by In theory, utilitarians ought to maximize the expected value of their donations, without regard to risk, proximity of those helped, or other factors that may affect how good the donation feels. We also expect others to live up to this standard.
But we are still humans with tribal motivations and finite empathy, so perhaps it's expecting too much to demand that people shut up and multiply when deciding where to give every last cent. Eliezer Yudkowsky proposes an alternative in his piece, "Purchase Fuzzies and Utilons Separately":
The main idea here is that
A similar point about trying to optimize too many criteria at once optimizing none of them may apply in other domains as well, like career choice, ethical purchasing, and investments.
Even if we don't feel we need it ourselves, Eliezer's approach could be an effective suggestion to make to others. Donating 95% of your money to high-risk high-expected-value causes and 5% to directly observable forms of helping is nearly as good as donating 100% to the former, but doing so may be much easier and more psychologically rewarding for the donor. People don't need to accomplish that much direct good to feel warm and fuzzy -- that's the whole problem behind scope insensitivity -- so it doesn't cost all that much to buy these fuzzies and satisfy our primal urges. The rest can then go to the projects with highest expected returns. In some sense, we can have our cake and eat it too.
But we are still humans with tribal motivations and finite empathy, so perhaps it's expecting too much to demand that people shut up and multiply when deciding where to give every last cent. Eliezer Yudkowsky proposes an alternative in his piece, "Purchase Fuzzies and Utilons Separately":
If I had to give advice to some new-minted billionaire entering the realm of charity, my advice would go something like this:
* To purchase warm fuzzies, find some hard-working but poverty-stricken woman who's about to drop out of state college after her husband's hours were cut back, and personally, but anonymously, give her a cashier's check for $10,000. Repeat as desired.
* To purchase status among your friends, donate $100,000 to the current sexiest X-Prize, or whatever other charity seems to offer the most stylishness for the least price. Make a big deal out of it, show up for their press events, and brag about it for the next five years.
* Then - with absolute cold-blooded calculation - without scope insensitivity or ambiguity aversion - without concern for status or warm fuzzies - figuring out some common scheme for converting outcomes to utilons, and trying to express uncertainty in percentage probabilities - find the charity that offers the greatest expected utilons per dollar. Donate up to however much money you wanted to give to charity, until their marginal efficiency drops below that of the next charity on the list.
The main idea here is that
all three of these things - warm fuzzies, status, and expected utilons - can be bought far more efficiently when you buy separately, optimizing for only one thing at a time. [...] Trying to optimize for all three criteria in one go only ensures that none of them end up optimized very well - just vague pushes along all three dimensions.
A similar point about trying to optimize too many criteria at once optimizing none of them may apply in other domains as well, like career choice, ethical purchasing, and investments.
Even if we don't feel we need it ourselves, Eliezer's approach could be an effective suggestion to make to others. Donating 95% of your money to high-risk high-expected-value causes and 5% to directly observable forms of helping is nearly as good as donating 100% to the former, but doing so may be much easier and more psychologically rewarding for the donor. People don't need to accomplish that much direct good to feel warm and fuzzy -- that's the whole problem behind scope insensitivity -- so it doesn't cost all that much to buy these fuzzies and satisfy our primal urges. The rest can then go to the projects with highest expected returns. In some sense, we can have our cake and eat it too.
