Conscious Meaning
We share every moment with trillions of other conscious beings. Some are much like us, and others experience the world very differently. Creatures without a language to structure their thoughts, some who see broader spectrums of light or others who might experience the world in comparative slow motion. Each conscious moment immediately slips into the past largely unobserved and forgotten. They fall through time like snow to become frozen in the past. Always to have happened just as they did.
Each conscious moment is transient and one small part of a vast whole, so one could see any individual as meaningless and insignificant. But every conscious moment is imbued with meaning. Happiness that need not justify itself and pains that consume any desire but to escape them.
As individuals, we are not responsible for the state of the world. You did not choose to create disease, poverty and mental illness. You can’t control nature, and you can’t control the society around you.
Many schools of philosophy disagree exactly on what our moral obligations are to others. Given this disagreement, we could default to radical scepticism that all attempts to decide what the right way to live are mere pretensions.
We could ignore the plight of others and live our lives solely for our own immediate gratification. In doing so, we will feed into many of the callous systems set in place for our own comfort. Feed into the destruction of our planet, the exploitation of labour and the abject horror of factory farming.
To me, it is clear that the default path of apathy is a tacit endorsement of the suffering in inequity in the world. To live life well, we need to take responsibility for what we can control, ourselves. You can control you, we are responsible for our intentions and actions. How you respond to the suffering and injustices of the world is on you.
Ovarian lottery
However, our place in the world is not. Much of our lives is largely outside our control, complete luck.
We are born into one of the most prosperous time periods in history. Many of us are lucky enough to be born into wealthy countries. We are all lucky enough to be born human and not a male chicken blended the same day we are born. None of these benefits were earned. All come from the lottery of birth.
Even within countries, many of our life outcomes and wealth are based on lucky choices or birth outcomes. Whether we are born with an IQ of 140 or an IQ of 60, to a wealthy family or with an innate talent for a lucrative skill.
Warren Buffett explains this best; his skill in investing has made him one of the richest men on earth. Yet he says, “If all of us were stranded on a desert island somewhere and we were never going to get off of it, the most valuable person there would be the one who could raise the most rice over time. I can say, “I can allocate capital!” You wouldn’t be very excited about that. “
If Warren Buffett were born in South Sudan, he would not be one of the richest people on earth. In fact, it’s likely that much smarter, more capable people born the same year as Buffet who were never afforded his opportunities or even taught to read.
We don’t deserve any of the blessings or misfortunes in our lives, and neither does anyone else. All our successes or failures are at least half-chance. I have no special claim to my wealth over anyone else. Spending it on unnecessary consumption while others suffer from preventable misfortune is wrong.
The Good we can do
This would be all well and good if there were no route to improving the world. I’m not obligated to cure all the diseases because there is no way I can do that. Many view charity in much the same light, maybe earnestly, or maybe as a defence mechanism. If there were no route to help others with our good fortune, then donations would be pointless, but this belief is patently false.
In fact, the sheer amount of good you can do is staggering. From the best available evidence, it's not $1,000,000s to save a life; on average, it costs between $3,000 and $5,500 (source). To stop a child from dying! Or for the same money, we can get chickens out of battery cages for a cumulative 126,000 years (source).
How much happiness would we get for the same money? Comparing directly, Friendship Bench can create 49 WELLBYs (crudely comparable to 4.9 years of maximally happy life) for every $1,000 donated (source). I live in London, and a marginal $1000 in expenditure might not even move my life satisfaction. It might be a week-long holiday to escape the British winter, only to get horrendous jetlag and sunburn on day three. Or it could be 40 takeaway meals that often don’t taste any better than cooking myself.
Creating Balance
It’s easy to see such trade-offs and feel the only reasonable position is to donate all non-subsistence expenditure to improving the lives of others. Many holy figures give up all worldly possessions and subsist modestly in monastic conditions. So it is possible to live such a life.
However, our obligations to others don’t just extend to strangers drowning. We have moral obligations to our friends, family and loved ones. Even our future selves, who we need to act as custodians for to ensure we can continue to benefit all those around us, but also for the inherent value of our own conscious experience of the world. Each moment of your life also matters.
