This is a personal reflection rather than an argument. I wrote it on my Substack Blog for the people close to me, but I suspect the tension it describes might be familiar to many here.
I want to be a good person. A large part of what makes that up for me is doing good for others. The more I improve other people's wellbeing, the better.
I've decided to donate 10% of my income every year, because I know that over 800 million people still live on less than three international dollars a day, and that I belong to the richest 10% of people in the world.
I've decided to stop eating meat, because the factory farming we humans run is simply cruel.
I've decided not to work in a hospital in northern Germany, but for effective altruism in Switzerland. For a movement that tries to answer the question of how we can do the most good with our limited resources. My job is to make others aware that wanting to do good doesn't automatically mean you actually do good, that doing good varies a hundredfold in its cost-effectiveness, and most likely to point out to you, reading this, that you too belong to the richest and most influential 10% of humanity.
In a certain sense I am a moralizer, someone who wants to tell the people around him what is "really good."
Nobody likes a moralizer.
So what's the elephant in the room here?
The elephant in the room is that moral views aren't relative.
I can't consciously decide to stop eating meat, to donate 10% of my income and to change my job in order "not just to feel good but to actually do good," and then claim that I'm completely indifferent to the fact that the people around me don't do these things. These aren't decisions like "I like pizza and you don't," the kind you can easily just let stand. This is about fundamental questions of values and morality.
There are reasons for my decisions. Animals can feel pain. They suffer unimaginable agony in factory farming. That is wrong. It shouldn't exist. It isn't entirely value-neutral for me when someone sits across from me at lunch eating meat from factory farming.
The elephant in the room is the tension between me and many of the people around me, when both sides sense that there's a "sensitive topic" here that nobody had better bring up, because otherwise it might lead to confrontation. For me that means, for example, not asking questions like: (put very insensitively and directly, without any nice packaging, not that I would actually do it this way.)
"I don't eat meat from factory farming because I find it absolutely morally reprehensible. Why do you eat meat from animals that had to endure hellish suffering?"
Or "We both belong to the richest 10% of humanity. We did nothing to earn it. We got lucky in the birth lottery. Our nation exploited other people and countries for centuries. Through your wealth you have a lot of influence. Over 800 million people still live on less than 3 international dollars a day. Why don't you donate 10% too?"
Most such topics I can avoid quite well. I can keep the elephant in the room fairly well under control, because it's extremely rare that someone who eats meat asks me why I became a vegetarian/vegan, or why I donate 10% of my income. (To be honest, I don't think it's ever happened.) But the biggest elephant is my job, and that one simply isn't easy to overlook. Questions about what you do for a living come up constantly. I suspect every one of us knows this. What do you do for work? Or how are things going at your job? ... Explaining effective altruism, or rather living it out, without creating any potential tension is hard. Essentially the answer boils down to "I try to bring about as much good as possible with my limited resources, and to inspire others, to invite and encourage them to try as well."
Sure, at a party, in small talk with people who are only meeting me briefly, I can phrase my job so that it basically creates no tension. But with all the people who matter to me in life, my friends, my family, and so on, it's impossible to keep that up over years. To the best of my knowledge and conscience, I'm convinced that some problems are simply far bigger and more important than others. And that most people in my social circle could have an extremely large positive impact if they decided to work on one of these problems. I find it hard to describe the whole thing. Boiled down, it's perhaps best captured by imagining this simple dialogue:
A: What do you think is the biggest problem in the world that we should solve?
B: XYZ (names some big problem.)
A: Why aren't you working on it?
How is B supposed not to feel put on the spot in that moment?
What often makes situations like this so tense is the pointing out of a cognitive dissonance, a missing opportunity to save face, or of course simply that my loved ones and I hold different views on fundamental questions of value and how the world works. In the example, person B has to admit to themselves that they aren't working on the problem they actually consider the most important of our time. The easy way out is to come up with reasons why that's completely fine. "It's a societal responsibility, not just mine. I don't have any training in that direction. etc."
Or, to come back to the example of factory farming, one could tell oneself that the animals are stunned before slaughter and that there are certain welfare standards. The far harder thing would be to change your behaviour and stop eating meat from factory farming, or to reorient your career.
By the missing opportunity to save face, I mean that in that moment of conversation, person B will find it hard to find a comfortable way out of the situation. Answers like the ones above would come across as excuses, and the possibly honest answers, like "I've simply never thought about it." or "I just haven't dared to." are very personal.
And by the point about different views of the world, I simply mean that it creates tension if you're truly deeply convinced that, for example, there's no problem with factory farming as it exists today, or that it doesn't matter if all of humanity goes extinct.
I don't know any simple solution to this situation. I want to stand by myself, by my values and convictions, and actively advocate for them. I do care where this world is heading. I don't want to be a moralizer who puts others on the spot and directly or indirectly accuses them of "being able to do more good." Especially not towards the people closest to me. I love them, and my wellbeing depends on their affection and their attitude towards me. I don't want to be alone.
