been doing that for the past four or five years,

  • donating half of his income, which even in the first year

  • enabled him to donate $100,000 to effective charities.

  • So, you know, he sees that as a path of doing good.

  • Some people would say, well, no.

  • I mean, if that wasn't the kind of work

  • that I really want to do, I just couldn't face doing that.

  • But they'll earn less, but they'll still

  • give significantly.

  • But you're asking, I suppose, you know,

  • where do you draw this line?

  • And I don't have a very good answer to that.

  • In the original essay, I said, ultimately,

  • the only line you can draw is the point at which-- well, I

  • said two things.

  • One is, if there are certain things

  • that you need in order to maintain your income-- so it

  • doesn't apply to Google obviously,

  • but some jobs you need to be able to dress in a suit,

  • and wear a tie, and so on.

  • So you can't give away so much that you can no longer hold

  • a job and do well in your job.

  • That's one thing.

  • But apart from that, I said, really the ultimate line

  • would just be where you've impoverished yourself

  • so much that if you gave away more,

  • you would be adding to your own difficulties,

  • suffering, whatever you want to call it,

  • as much as you would be alleviating the difficulties

  • or suffering of someone else.

  • That's the ultimate line.

  • But, you know, I was a lot younger when I wrote that.

  • And maybe I've become a little more realistic in terms

  • of what you can say to people and what

  • you can expect them to do.

  • And I think that even if in some sense that still is ultimately

  • what you ought to do, there's a difference between that

  • and what we ought to expect people to do,

  • what we ought to blame people for not doing.

  • And I think that if people sort of just start doing something,

  • make a substantial difference, and then say,

  • I'm going to try this out.

  • If I'm comfortable with it, I'm going to increase it.

  • Year after year, I'll be doing more.

  • I think that's the kind of appeal

  • that has more hope of attracting a large number of people.

  • So that's the least the public answer

  • that I give to your question.

  • Thanks.

  • And there was a last one here?

  • AUDIENCE: Yes.

  • Quick question-- in your slide when

  • you were talking about the psychological reasons

  • against it and things, you didn't

  • touch at all I think on sort of reciprocation, which

  • seems to be quite a big-- the idea

  • that if you see a child drowning, you can think,

  • well, if my child was drowning, I'd

  • want one of my neighbors to help me.

  • But when you're seeing a disaster, famines

  • across the other side of the world,

  • people probably don't feel like one day that

  • could be me in the famine if you're

  • in sort of developed world.

  • I think that can take some of the sort of the-- at least the

  • urgency out of things.

  • PETER SINGER: Mhm.

  • OK, so that's not-- when you said reciprocation,

  • I thought you meant, you know, this person

  • is actually likely to help me in some way.

  • That's one sense of reciprocation.

  • But that doesn't apply to the child in the pond either.

  • So what you're talking about is rather

  • the kind of imagine yourself in that position,

  • you know, that could happen to you.

  • Or your child could be drowning.

  • And you'd want somebody to do that.

  • And then the question would be, well, how far can

  • we carry out that exercise, right?

  • OK, so I do have a child let's say that age.

  • I mean, I don't anymore.

  • My children are grown up.

  • But I guess I have a grandchild of that age,

  • so I could say that.

  • I would want somebody to rescue my grandchild.

  • Could I say, well, I could become a refugee

  • or something like that?

  • I think I could imagine that.

  • In fact, you know, my parents were refugees from the Nazis.

  • They came to Australia when the Nazis took over Austria.

  • So I don't have to go that far back to think that, well, I

  • certainly am very glad that people helped them

  • and that Australians took them.

  • And so it depends on how far you're going to carry that.

  • But I think we can put ourselves in the position of others

  • in some ways.

  • We can form connections.

  • And the original question that [? Christine ?]

  • asked about social media I guess may make it easier

  • for us to see how we could be in that situation in some perhaps

  • not really likely circumstances, but imaginable circumstances.

  • AUDIENCE: Just I don't think that the reciprocation thing

  • is-- I don't think it's a good argument,

  • but I think that sort of intuitively it feels that

  • that's--

  • PETER SINGER: Uh-huh.

  • AUDIENCE: --that would inherently

  • stop people taking that step.

  • PETER SINGER: Right, OK.

  • OK, right.

  • So then it's also related to the they're people like me.

  • That part of my group and so on.

  • AUDIENCE: Yeah.

  • It's sort of a in-group, out-group thing

  • on a fundamental level.

  • PETER SINGER: Yeah.

  • Yeah, you're right.

  • And that is something that I could have added to that list

  • but didn't.

  • Yeah.

  • Thanks.

  • SPEAKER 1: I'm terribly sorry, but we're out of time.

  • This has been an incredible, thought provoking

  • talk with a wonderful call to action.

  • I hope we all stop and think about what we ought to do,

  • how we ought to live.

  • Please join me in thanking--

  • PETER SINGER: Thank you.

  • SPEAKER 1: --Professor Peter Singer.

  • [APPLAUSE]

[APPLAUSE]

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