EA is a modern philosophical and social movement that revolves around using evidence and reason to allegedly determine the most effective ways to do good and make the world a better place. The philosophy was founded by philosophers Peter Singer and William MacAskill, who is also the author of the 2022 book, What We Owe The Future.
Effective altruists, as they call themselves, tend to believe in maximising the amount of good that you can do in the world, coupled with an emphasis on impartiality and the global equal consideration of interests when choosing beneficiaries. In a sense, EA’s might have been directly influenced by utilitarians, who both desire to maximise metrics of goodness.
Founder and philosopher Peter Singer provides us with the ‘shallow pond argument’, in which he argues that the moral obligation to rush into a shallow pond to save a drowning kid at the cost of ruining one’s shoes is the equivalent of the moral obligation to donate to charities that reduce extreme poverty. EA entails that individuals who have the ability to give, do in fact have the moral obligation to help others. Besides this, the philosophy also involves finding the most effective way to do good, which would entail finding the most effectual and impactful charities that contribute to the most good in the world. This also often explains why effective altruists can sometimes justify their high paying low impact careers like finance so that they can later redirect the money from their salary into suitable charitable organisations, in this sense doing more “good” than what a low paying higher impact career in a non-profit organisation can probably do. Well, at least that’s the “earning to give” philosophy behind it.
EA, a philosophy that started in the late 2000s and what used to be a loose, Internet-enabled affiliation of the like-minded, is now a broadly influential faction. This is especially pertinent in Silicon Valley, which some would coin as a startup heaven. EA has expanded into a worldwide phenomenon and expanded globally with the existence of non-profit organizations ranging from EA Singapore, UK, Australia and Asia, meant to create a community of like-minded effective altruists as well as spread awareness of the philosophical movement. The global movement also currently controls philanthropic resources on the order of US$30 billion dollars, cementing its weight in the modern ecosystem as a philosophical idea with definitive legitimacy.
Is EA the truly innocent altruistic endeavour it's hyped up to be? Critically analysed, EA certainly has its pitfalls, starting with its manifestation in corporations. Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and chief executive officer of FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange firm was known for his firm commitment to the movement of EA and had mentioned that he strongly believed in the charitable causes he has funded. However, after the company had finally declared bankruptcy after a liquidity crisis of the company’s token, Mr Bankman-Fried eventually admitted that some of his political work was indeed a public relations exercise. Amounting it to a “dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shibboleths [sic] and so everyone likes us”. He equated his usage of EA as a public relations stunt in conjunction with the increased demand in the world for ethical corporations and corporate social responsibility to create a favourable impression of his company amongst the public. Not to mention that Bankman-Fried, FTX, as well as its affiliates, had used stolen customer money to pour billions of dollars into risky wages that imploded before collapsing into bankruptcy, which created the whole conundrum of whether the donations made by FTX could be returned after the company has gone bankrupt. If the court indeed determines FTX as a Ponzi scheme, then the donations given to charities do indeed have to be returned given that they were themselves intended to defraud customers and investors.
“When I pledged to give away $2,000 to some brand name charity as part of some promotion related to FTX’s business, that was as much PR as anything else” Sam Bankman-Fried (Founder of FTX)
To make matters worse, it was reported that William MacAskill, an intellectual figurehead for EA, had apparently long been aware of concerns around Bankman-Fried, ranging from untrustworthiness, inappropriate sexual relationships with subordinates, and a refusal to implement standard business practices. And yet, even with burning red flags in view, had claimed not to have been able to foresee a deception of this scope.
Aside from that, EA has also drawn criticism for its other flaws. Denounced for being overly utilitarian, and consequentialist, as well as accused of prescribing an ends-justifies-the-means kind of philosophy. Even without the scandal with FTX, though let’s get to that a little later, EA did not have a sparkling clean reputation of its own. Not only that, the EA movement has also been criticised as arrogant and elitist for suggesting that effective altruists can determine just what charities are the most effective and thereby essentially ‘worthy’ of donations. Leslie Lenkowsky, a professor emeritus in public affairs and philanthropic studies at Indiana University, had claimed that the philosophy of EA can tend to make a virtue out of arrogance as well as elitism, with effective altruists seeing themselves as the only ones that are more capable of building a successful future for humanity.
"It basically says we're a bunch of very smart philosophy graduates and we kind of know what the problems of the world are and how to solve them. So it's very top-down” Leslie Lenkowsky
Critique of EA has also been apparent in its tie-in with the philosophy of Longtermism, which is an ethical stance that gives priority to improving the long-term future. It provides motivation to remove any existential risks to humanity but has been facing immense criticism for its relation to eugenics. Together with the immense influence of the philosophy of longtermism, with longtermists directly influencing reports from the secretary-general of the United Nations, a longtermist running the RAND Corporation, as well as the huge following of EA, its connection with eugenics is extremely worrying, as longtermism increasingly pulls the strings of both major world governments as well as business elites.
The EA movement has also been under fire for allegations of a toxic culture of sexual harassment and abuse, with Gopalakrishnan, a college student in India who once considered herself an effective altruist, was one of the seven women to tell TIME that they experienced misconduct ranging from harassment and coercion to sexual assault within the community. The victims have also alleged that the movement‘s culture has an incestuous overlap with tech-bro-dominated “rationalist groups” that created a toxic environment with a gross tolerance for sexual misconduct. Which all seems extremely counterproductive to the very fact that it's a movement designed to spread good.
What is the deal with this growing trend of corporations going for a ‘holier than thou’ persona? In the new age of political correctness and with consumers hyperfocused on the morality of the products that they consume, the idea of corporate social responsibility has become increasingly important. Cynically speaking, I see it more as a public relations stunt. A better and more likeable brand leads to increased demand which leads to increased profits. Just include an abstract philosophical term related to morality and your desire to improve the world, and your business is set to go. Tying up ethics with marketing does in fact seem like a smarter way to increase profits, comparable to “girlboss feminism” t-shirts made using sweatshop labour in developing countries. Together with tax-deductible charitable donations and billionaire philanthropy, it appears one can buy a favourable public image with cold hard cash.