The ideal I strive for is a balance between our moral obligations to the border world, our love for our friends and family, and still striving to create moments of joy through our own experience.
Voluntary Simplicity
Although, fortunately, it’s not all a trade-off!
Much of the discussion on donations and happiness focuses on studies showing the benefits of additional income level off (source). So we should donate everything above that amount.
Donations are very different though! Income in wider society is correlated with all sorts of factors, notably social status. This likely explains any benefit that still accrues for earning lots and lots of money. Having a higher income and a more prestigious job is important for people to varying degrees. They want to be viewed favourably by strangers, and many people will judge you by your job and how much money you likely earn.
Being on a very low income also normally comes with lots of financial stress. If you run into any problems, you can’t stop donating and suddenly have more resources available.
For this reason, the concept and research into “voluntary simplicity” is much more representative of the actual trade-offs in place. Voluntary simplicity is a lifestyle focused on intentional reduction of consumption to prioritise values. It's not quite pledging but is highly analogous to a further pledge.
Voluntary consumption reductions affect happiness very differently to income. A systematic review by Hook et al (2021) looked at twenty-three empirical studies on the relation between voluntary simplicity and happiness. They found a consistent positive relationship between voluntary simplicity and well-being. Hypothesised through the control of consumption desires and psychological need satisfaction.
In short, as I have found personally as well, when you voluntarily reduce consumption on luxuries, you see they actually have very little appeal. When I see someone driving my old dream motorbike, I still think it's cool, but I’m not jealous of them or have a desire to buy it. My life does not seem any worse for not owning it.
Setting Salary based on the Worlds average income
My approach is to further pledge by setting Salary based on the World's average income adjusted purchasing power parity for the city I live in (London). This has always worked out as minimum wage + or - 10% or so. For this year, 2025, this has been £26400 per year ~$35,000 before tax. Anything I earn or could earn above that I donate, which, as someone working in the charitable sector, I have done through salary sacrifices.
To me, this feels like a just ‘basket of goods’. As if all the world's resources were distributed evenly, this is roughly what everyone would live like.
Over time, this has not felt like a sacrifice; I've still managed to save ~⅓ of my take-home pay, which I intend to use to eventually get on the housing ladder. An investment so that my future family can be financially secure.
I still spend on luxuries. I still go out to eat at restaurants on occasion, I go out to drink infrequently, I turn the heating on more than is strictly necessary, I don’t just shop at charity shops and in the winter I sometimes take the train rather than my motorbike to visit my parents because it's more comfortable than the cold, even though it's £40 more. I’ve also got a job that requires and allows me to travel easily, and I have also travelled for family. I’ve never felt the desire to travel, but this means that when I want time off, I’ve already seen enough of the world to not need to.
Every day, I feel I am living in alignment with my values. I am meeting my moral obligation to the world and to others. I would not trade that for any amount of luxuries. Not giving would feel like a greater cost than giving.
"The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough" Ralph Waldo Emerson. It is neccecary and sufficient for life well lived. That's what you get in return for giving the chance to do the right thing.
Appendix: Let he who is without sin cast the first stone
When I first went vegan, I was angry at the world and my peers for ignoring the suffering of animals. In 2019, for my first job, I was donating above £18,000. I felt the same about those who spend lavishly while others starve, but being a judgmental asshole about it does not get us anywhere.
Even if you are giving a lot more than everyone else, you likely still spend on some luxuries (like me), and we can often rationalise these away. Unless you take the full monk life option, you still have room to give more just like everyone else.
People have different life circumstances that prevent them from doing this. Maybe they don’t have the same safety nets or upbringing that make them feel financially secure enough to do it. I’m very privileged to be able to live at home with my parents if everything went south, even at 29. They may also help get me on the housing ladder by guaranteeing the loan (which otherwise would take me another 10 years to save towards or require a partner). I live in the UK, where the national health service covers health care free at the point of service, so I don’t need expensive health insurance like in the United States. At the moment, I also don’t have any kids or dependents to look after.
We can’t know what is reasonable for anyone given their circumstances. So it is important to understand where people are at. If, however, you're a billionaire with a million-dollar sports car, you’ve gone far past the point of diminishing marginal returns for your own happiness even when not accounting for voluntary simplicity!