Experts discuss giving for global poverty relief

At a conference on hosted by the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society (PACS) on April 8th and 9th, philosopher Peter Singer and a group of other scholars and activists gathered to discuss the moral obligations of affluent persons to alleviate global poverty and why aid efforts continue to be woefully inadequate. 

More than a billion people live in poverty and, on average, more than two thousand people die of poverty-related causes each hour. In response, aid organizations are working to alleviate poverty and the dire need associated with it. But much remains to be done, and many aid organizations could do much more to alleviate poverty if were to receive more funding from individuals and governments.

It is in these circumstances that we confront a host of moral questions. Are we morally obligated to contribute to aid efforts? If so, in what way? To what extent? And to which aid efforts?  In particular, is it morally permissible to contribute to an aid effort that is close to your heart but known to do much less good than other aid efforts?

According to philosopher Peter Singer, the answer to the latter question is a sharp and resounding “no.”  In his forthcoming book The Most Good You Can Do, Singer argues that a fully ethical life requires individuals to give the most they can to the most effective poverty relief organizations in the world. Controversially, this means that it is not good enough to give to organizations that appeal to our emotions and personal interests but are less effective in alleviating poverty than other organizations.

The movement of people who live by Singer’s moral principle is growing but remains small.  Explaining why so few people have embraced his principle requires answering a family of related empirical questions.  Some are psychological.  For instance, what explains why many well off people don’t contribute to poverty relief at all, and why others don’t give more than they do? Others are questions of policy, which blend moral and empirical considerations.  For example, should governments or individuals play a leading role in providing aid, or in providing certain types of aid? And does the answer to this depend only on how effective government aid would be or do other considerations, such as concerns about paternalism and respecting autonomy, come into play?

The following speakers addressed these questions and others the course of the two-day conference:

• Iason Gabriel (Oxford), “Effective Altruism and its Critics”
• Jordan Thomson (Cornell), “Having it Good Without Being Bad: Toward a Defense of Moral Moderation”
• Amy Berg (UC-San Diego), “Beneficence and Partial Compliance”
• Andras Miklos (Rochester), “Consequentialism and its Demands: The Role of Institutions”
• Jennifer Rubenstein (Virginia), “Disaggregating Motivation to Alleviate Global Poverty: Activation Logics and Persistence Logics”
• Panel discussion with Jacob Appel (GOOD/Corps), Cari Tuna (Good Ventures/GiveWell), and Alexander Berger (GiveWell)
• Emily Clough (Harvard), “NGO’s, the State, and Education Provision in India”
• Mark Budolfson (Princeton): “Some Utilitarian Virtues of Sure Things that are Boring – Even When Investing Many Millions”