In this piece, I examine a reason why I think effective altruists are frequently conflated with utilitarians. For now, I’m withholding judgment on whether the two positions are genuinely connected. My focus is to illustrate how the language commonly employed by effective altruists contributes to the perception that the position aligns with utilitarian principles.
Yesterday, I wrote a brief opinion piece that I posted online. In that piece, I explicitly mentioned that it was not intended to be academically rigorous, and the same applies to this one. Nonetheless, this piece does engage quite a bit with ethics and morality. That being said, I won't use excessive jargon.
In my previous piece, I conducted a sort of armchair exploration of the concept of altruism and where it can go wrong to the point of being ineffective. I posited that altruistic endeavours frequently fail to achieve their intended impact due to a lack of consensus on our motives. I left that piece of writing with this question: How do we resolve these challenges?
Effective altruists, broadly speaking, hold that there exists a specific set of global actions capable of objectively optimising the impact of our altruistic endeavours. The idea is that, if an optimal course of action exists, then it would be a good idea to try to identify and pursue it.
However, before effective altruists can undertake this endeavour, they must first determine the appropriate metric by which to evaluate the effectiveness of these actions, in order to ascertain whether they are truly optimal. It becomes evident that if we adopt different interpretations of these key terms, however, the set of actions deemed “best” for maximising altruistic impact could vary significantly.
For example, if I were to believe that the “best” set of actions for fulfilling our altruistic objectives is one that maximises my own personal wealth, then my conception of the optimal course of action would differ significantly from that of an organisation like The Life You Can Save.
In philosophy, determining the best course of action necessitates a clear definition of what the term “best” signifies. This requires an understanding of what constitutes “better” and “worse” morally, which in turn demands that we identify our values. In doing so, we ground our ethical principles, which serve as the foundation for our moral assessments.
It is commonly asserted that one of the central tenets of effective altruism is a philosophy known as “consequentialism”. This is the view that what is best, better, or good is determined by the consequences our actions produce. But how do we define “the best consequences”?
Effective altruism is often associated with utilitarianism, which posits that what is good is the promotion of happiness or pleasure and the reduction of pain. According to this perspective, it is desirable for the greatest number of people to experience happiness as a result of our actions, and any deviation from this ideal is considered morally inferior. I won’t delve into this, but if you’re interested, I recommend reading Mill, Sidgwick, and Singer.
This assessment is likely an aftereffect from effective altruism’s origins: that is Singer’s utilitarianism. The consequentialist nature of Singer’s position may explain why certain language and concepts persist within the movement today.
This perspective becomes even more coherent when we examine the fundamental principles of effective altruism. Effective altruism urges individuals to assess causes and interventions through the lens of their tangible real-world impact, particularly their outcomes. Does this sound familiar? For instance, donating to a charity that provides malaria nets in sub-Saharan Africa is likely to prevent far more deaths per dollar than contributing to a local arts organisation. Effective altruism asserts that when making decisions regarding philanthropy, career choices, or resource allocation, individuals should prioritise causes that are neglected, solvable, and have a high potential for impact. All of this, quite evidently, aligns with consequentialist thinking.
Nonetheless, in recent months, I have frequently observed effective altruists appearing on podcasts, writing blogs, and making public statements asserting that effective altruism is not inherently tied to this position of utilitarianism. For the purposes of this piece, I withhold judgement on this issue. However, I seek to address an underlying reasons why effective altruism and utilitarianism are so often conflated. The connection is neither arbitrary nor unfounded.
One of the issues is, as I see it, that effective altruists define their mission as a commitment to doing the most good possible with our resources.
This is actually the wording they use on their website. However, I believe this is a restricted definition of effective altruism that is fraught with several issues. The phrase “doing the most good” is concise, no doubt. However, rhetorical convenience should not come at the expense of conceptual clarity. The first issue is this:
I find the concept “do good” in “doing the most good” to be conceptually incoherent. Goodness is not something one does. In fact, and I’m going to be cheeky here, this phrasing feels somewhat juvenile. It sounds like something you might hear a schoolchild asking their teacher after answering a maths problem: “Did I do good?”.
Good is not one of the kinds of things one can do. Actions, deeds and so forth are. Actions are deemed right or wrong in reference to some set of rules. Let’s continue the school example:
Suppose that two of the school rules are to have your shirt tucked and to put your hand up in class before speaking. To abide by the school rules, it would be right to raise your hand when you want to speak, and wrong to untuck your shirt. We might phrase it like this: the statement “If I raise my hand to speak, I will be following the school rules” is a true statement because raising one’s hand is the right course of action to maintain adherence to the school rules. Blurting out would be the wrong course of action to maintain adherence to the school rules.
