What motivates us to help others, and why should we help others? What does the latest psychological research show us about our brains on altruism? And are there ways we can be more effective altruists – especially for those from other countries or future generations? We ask psychologists, humanitarians and altruists what it means to them to be a good Samaritan, and how we can do better.
Psychologist, Dr. Dean McDonnell of the Psychologist Society of Ireland (PSI) tells us about the latest research into what’s really going on in our brains when we’re a good samaritan – and how we can encourage this in our children. We hear from Shaza Aldawamneh, a Syrian student in Cork who teaches coding online to refugees; long-time humanitarian Mary Coffey, missionary nun Sr Majella McCarron; MSF coordinator Sarah Leahy, and founder of ‘The Free Humanitarians’ Sean Binder. We’ll also have a look at how we can be more effective altruists with William MacAskill, author of ‘How To Good Better’ and ‘What We Owe The Future’.
Produced by Bairbre Flood with the support of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, Sound and Vision Scheme.
With thanks to The Kabin Studio Cork for their music, ‘Teach Love, Harsh Winter’.
TRANSCRIPT:
Sarah Leahy
Working for an organization like MSF is incredible – in supporting communities and providing free health care to those who cannot otherwise access it. It’s just immense. And you get to see the results in front of your eyes. So for me, I really think that as a person, you, you kind of get so much more than you can ever even give.
Mary Coffey
‘Is a sca cheile a mhairimid’ – we live in the shelter of each other.
Bairbre Flood
The term altruism was first coined in the 1800s by Augustus Compte. It was a reaction against church, orthodoxy, superstition and hypocrisy, and a look towards the sciences to help us figure things out. Some of the more recent developments in altruism are also utilizing this scientific method and rationality, to figure out how we can be more effective altruists.
William MacAskill
We’re just trying to think look for all the problems that we’re facing in the world, where can we have the biggest impact possible? And what are the methods we can pursue to have that impact?
Bairbre Flood
We’ll get into all of that later. But first, what exactly is altruism?
Dr. Dean McDonell
Generally, what we would refer to altruism is this kind of unselfish concern for somebody else. So you focusing your energy on your kind of passions on supporting and helping other people without any kind of intent to get any kind of return from that. So altruism being a trait could be considered under Are you open to supporting others? Or are you conscientious enough to be able to support somebody else
Bairbre Flood
Dr Dean McDonnell is a psychologist based in the Southeast Technological University, and membership secretary of the Psychological Society of Ireland,
Dr. Dean McDonell
One study that I’m reminded of is by I think, what Stephen Post, and what he was finding was looking at altruism, happiness, and health. So generally, what we’re finding is that and displaying these kinds of positive emotions, positive behaviors, again, we have greater sense of well being, or health, it just tends to be an awful lot better, and recovery tends to be an awful lot better as well.
Bairbre Flood
Research into altruism comes on to the umbrella term of pro social behavior. And I asked McDonnell, if and how psychologists are able to measure this:
Dr. Dean McDonell
We could either give somebody a questionnaire be like, and then they basically self report, or we could ask them questions directly in a in a kind of an interview. Or we could put them in a situation whereby they may have to display a particular trait. There’s one particular researcher called Rushton, he developed a scale in I think it was 1986, and spent virtually his career looking at it. What he found is that people generally live longer, they have a more positive outlook in life, they live more fulfilling lives, that they, their partners, generally then will kind of dull match, they tend to, they tend to be attracted to one another, that they’re quite supportive of each other. And they tend to do quite well, from occupations like in different occupations. And they make very good leaders, very good managers. Again, that could be because they’re quite good at putting themselves into other people’s shoes.
Dr. Dean McDonell
So this idea of like, emotional intelligence might come up quite a bit of that as well. So there’s a range of studies. But there’s also some kind of caveats with it as well, that because there’s so many different ways of measuring altruism, you can’t necessarily compare different types or different studies, because that might be tricky. And he also found that a can run in families as well, that if you are kind of, if you score high in traits of altruism, it’s very likely that your siblings or your other members of your family are going to score quite high as well. So what that means and what that suggests is that that kind of idea that you are, who you grow up with, thus, and we it could be a learned behavior, that it could be a learned trait, that if you’re brought up in an environment that’s helpful, friendly, kind and considerate, that you’re more likely going to display those traits and bring it forward.
