Why I’m writing this
There have been many times I've come across people in the EA community desperately trying to increase their impact to help them feel like they're a good person. For example, someone feeling like a bad person for taking a lower-impact but sustainable job, or for not donating more or “enough”. I feel like this is a slippery slope and I wouldn’t be surprised if others in the community struggle with this problem too. As such, I wanted to write this post to bring to the community’s awareness about what I feel is an important distinction.
Please do note that these are my opinions, and opinions only. Take these thoughts with a pinch of salt, as I may have missed some important points (which are hopefully pointed out through comments).
How I personally think about whether someone is a “good” person
It’s not till I started thinking about this topic that I tried to explicitly state what makes me think of someone as a “good” person. It’s usually very vibes-based. I’m also not sure if there is an objective standard for what makes a good person. For this post, I’ve tried to come up with a few considerations that I think make up the vibe of a “good” person. I think this varies person to person, and from context to context, but these are broadly some questions I tend to subconsciously gauge:
- Do they have good intentions?
- Do I feel safe around them?
- Do they try to avoid harming others?
If the answer to all three questions is “yes”, there’s a good chance I would consider them a “good” person, though I think my final “assessment” would still be very vibes-based in the presence of such indicators or criteria. Note that I don’t tend to ask myself anything related to the person’s impact (i.e. how much good impact is this person making?).
But what’s the difference?
I define impact to mean the total amount of good (or harm reduction) that your actions can cause the world, measured by their actual outcomes, not just your intentions.
Who is a better person? Person A could have made 10 units of impact and Person B could have made 20 units of impact, but to me, Person B isn’t necessarily a “better” person than Person A. Person B being a better person than Person A could be one of the many explanations for why Person B has a higher impact than Person A. Other explanations might include (not exhaustive):
- Person B bears higher capability or skill in achieving a higher impact
- Person B is better placed than Person A, through various forms of privilege, to make a higher impact
Barring any nasty surprises that involve doing harm to others, I think that both people are “good”. One simply has managed to make a higher impact than the other. And at what point along the axis of impact do we start considering a person “good”? I’m hard pressed to find an answer for this and I’d be curious to know if anyone reading this has an answer either.
EAs tend to talk a lot about doing the most good, but it’s also important to note that doing the most good tends to be subjective after a certain point – I think there is more consensus around being a good person than there is about doing the most good.
What’s the harm in equating being a good person to having a high impact?
I worry that conflating these two concepts can create a fragile psychological environment for people trying to make an impact. In broad strokes, here are a couple of downsides.
It creates undue stress and triggers self-worth issues. If being a good person requires maximising impact, then any dip in productivity or “failure” in a project might feel like a moral failing. I think that is an extremely heavy burden to carry.
It can be counterproductive to generating impact. Ironically, obsessing over whether you’re a good person based on your output can lead to burnout. The anxiety associated with constantly needing to prove your moral worth can potentially stop you from taking the calculated risks necessary for high-impact work, ultimately resulting in a lower impact than if the work had been approached with a healthier mindset.
It is perhaps important to also distinguish here what EA focuses on... - “Given my resources and constraints, what choices can I make that will help others more?”
…and what it doesn’t – “Can I be a better person?”
The things I don’t want you to take away
I hope this post doesn’t push people away from thinking about their impact and being effective with their altruistic efforts. I strongly believe effective altruism is generally a great way of thinking, so I want to explicitly state what I really don’t want you to take away from this post.
- That reducing suffering is bad
- That being effective in your altruistic efforts is bad
I simply want people to stop conflating the two concepts. They are both important in their own right, and there is certainly some overlap between the two. But one does not wholly define the other, at least in my opinion.
I’d love to hear people’s take on this topic. Have I missed anything?
Here are some of my thoughts on what you've written. Of course, there isn't a consensus on what qualifies someone as a "good person" but we can certainly speculate on the relationship between "being good" and "being impactful". To me, we can look at these as distinct but related ideas. You say that many people are "desperately trying to increase their impact to help them feel like they're a good person". I would suggest that someone might be desperately trying to increase their impact because the desire to make that effort is indicative of a good person, not the achievement of the impact itself. It's like layers that are built upon each other:
Layer 1: I want to be a good person with good intentions
Layer 2: A good person with good intentions would want to make the world better
Layer 3: A strong desire to improve the world pushes me to achieve maximal impact
Layers 1 and 2 are what matter when we think about what a good person is. They might not be someone who has a huge positive impact (because this is, to a notable degree, out of our hands) but they are somebody who would want to, or have the intention to, have a huge positive impact.
If Amy and Sam (random names I picked) are both good people, then they both have the desire to change the world in a positive way. Amy gets a job in AI safety and Sam gets a job in an animal welfare organisation. They are both working on meaningful projects. After a couple of years, due to funding issues, the animal welfare organisation shuts down. Sam has not yet had a significant impact. On the other hand, Amy has been influential in shaping policy around safer AI development. Is Amy a better person than Sam? I'd bet that pretty much everyone would say no, even the people desperately trying to increase their impact. We can't always control what we achieve, but we can control what we want to achieve.