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A Discussion on Finalists, Singer, and Effective Philanthropy

By Anonymous
Hi everyone,

I know that I already published a blog post. However, I wanted to publish another one as a precursor to the tough decision that faces the class: what finalist(s) will receive the class grants? I wanted to hear people’s opinions on the finalists and how we should approach our decision-making. I also wanted to offer a slight extension of Eli’s ideas from his blog post and create another discussion regarding Singer.

The main question when deciding on where to donate the grants is: how do we as a class come up with a decision on where to donate? Do we look at how effective a finalist organization has been in the past? Will we choose to donate to a finalist organization that is personal to us? What must we do to make the best judgment call? In the end, $10,000 is a lot of money and a lot must be discussed to make the best possible decision with it.

Now, I’m sure that some of you agree with Singer’s approach to philanthropy. His approach is concrete and offers very little that can be refuted against. However, I feel that we should look at his idea of “head” and “heart” donations. He believes that the most effective donations are ones that look only at the logic and proven success of an organization. He does not believe that emotion should be a factor in choosing where to donate. I want to argue against that and ask us to not limit ourselves to Singer’s ideas. If we act as an “effective altruist,” we severely restrict our choices in philanthropy. Of course, since we only have five finalists it may not seem to be that big of a deal, but someone may choose to automatically not vote for a specific organization due to Singer’s approach.

Emotion, or feeling “something” when choosing to donate to an organization, is essential to some when choosing to donate. People want to feel some sort of bond with the organization they choose to donate to. Some sort of personal connection to an organization can help strengthen these bonds and can result in someone feeling much better about their choice. People, by nature, want to feel that they are helping someone out. They want to feel good about doing something, and it could be argued that donations are much less heartfelt when donating based strictly on statistics. What are your thoughts on this?


I don’t necessarily want to insert many of my ideas into this blog post, as it is meant to be a discussion among everyone. I want to hear everyone’s thoughts on what was discussed in this blog post. Much of it was already discussed in class, but I think that offering discussion through this blog will be useful to everyone. How should we view these organizations? Is Singer’s approach the best approach? What should we as a class do to ensure we make the best choice? These are some questions that I think could be discussed further. 

Comments

  1. AnonymousMarch 26, 2019 at 11:52 PM

    Hi Ryan,

    I think your post is very interesting and that is poses an important yet difficult question. I believe that there is no real right answer to how we should decide on our finalists and that everyone will have a different individualized approach. However, I do agree with you that emotion or your “heart” should definitely play a role in the decision making process. To me, if we just based the process solely on effective altruism, I believe a lot of the important emotion and humanity would be taken away from the philanthropic decision.

    I do think there is some logic to Singer’s argument, and I think that it is important to evaluate an organization based of their effectiveness, and the degree of impact our donation will have. However, I do not think think that this should be the only factor, and I actually believe the opposite. I think that emotion should play a large role in the decision, and that people should want to, and be passionate about the organization we decide to donate to. I think that by using emotion, the decision to donate will have a more lasting impact on students, and potentially inspire them to donate and get more involved later on in life. I think that feeling any kind of emotional connection to an organization is important and thus should be emphasized in the decision making process. By doing this, it will create a more personal connection between the students and the donation.

    I also think that you bring up a good point about a potential limitation of Singer’s approach. By just evaluating organizations based of their effectiveness, there can be a lot of organizations that are not even considered. Just because a certain organization may not have as big of an impact, does not mean that it is a bad organization and should not be given money. Rather, this organization can still have a very positive impact and better a community. I think that this is an important point for our class to also consider while making a final decision, and that we should not just evaluate organizations based on their effectiveness or potential impact. All in all, I believe that effective altruism can play a role in our decisions, however, “head” among with other criteria should also play a vital role. There should be a balance when making a decision of this magnitude.

    Matt Rozansky

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