Effective Altruism and Religion: Synergies, Tensions, Dialogue

Dominic Roser, Stefan Riedener, and Markus Huppenbauer (eds). 2022. Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft. ISBN 978-38487-8119-5. $23.00 (Paperback).

Effective Altruism (EA) is a set of philosophical ideas and a social movement that advocates using reason and evidence to find ways to do the most good and to put these findings into practice. Effective Altruism and Religion: Synergies, Tensions, Dialogue is a book that explores multiple religious perspectives on the idea and practice of EA. This review focuses mostly on the chapters by Dominic Roser and Jakub Synowiec that deal with EA and Christianity while presenting some observations on themes running through several of the other contributions.

What makes EA curious from the point of view of religion is that it is a very secular movement that nevertheless advocates for things that are highly commendable from a Christian, and from many other, religious perspectives. According to a 2019 survey of people participating in the movement, 86% identified as nonreligious.^[1] Yet it is a common suggestion within the EA movement that people should give away 10% of their income to charitable causes and some people in the movement perform feats of altruism like donating a kidney to a stranger or giving away most of their income to charity.

From an economics perspective, EA is interesting because in evaluating what are the best ways to do good, it makes use of approaches such as expected-value reasoning and concepts like counterfactuals, marginal analysis, causal inference methods like randomized controlled trials, subjective well-being measurements, and externalities.

The chapters in the book are based on papers presented in a workshop at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, in 2019. As a result, the picture of the EA movement that some of them present is somewhat dated—five years is a long time for a young, dynamic movement. In the book, EA is mostly discussed in terms of donating money. While donating remains the part of EA that is actionable for the widest group of people, the movement also emphasizes positive impact through one’s work and has influenced the careers of thousands of people.

The chapters tend to take a rather theoretical and philosophical approach to EA. Writings of the philosophers Peter Singer and William MacAskill are often quoted as representative of the EA philosophy and movement. There is relatively less discussion on the substance questions of helping effectively. This results in an overall feel that some chapters of the book are operating with a view of EA somewhat removed from the social reality of the movement.

Some important topics receive relatively little attention. This is likely at least in part because of the timing of the workshop and the primacy of academic philosophical sources. The book has little discussion on long-termism and our obligation towards future persons, even though this is currently a very prominent area of research within philosophical study in EA. Existential risk, and especially risks related to artificial intelligence, are also discussed relatively little despite being current high-profile topics in EA. Many readers might also be curious about how the maximizing logic of EA would relate to evangelism.

Before we proceed to discuss the chapters of Roser and Synowiec in more depth, a brief summary of the content of the other chapters in the book is in order:

• Calvin Baker examines EA in the light of Indian Buddhist philosophy from the first millennium CE.
• David Manheim presents how traditional Jewish law regarding charitable giving compares with and relates to EA principles.
• Dara-Maria Cojocaru discusses different kinds of love and proposes EA’s focus on utilitarian-style universal benevolence should be complemented by other kinds of love and moral approaches.
• Stefan Höschele describes and compares EA and Christian ethics using relational models theory, which proposes four fundamental models of organizing human social relationships and interactions.
• Kathryn Muyskens’ chapter highlights the need for systemic change and the role that asceticism (defined as “self-denial for a higher good”) in the form of ethical consumerism could play in bringing it about.
• Stefan Riedener examines whether Thomism provides reasons against working to mitigate the risk of human extinction and concludes that Christians actually have a strong moral obligation to do so.
• Robert MacSwain addresses the relationship between holiness and ethics and asks whether effective altruists are saints.
• Markus Huppenbauer examines widely the ethics of charitable giving and criticizes the impartial and effectiveness-focused approach as alienating donors from their emotional connections and communities.

Dominic Roser’s chapter, Effective Altruism as Egyptian Gold for Christians, serves as an introduction to some distinctives of EA and provides an analysis of how they relate to Christian ethics. According to Roser, seven commitments that EA’s adherents typically exhibit are:

1. Altruism
2. Consequentialism
3. Welfarism
4. Impartiality
5. Effectiveness
6. Truth-seeking
7. Rationalism

He presents a 3-step summary that illustrates the meaning of these commitments and how they flow from each other, forming a social movement (pp. 50–51):

“Step I: Effective altruists are do-gooders (commitment 1) whose concern for others takes a specific form: impartial, welfarist consequentialism (commitments 2–4).

