by I'm a bit embarrassed by my previous, first post, in which I asked how people thought about the population implications of health charities. After reading around the forum more carefully, I see that all of this has been looked at before, as well as another question that concerns me, the implications for animals. But I still haven't found a systematic setting-out of the issues which would help me to see where exactly people diverge in coming to different decisions about the net good or bad that comes from giving to a charity like the Against Malaria Foundation.
Working out what I think really matters to me – I'm ready to put time and money into causes that I regard as worthwhile. Looking concretely at the Against Malaria Foundation, as a well-run and well-regarded charity which plenty of effective altruists seem to be drawn towards, seems a good place to start. So, I'd like to try to set out the questions on which a judgement about their work turns; find out what people here have to add; and see how far I can get with answering them. Many of the questions have much wider relevance so this isn't really about the AMF, but I find it helpful to have a specific, concrete decision to reflect on.
I would put the questions into these categories:
-Immediate effects on humans
-Medium-term (50-100 years) effects on humans
-Long-term effects on humans
-Short- and medium-term effects on animals
-Long-term effects on animals
-Moral judgements
And here are some of the issues in each category
-Immediate effects on humans
>Health effects; it seems well-established that the results of the AMF's work are fewer children and perhaps fewer adults dying of illness, fewer children and adults becoming ill, and perhaps children having better health across the course of their lives.
-Medium-term effects on humans
>Fertility and population effects. Lower child mortality leading to more rapid reduction in fertility? How does the combination of reduced mortality and reduced fertility affect the total population and population structure?
>Economic effects. What are the effects on productivity and economic development, through potential channels such as better health, better education, reduced dependency ratios owing to lower fertility, lower population (than there would have been otherwise) leading to lessened resource constraints?
>Social and political effects. Social and political consequences of any economic effects, eg urbanisation, pressures towards democracy, functioning of political systems. Consequences of channelling donors' money through a foreign organisation on the capacity of states or communities receiving the money to identify their own priorities and develop ways of making progress towards them, and on the self-image of those receiving money, goods or services. Perhaps lower child mortality and fertility leading to warmer relations within families, since parents have fewer children to care about and less worry about bereavement, as I've read hypothesised for England over the fertility transition?
>Effects on how charities function. Will money going to an effective charity increase incentives for other charities to be more effective and transparent?
Long-term effects on humans
>Technology? If there is increased economic development in poorer countries, will this lead to faster development of technology at the technological frontier? With what consequences?
>Resources? What will the combination of changed population growth and possibily changed economic development do to resource use? With what consequences?
>Population. What will the effect be on future population sizes? Eg roughly stabilising at a lower or higher level, starting to decline from a lower or higher level?
Short- and medium-term effects on animals
>Industrial farming. Effects of population and economic changes on the number of animals raised and killed on industrial farms.
>Other farming. Effects of population and economic changes on the number of animals raised and killed on other, pre-industrial or 'free-range' etc farms.
>Land use. The amount of land converted from the wild to grow crops for people and animals to eat, or for animals or people to live on. The consequences for wild animals, eg animals killed in clearing land and in growing and harvesting crops, increased or decreased populations of different animals after changes to the type of land available to them to live and feed on, consequences of this as it ramifies through eco-systems.
Long-term effects on animals
>Effects on land use, the number of animals on farms and conditions for wild animals of the longer-term human population, economic and environmental consequences of the AMF's work.
>Technology? Faster development of in vitro meat or meat substitutes? Faster development of technology allowing intervention to improve the lives of wild animals?
>Attitudes and behaviour? Greater or lesser concern for farmed or wild animals? Through, eg, popular preferences for eating animals raised in better conditions, government-led policies regulating farming, non-farm sources of meat or meat substitutes influencing attitudes towards animals, secularisation in countries where people have religious reasons for concern for animals or vegetarianism.
Moral judgements
>How to include changes in the number of people to be born in future in moral judgements.
>How to include changes to the conditions in which animals live in moral judgements.
>How to include changes in the number of animals to be born in future in moral judgements (this would have to include some sense of what the average lives of the different sorts of animals affected by humans are / will be like).
