Effective Altruism and its Critics
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What is Curtis’s charitable dilemma and why is it the episode’s focus?
A show where philosophy and reality meet. From Slate. My friend Curtis has a problem. A very good problem to have. He has a very wealthy father.
For a number of years, as part of his estate planning, I guess my father has been giving me and my sister A pretty large amount of money every year.
And this is wonderful to have when you're a young man. When you're broke in college, in graduate school.
As I got older and had my own income and I started to sort of realize how unearned this money was and How unneeded it was So I'm helping
Curtis with his problem. He's going to give his money to charity. But what charity? Or what charities? That's where I come in. Because it turns out in the last ten years or so, philosophers have built a movement around charitable giving. It's called effective altruism. And there are many critics of that movement. What better way to get into those issues than to try to convince Curtis? So Curtis, you have agreed to come on Hi Fi Nation for this episode and listen to Arguments about the proper way to give to charity.
Well I've never really had a systematic approach to giving to charity. So what I'm gonna do today is hear those arguments and at the end I'm gonna make a donation to a cause related to the argument that I find the most persuasive.
From Slate, this is Hi Fi Nation, philosophy in story form. Recording from Princeton University, here's Barry Lamb. Effective altruism is one of the first global movements that has its roots in secular philosophical ethics. It's grown to such an enormous size that it's a major player in philanthropy today. You're going to hear about it and its critics. A lot of people think that effective altruism makes some serious moral mistakes. And there's been a big scandal recently. A leading donor in the movement. has been charged with fraud and theft. Everyone agrees but there's a wrong way to give to charity. You shouldn't give your money to scams or charities that spend a lot of money on trying to help others, but they don't actually help anyone.
But this is where agreements end. Because now there are ways of measuring the effectiveness of charities. And judged on these two dimensions for the past decade. Effective altruism organizations emerged victorious. acquiring billions of dollars and pledges toward causes it deemed highly effective at doing good. Today, that movement is at a crossroads because of changes in focus, because of some scandals. And because many of its founders want us to give more and more money to fighting a catastrophic digital future. Today, we'll see how persuasive each side can be to an ordinary person. With a desire to do good with his money. All right, Curtis, let's get started by you telling us how you've approached charitable giving in the past with your dad's money.
One year the arrival of this check that he would send came at about the same time that I found out about a organization that a friend of mine had started locally here, which was providing personal care products to students at the local high school who didn't have those products. Things like shampoo, deodorant, feminine care products.
It's called teen closet.
Yeah, I this was the first time I really thought that my money could have a meaningful impact on someone. It made me think about how I took it for granted to have shampoo and deodorant and what it would be like to not have those things and what a loss of dignity that would be. And I just thought, wow, if I could give some of this money that was just fell into my lap, some kid'll have these things I took for granted and That I just felt very empowered around that and it excited me and uh and I wrote them a check.
The other thing Curtis did is give money at the end of the year To charities that sent him, you know, persuasive mailers or brochures, a mix of the local library, some international organizations, a lot of things he gave to in the past. It's actually pretty close to how I do it. So the very first thing I want to present to you, I am going to call. Effective altruism one point zero
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is Curtis’s charitable dilemma and why is it the episode’s focus?
0:03–8:24
2
How does effective altruism define the “most good” and what are its core principles?
8:24–16:52
3
What arguments does philosopher Richard Yetter‑Chappell make for impartial, maximising giving?
16:52–26:11
4
Why does Savannah Pearlman criticize effective altruism’s focus on metrics and global priorities?
26:11–35:04
5
How does Shaquille Hashim’s long‑termism shift the conversation toward existential‑risk mitigation?
35:04–43:20
6
What is Seth Lazar’s critique of AI‑risk funding and his alternative emphasis on autonomy?
43:20–51:19
7
How does Curtis decide where to allocate his money after hearing all the arguments?
51:19–57:13
8
What are the episode’s final takeaways on the strengths and limits of effective altruism?
57:13–58:20