With
Peter Singer in the spotlight, this
criticism of effective altruism—that it is anti-democratic and “excludes
poor people”—is making the rounds. There’s a lot wrong with it.
On
one interpretation of the objection, it’s obviously false that effective
altruism excludes poor people. After all, effective altruists offer aid to the
global poor, who willingly accept it. If I’m thirsty and someone offers me a
drink, which I in turn accept, it would be bizarre to say that I was excluded
from this transaction.
But
it seems like Rubenstein has a different sense of exclusion in mind here. When
attempting to enact institutional reform within a community, one ought to
partner with, and even defer to, members of that community. This sounds
absolutely right to me. However, I’ll note that folks on the left who lodge
this sort of criticism against Singer often fail to take their own advice when
it’s ideologically inconvenient for them (e.g., ignoring communities’
preferences for school choice).
More
importantly, this criticism overlooks the crucial point that we can have a
division of moral labor. Not all help must or even should involve political
reform. It’s true that institutional change is needed to address the root
causes of poverty and injustice, but it’s important that some people address
the harmful effects of poverty and injustice too. I doubt that critics of
effective altruism would criticize food banks and their volunteers on the grounds
that food production is at the root of alleviating hunger. It’s good that some
people produce food and that others distribute it. Indeed, fewer people would
get fed if everyone farmed than if some farm and some volunteer at food banks.
So criticizing Give Directly for not focusing on institutional reform is as
unpersuasive as criticizing Feeding America for not focusing on farming.
Lastly
I’ll add that for almost everyone reading this post, the expected good of
allocating your philanthropic resources to reforming global institutions (Rubenstein’s
preferred course of action) is zero and it comes at the cost of allowing
particular individuals to die that you otherwise could have saved.