I don't want to underplay the complexity of these questions. How to deal with all the uncertainties than one is inevitably left with is another very important issue. But, since I don't have an intuition even as to the sign of effects – whether they are net good or net bad – I don't see any way of coming to a decision other than doing my best to work through the questions as best I can, and getting as much help from others as I can!
Working out what I think really matters to me – I'm ready to put time and money into causes that I regard as worthwhile. Looking concretely at the Against Malaria Foundation, as a well-run and well-regarded charity which plenty of effective altruists seem to be drawn towards, seems a good place to start. So, I'd like to try to set out the questions on which a judgement about their work turns; find out what people here have to add; and see how far I can get with answering them. Many of the questions have much wider relevance so this isn't really about the AMF, but I find it helpful to have a specific, concrete decision to reflect on.
I would put the questions into these categories:
-Immediate effects on humans
-Medium-term (50-100 years) effects on humans
-Long-term effects on humans
-Short- and medium-term effects on animals
-Long-term effects on animals
-Moral judgements
And here are some of the issues in each category
-Immediate effects on humans
>Health effects; it seems well-established that the results of the AMF's work are fewer children and perhaps fewer adults dying of illness, fewer children and adults becoming ill, and perhaps children having better health across the course of their lives.
-Medium-term effects on humans
>Fertility and population effects. Lower child mortality leading to more rapid reduction in fertility? How does the combination of reduced mortality and reduced fertility affect the total population and population structure?
>Economic effects. What are the effects on productivity and economic development, through potential channels such as better health, better education, reduced dependency ratios owing to lower fertility, lower population (than there would have been otherwise) leading to lessened resource constraints?
>Social and political effects. Social and political consequences of any economic effects, eg urbanisation, pressures towards democracy, functioning of political systems. Consequences of channelling donors' money through a foreign organisation on the capacity of states or communities receiving the money to identify their own priorities and develop ways of making progress towards them, and on the self-image of those receiving money, goods or services. Perhaps lower child mortality and fertility leading to warmer relations within families, since parents have fewer children to care about and less worry about bereavement, as I've read hypothesised for England over the fertility transition?
>Effects on how charities function. Will money going to an effective charity increase incentives for other charities to be more effective and transparent?
Long-term effects on humans
>Technology? If there is increased economic development in poorer countries, will this lead to faster development of technology at the technological frontier? With what consequences?
>Resources? What will the combination of changed population growth and possibily changed economic development do to resource use? With what consequences?
>Population. What will the effect be on future population sizes? Eg roughly stabilising at a lower or higher level, starting to decline from a lower or higher level?
Short- and medium-term effects on animals
>Industrial farming. Effects of population and economic changes on the number of animals raised and killed on industrial farms.
>Other farming. Effects of population and economic changes on the number of animals raised and killed on other, pre-industrial or 'free-range' etc farms.
>Land use. The amount of land converted from the wild to grow crops for people and animals to eat, or for animals or people to live on. The consequences for wild animals, eg animals killed in clearing land and in growing and harvesting crops, increased or decreased populations of different animals after changes to the type of land available to them to live and feed on, consequences of this as it ramifies through eco-systems.
Long-term effects on animals
>Effects on land use, the number of animals on farms and conditions for wild animals of the longer-term human population, economic and environmental consequences of the AMF's work.
>Technology? Faster development of in vitro meat or meat substitutes? Faster development of technology allowing intervention to improve the lives of wild animals?
>Attitudes and behaviour? Greater or lesser concern for farmed or wild animals? Through, eg, popular preferences for eating animals raised in better conditions, government-led policies regulating farming, non-farm sources of meat or meat substitutes influencing attitudes towards animals, secularisation in countries where people have religious reasons for concern for animals or vegetarianism.
Moral judgements
>How to include changes in the number of people to be born in future in moral judgements.
>How to include changes to the conditions in which animals live in moral judgements.
>How to include changes in the number of animals to be born in future in moral judgements (this would have to include some sense of what the average lives of the different sorts of animals affected by humans are / will be like).
I don't want to underplay the complexity of these questions. How to deal with all the uncertainties than one is inevitably left with is another very important issue. But, since I don't have an intuition even as to the sign of effects – whether they are net good or net bad – I don't see any way of coming to a decision other than doing my best to work through the questions as best I can, and getting as much help from others as I can!