And at the same time I believe that many of the people close to me are very privileged and, if they had the courage, could bring about far more good than they currently do. The usual way of handling it is to ignore the elephant as much as possible, or to actively phrase things so that my loved ones don't feel addressed or attacked by them (for example, that my job is only about addressing the hopeless world-improvers (like me) and very rich people. And not mentioning that, globally speaking, they themselves are also among those "very rich people." And that it's only an option and not a "moral duty.")
The benefit of collectively letting the elephant stand peacefully in the room, or of framing my views of the world as "options" rather than "potential responsibility," is the peaceful and loving togetherness with my loved ones. Everyone lets everyone else be who they are. All is well.
The costs? It feels uncomfortable to have the feeling that a core part of what and who I am, and of the views I hold about the world, creates tension between me and my loved ones. It feels uncomfortable to notice and to know that some of the people I love know and understand little about an important part of my life, and perhaps simply aren't very interested in it. Not understanding "why I do what I do" or "what it is that I actually do." (Though I assume this aspect is independent of my job in effective altruism. I can imagine plenty of jobs and relationships where nobody asks more deeply what it's really about and what you do day to day. And as long as the job is primarily there to earn money, that doesn't bother anyone much. But if you partly identify with your profession, if it represents what you want to stand for in your life, potentially even a "life's work," then disinterest hurts.)
And there's the worry that people feel judged or attacked by me, even though that's not what I want at all, because we don't talk openly about the elephant.
I'm writing because I want to let the elephant shrink.
Yes, there's the dilemma described above, the loop of "standing by myself and my values," "advocating for my values," "being convinced that many of my loved ones would have the potential to do more good," "depending on my loved ones and not wanting to put them on the spot."
Do privileged people like me, and therefore most of my loved ones, have a duty to do good effectively? I don't know. Somewhere in me I think "well, obviously," and somewhere else "everyone is free to dispose of their time on earth as they wish, and as long as nobody is seriously harmed..."
What I do know is this:
Trying to improve the world on a large scale takes an unbelievable amount of courage. It's in the nature of the thing that you devote yourself to badly neglected problems that nobody is taking care of. Problems most people have never heard more than a few sentences about, where there aren't dozens of organizations working on them, no dedicated degree programmes, no everyday press coverage, no easy way into a job. You automatically become "not normal" when you start down this path. Often you attack the "status quo" and challenge "society." Millions of people who eat meat from factory farming probably simply don't want to hear that the industry which grew out of it might be just as great a tragedy as the slave trade once was.
To donate 10% of your income, you have to face the fear of "at some point not having enough." "Not being able to buy something I'd like to have." Even if you belong to the richest 10% of people in the world, those fears are real. And "I" worked hard for this money, and again it's "not normal." You're outside the norm when you donate 10%. "None of the people I know do that. Why should I?"
And changing your own profession? Possibly into a completely different field? Full-time, from "I've been an architect in an office for five years" to "I work on the risks that the development of AI poses to our democracy"? Countless inner fears, inner resistance, the state of comfort and the sunk costs all have to be overcome before you take a step like that. "How am I supposed to earn money with this? What if it doesn't work out? Will I then have no job at all? Who pays the rent for our family's house then? What will my friends and colleagues think? Will they all think I'm crazy?..."
Duty, or option... Can I really expect someone like that architect with his family, with all his questions and fears, to change his profession anyway in order to do more good? No... Personally, I don't expect it.
Because it takes so much courage, I can understand extremely well why the vast majority of people don't do these things. That includes my loved ones. And it includes me too. I joined an existing movement, effective altruism. Here I have the social environment that inspires me, encourages me and supports me in not bowing to social pressure so as not to be "a sheep in the flock," but in tackling the problems, even when so few people are working on them. I doubt I would have dared to do it without this social environment. That I myself would have had the courage to be "the first one to step out of line."
My individual life circumstances brought me into the situation I'm in today, one in which I can honestly say that I work day in, day out on something that seems genuinely important to me on a global scale. Those circumstances are a secure, loving, financially strong family home, a very good education, a persistent and strong wish to make the world a better place, the time to think and explore the world during over a year of travelling and working abroad, having encountered the social environment of effective altruism as early as the third year of my medical studies, so that I still had more than three years to get comfortable with the thought of not following the straight path into the hospital, and having the ability needed to get one of the still very few full-time paid positions in the field.
What I actually just want to say:
To all my loved ones, I love you! My individual life circumstances led me into my current job, which makes me very happy, but which for all of us can also feel a little like moralizing from time to time. I'm enthusiastic about and convinced by what I do, but I sincerely don't expect any of you to donate 10% of your salary or to change your career and do the same as me. It genuinely makes me happy when you want to dig deeper into the arguments behind how I see the world. And it's completely fine if you don't act on them. You don't have to hold back any questions about what I do out of worry that I'll accuse you of not doing enough good.
This elephant doesn't have to be one.
Translated from German by Claude, reviewed by me.