Step II: Consequentialism implies that one should focus on effectiveness (commitment 5)

Step III: The focus on effectiveness implies that one should focus on carefully assessing which efforts yield the best outcomes and this is best done by relying on a “rationalist” style of thinking (commitments 6 and 7).”

Roser thinks that while there are elements of EA that Christians must not endorse to the extent that some of its paradigmatic adherents do:

in almost all cases EA pulls Christians in the right direction relative to the status quo: for Christians to love their neighbours better, they should be more altruistic, more consequentialist, more welfarist, more impartial, more effective, more focused on truth-seeking, and more rationalist in their epistemology. (p. 69)

In this sense, EA is “Egyptian gold for Christians.” This is a reference to Exodus, where the Israelites took with them gold given to them by Egyptians when they were leaving Egypt. Christians can appreciate insights from non-Christian sources and “baptise” them by making use of them in a Christian way (p. 48). In the view of the authors of this review, this should probably be the central question for Christians about EA: Does it provide Christians with valuable insights and tools for doing good? Roser’s answer is a resounding yes, and we agree with his assessment.

Some of the seven distinctive characteristics and their relationship with Christian ethics invite further elaboration.

Altruism is something that Christians already accept as a core ethical commitment because the call to do good to others selflessly is an integral part of Christian ethics (pp. 52–53).

Consequentialism is more tricky. Christian ethics has consequentialist elements but the question is how much attention they should receive compared to other considerations such as rights, rules, virtues, or intentions (p. 54). Roser interestingly presents overfocus on deontology as a temptation because deontology offers easier ways to be certain that you’ve done the right thing (simply follow the rule), to hide sin behind ostensible rule-following like the Pharisees did, to categorize uncomfortably demanding things as laudable but not required or to be used to support vengefulness (pp. 55–57).

Roser finds Christian impartiality a somewhat weaker ideal than the total impartiality demanded by utilitarianism. Nevertheless, he thinks Christians generally face a temptation to be much too partial. People are generally biased towards partiality by tribalism, a desire for reciprocity (cf. Matt 5:46), and the fact that our “social norms and intuitions have developed in a context where there was much less potential to expand one’s concern to people far away in time and space” (p. 65).

Roser thinks effectiveness is the largest reason why EA can be helpful for Christians. People can rarely increase their amount of giving by orders of magnitude but, by choosing especially effective targets, they can increase the impact of their donations tens or hundreds of times. Forgoing additional impact is wrong from a consequentialist perspective, but there is also a case for it under different ethical systems. Effectiveness helps people better to live up to the consequentialist elements that are part of every plausible moral view. Ineffectiveness is also wasteful and reveals a lack of compassion (p. 66).

If effectiveness is such a great instrument of love, why does it not feature more prominently in the Bible? Roser suggests the reason is that effectiveness is a practical insight dependent on circumstances. It would have been relatively unimportant until recently. Its significance has risen sharply due to the increased availability of data and developments in science and technology. This ties in with Jakub Synowiec’s observation that the world has changed and that, as a result, we can be neighbors to a much larger group of people than before.

In his chapter Who is My Neighbour? Effective Altruism, the Good Samaritan, and the Opportunities of the 21st Century Jakub Synowiec examines, through the parable of the Good Samaritan, who Christians have a moral duty to help and how this relates to EA. Intellectuals supporting EA have their own answers stemming from utilitarianism: our moral duties should extend to all beings capable of suffering or having interests affected by our actions, regardless of geographical distance or even species. Some, like Nick Bostrom and Toby Ord, argue for further extending moral considerations to potential future beings (pp. 122–123). Hence animal welfare and protecting the future are popular causes within the movement along with global poverty and health.

Are these answers compatible with Christian ethics? According to Synowiec, Jesus’ answer switches the perspective from the criteria of a neighbor to how we can be neighbors ourselves (p. 129). He presents two possible interpretations of the parable: one where everyone is a neighbor, and a less demanding one where a neighbor is someone we can personally affect (pp. 129–131). Even according to this less demanding interpretation, in the modern world people far away from us geographically count as “global neighbors.” Unlike most people in the past, there are reliable means to get information about their needs and to distribute help to them, as well as unprecedented wealth in affluent countries that can be used to help (pp. 132–134). The EA expansion of the moral circle to people far away is thus compatible with Christianity.

