How to do the most good possible

By W.Z.

IMAGINE you are walking in a park and come across a boy drowning in a pond. Chances are, you would not hesitate to jump in to save him, even if it meant ruining an expensive pair of shoes. Yet, if you read a news report about thousands of children drowning because of a flood in a distant country, you may not feel compelled to act at all. What could explain this seemingly incongruous gap in empathy? One reason is that you, as a human, are simply hard-wired to care more about those in your immediate vicinity. But another is that you might believe that you have no ability to meaningfully affect the lives of distant strangers. The "effective altruism" movement, a group of scientifically minded do-gooders, argue that this view is too pessimistic. They reckon that social science has advanced to the point where it is possible for individuals to do a tangible amount of good.

The most obvious way to affect the world is to choose the right career. Teaching is considered a natural vocation for a would-be do-gooder, but it is not clear that it should be. Effective altruists argue that if you are choosing a career and want to help the world, you should not worry about how much good a profession does overall—rather, you should focus on the impact you would make if you join them. If you become a teacher, chances are you would not actually increase the total number of teachers in your country. Instead, you would simply be taking a spot away from another candidate with a CV that looks a lot like yours. A better option might be to get a job on Wall Street. If you become a derivatives trader and commit to giving a large portion of your salary to charity, you might make a very positive impact on the world since you would be taking a job away from someone who probably would not donate the same amount of money.