The dilemma

A donor gives ten percent of salary to effective charities fighting poverty abroad but feels callous ignoring homeless people asking for money on city streets.

One value, one strategy

The core value is helping people. The strategy masquerading as a value is optimization: the drive to help as effectively as possible.

Optimization's rise

Since the seventeen hundreds, utilitarian thinkers have pushed the idea that ethics should focus on maximizing utility, meaning happiness or satisfaction.

Optimization everywhere

The logic appears in work culture with productivity hacks, wellness culture with optimal sleep, and Silicon Valley urging us to quantify ourselves with Fitbits and Apple Watches.

Effective altruism's case

Effective altruists note that the most effective charities produce one hundred times more benefit than average ones. Why not get the biggest bang for your buck?

Optimization's limits

Not every domain in life can be optimized without compromising values. Trying to optimize helping others means deciding what neediness means.

Jewish tradition's insight

Ancient rabbis understood that poor people need psychological dignity, not just survival money. They should have enough to give charity themselves.

“giving is an essential part of human dignity”

Shame and dignity

Rabbis also recognized that those who fell from wealth feel acute shame. They suggested helping by offering not just necessities but nicer things from former lifestyles.

Incommensurable goods

Preventing malaria, alleviating depression, saving lives versus improving them, helping children versus adults: these cannot be directly compared in one currency.

The cost of simplification

To optimize, you must artificially simplify by pretending there are only apples, no oranges. This means ignoring unhoused people, damaging your moral conscience.

Effective altruism's own doubts

Rationalist Eliezer Yudkowsky advises donating some money to causes that feel good but do not produce maximum utility. Purchase fuzzies and utilons separately.

“purchase fuzzies and utilons separately”

Integrity and wholeness

Philosopher Bernard Williams argued that moral agency belongs to specific people with specific commitments. A mother has special duties to her own child, not equal duties to all.

Your divided self

Ignoring homeless people alienates you from the part of you moved by their suffering. That caring part is no less valuable than your optimizing brain.

No perfect formula

Different types of help are useful in their own way. You can divvy up your budget between them even though there is no perfect formula for optimal allocations.

A diversified approach

Keep small cash or gift cards for unhoused people you meet. Donate to local charities with strong track records. Support highly effective charities abroad.

Honor your full self

Do not let optimization eat the real value you hold dear. Your desire for a magic formula is distinct from your core commitment to helping people.

“Don't let optimization eat the real value you hold dear”