But can animals or future people be considered neighbors? Synowiec thinks that considering Jesus’ overall teaching, it is plausible that species matters in the less demanding interpretation of the parable and that animals are thus not neighbors. However, regardless of whether animals are neighbors or not, he posits that today there are increased opportunities to act as a neighbor towards animals, as well as an increased need to do so due to large-scale factory farming (pp. 134–136). With people living in the far future, we cannot identify them and their needs accurately (p. 138) but we can say that being prevented from existing by the extinction of humanity would be against their interests. In a Christian worldview, people living in the future would also share the universal human need for salvation. Thus, we can be neighbors to future people by preventing anthropogenic extinction risks and preserving the means of salvation for people in the future (pp. 138–141). According to Synowiec, there is thus a lot of compatibility but perhaps not a total overlap between the concept of neighbor in the parable of the Good Samaritan and as proposed by EA.

Several chapters in the book touch on different aspects of the question of whether EA is in some ways too narrow in its approach to doing good. Many articles find EA missing or misrepresenting something fundamental about morality and humanity. Even the authors who are most sympathetic to EA, such as Roser, acknowledge differences between EA and their preferred (religious) ethics. Kathryn Muyskens’ chapter highlights the need for systemic change and the need for ascetic (defined as “self-denial for a higher good”) activism and asserts that focusing only on charitable giving “misses an opportunity to expand the influence of our ethical lives” (p. 174).  Mara-Daria Cojocaru thinks that EA is “a sensible approach to promoting the good … where it is philosophically uncontroversial what the good is,” but that it “misses the importance of the particular and partial relations and perspectives humans need to have as moral agents” (pp. 99–100). Markus Huppenbauer observes that (some) EAs seem to live with a kind of permanent moral stress and opines that

if improving the world or doing good is such a dominant concern, and if there is no other understanding of a good life – in areas where morality is secondary – then people become degraded to morality machines, and that is not the meaning of life. (p. 247)

He thinks that demanding total impartiality detaches people from what makes them who they are (p. 249).

Common to these criticisms is that they relate to EA as a total ethical system and as the sole channel of doing good. However, William MacAskill’s definition of EA, referenced many times in the book, is explicitly non-normative.^[2] Philosopher Richard Y. Chappell believes that EA can be among one’s central life projects without being the only one.^[3] This is, however, complicated by the maximizing utilitarian ethics that in practice undergird most people’s engagement within the movement—70% of respondents described their ethics as utilitarian in the aforementioned EA survey. In utilitarian ethics, a completely ethical life is one spent totally on maximizing utility, i.e. doing the most good. Utilitarians who do not do this must accept that they are not living a fully ethical life.^[4] However, this is not entirely dissimilar to the way Christians must deal with a very high ethical standard, often falling short of it; “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48, KJV).

To conclude, we discuss what Christianity can offer to EA. Christian ethics could provide EA with emphasis on the importance of virtue and cultivating good intentions. It might be possible to be a “good EA” who hates their next-door neighbor but loves helping people dying of malaria on the other side of the world—but it would not be possible to be a good Christian doing so. The demands of Christianity as seen in the Sermon on the Mount are arguably greater than the demands of Peter Singer, as it is not only extreme generosity that matters but also the intentions and thoughts of the heart. This touches on themes in the chapters by Cojocaru and MacSwain.

Grace is also something Christianity can bring to EA. The grace offered in Jesus Christ does not permit ignoring the impact of one’s actions but it does free one from placing one’s trust and self-worth in it. Someone’s value and worth as a person cannot be calculated by adding up their impact (or lack thereof). A person’s dignity is an immovable part of their God-given identity as a child of God made in the image of God and as someone for whom Christ died. (Romans 5:8)

^[1] Neil Dullaghan, EA Survey 2019: Community Demographics & Characteristics. San Francisco, CA: Rethink Priorities. 2019. https://rethinkpriorities.org/publications/eas2019-community-demographics-characteristics

^[2] William MacAskill, “Effective Altruism”. Forthcoming in The Norton Introduction to Ethics. https://globalprioritiesinstitute.org/william-macaskill-effective-altruism/

^[3] Richard Y. Chappell, “Beneficentrism: Utilitarianism Minus the Controversial Bits”. 2022. https://www.goodthoughts.blog/p/beneficentrism

^[4] This terminology is from Peter Singer. Cf. The Most Good You Can Do. How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015,  p. vii.