This concept extends beyond these initial examples. Consider basic arithmetic: What is 2 + 2? The correct answer is 4, provided we adhere to the fundamental principles of mathematics. Similarly, in the context of ten-pin bowling, how many pins must be knocked down to achieve a strike? The right answer is 10, assuming we are operating within the rules of ten-pin bowling.
On the other hand, one can only be good at something (e.g. mathematics) or be a good something (e.g. a good mathematician). One cannot “do good”.
Objects can be good in reference to some purpose (e.g. a good pen has the perfect weight and ink etc.). Even an action can be good if it is the right action for achieving some good end. So, good is something someone or something can be. It is not something one does, or acts out.
So, I hope I have shown that good is not the kind of thing that can be “done”. Therefore, when effective altruists say they want to “do good”, the phrase strikes me as ultimately unhelpful.
The thing is, from talking amongst the community, I think that when an effective altruist claims they seek to “do good”, what they really mean is that they aim to perform the right actions to achieve some good end. I believe that framing the position in this way offers a more precise reflection of their genuine commitment. Therefore, let us proceed under the assumption that when an effective altruist expresses a desire to “do good”, this is the meaning they intend to convey.
Now, you might argue that I am being overly pedantic, but I assure you I don’t think I am. Once we recognise that this is what some effective altruists truly mean when they use the language of “doing good”, we uncover a significant and implicit assumption embedded within their perspective.
I think that the effective altruist who subscribes to this characterisation is accidentally disguisedly embedding a normative claim into their position. By asserting that the goal is to find the best ways to do good, and assuming that the effective altruist desires more good, it follows that one ought to find those best ways to get more good. In other words, one should be doing good.
However, if we recall that the effective altruist’s true intent is not to “do good” (a concept that lacks clarity), but rather to “do the right thing” for some good end, we begin to understand that they are implicitly advocating that there is an obligation to “do the right thing”. If we plug in “do right” instead of “do good”, we can see this. By asserting that the goal is to find the best ways to do right, it follows that one ought to find those best ways to do more right. In other words, one should be doing right.
As mentioned, the method for characterising actions as right or wrong will be grounded in a set of rules for reaching some goal or end. From this perspective, ethics is akin to a kind of machine: on one side, a potential action enters, and the machine evaluates it against a predefined set of rules. If the action contradicts the rules programmed into the system, it is deemed wrong; if it aligns with them, the action is considered permissible or right for that particular scenario.
Thus, when proponents of effective altruism describe their project as “finding the most effective ways to do the most good”, they are, in essence, suggesting that effective altruism is focused on identifying the most effective means of ensuring that our actions align with a set of ethical rules, resulting in actions that are considered “right” or “correct”, rather than “wrong” or “incorrect”.
This way of talking inherently limits the scope of the effective altruism movement to a specific group of individuals: namely, those who adhere to a machine-like theory of ethics, such as the one I have described.
What is possibly the most famous machine-like view of ethics? You guessed it: utilitarianism. In utilitarianism, the method for characterising actions as right or wrong is grounded in some rules (maximise the best consequences) for reaching some goal or end (the most happiness). Utilitarian ethics is akin to a machine like the one I have described: on one side, a potential action enters, and the utilitarian machine evaluates whether or not it will have an impact that increases or decreases the overall happiness. If the action reduces the overall happiness, it is deemed wrong; if increases the overall happiness, the action is considered permissible or right for that particular scenario.
The issue lies in the fact that not all ethical systems conceptualise morality in this manner. Specifically, aretaic systems (stay tuned for more on this).
Nevertheless, the implicit inclination toward a machine view of ethics further reinforces the notion that effective altruism and utilitarianism are intrinsically intertwined. The drive within effective altruism to identify a set of global actions that can objectively optimise the impact of our altruistic efforts aligns seamlessly with a consequentialist utilitarian worldview. Given this alignment, coupled with the historical associations that have already been established, it is understandable why many continue to perceive effective altruism as inherently connected to utilitarianism, despite the fact that numerous advocates of the movement are actively striving to communicate the contrary.
In my view, then, “effective altruism is about finding the most effective ways to do the most good” is inherently restrictive and reflects an underlying presupposition held by those who advocate for this formulation of the movement’s goals. It is unsurprising that many effective altruists continue to use language such as “finding the most effective ways to do the most good” given its origins, but the continued use of this phrasing ensures that effective altruism remains deeply entangled with a position that many argue is no longer explicitly attached to the movement.