Bairbre Flood
There’s also lots there’s also lots of research shows babies need so much love and nurturing or in order to function as an empathetic and caring adults later in life. I asked him if there’s anything more we can do as parents to teach our children how to be better people.
Dr. Dean McDonell
One of the best things that could probably do is by doing it yourself. Like I know it’s very easy to say that yes, spend X number of hours a week doing this or that and or volunteer yourself or bring your child along and kind of display that kind of behavior. But that’s that’s exactly it. If you display it, that idea of social learning theory that they do everything that we do, is seen by our children that They will see how we act around other people they hear everything for better or for worse. If we show kindness and if we show that we should be looking out for other people we should be looking out for others – that is seen.
Bairbre Flood
That was Dr. Dean McDonnell of the Psychological Society of Ireland.
Bairbre Flood
Shaza Aldawameh is a Syrian student living in Ireland for the past three years studying computer science. During the COVID lockdowns, she started to teach children in Syria online through an organization called the abjad initiative. I started off by asking her why she started this volunteering, and what motivates her personally to help others.
Sean Binder
One of the main reason that for was for me is, since I was kids, my parents taught me that our religion taught us, which is the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu sallam said, No one of your became a true believer until he likes for his brother, what he liked for himself. So this is a huge thing that made me believe that, yes, what I love for myself, I also love it for the others,
Bairbre Flood
As well as teaching children online, she has also collaborated with the Kabin Studio in Cork, to release a song to help fundraise for the abjad initiative.
Sean Binder
I think the world needs more educated, educating in this area. Schools need to be more educated on that we need to help each other that we need to support each other. So what so we can grow the grow all with each other with the same skills with the same education with the same level of kindness? I think schools as I said is the main factor for kids to be then in the future helpful or not. So if these schools really develop these areas on building the How can I say that feeling are the skills in that child on how to help other than that child actually can start supporting other start helping other I mean, this has always given to my mind,
Bairbre Flood
I asked Shaza about how charities can prevent the people that are being helped being even more dehumanized by the way their situation is portrayed. And she told me about how the abjad initiative approached the way the children are presented in the media. And on their website.
Sean Binder
They tried to not like make them feel bad about themselves, they tried to make them feel proud, happy about themselves, that they are indicating that they are learning something new. And they never accepted to take photos for kids. While they’re like I know some from my experience. When I was doing the video with a campus studio, I thought it might be better to show the students and their homes and like you know, that maybe make them a little bit sad faces, so that it can it can get more emotional, but absolute refuses that because they said we don’t want these kids to look in bad pictures. So as you say they are against these things. And I’d say this is actually like, it’s very difficult to recognize. And I could say I learned a lot from this lesson, what happened. So my advice would be, you always can do something. Never say I cannot do anything for any other human being or any other people from any different country. You always can do something, especially in this time of the world of the century. Everything is online, everything is possible and reachable for anyone to help with anyone to do anything to help other people in other countries in other I don’t know any any side of the world, you can always help. But always try to start from something small if you don’t want to help others in different countries. If you if you think you’re not able to at this stage, just start with the local people that you have and keep going and then you will find yourself rich the end of the world and helping all people.
Bairbre Flood
There are some forms of altruism that are more socially and politically accepted. And sometimes doing the right thing isn’t easy. The original parable of the Good Samaritan touched on this because the audience Jesus was talking to a Jewish audience didn’t like the Samaritans at the time. For the good guy to be a Samaritan and not a Jewish priest or a rabbi, it was pretty radical. Jesus was trying to get his listeners at the time to think of our neighbor as being any other human being, regardless of religion, ethnicity, class skin color. Author and scientist Isaac Asimov said that a better way for us to think about the Good Samaritan story is to set it in segregated Alabama, where the priest and Levite are a Christian preacher and Mayor, and the Samaritan is a poor black sharecropper.
Bairbre Flood
Sean Binder, originally from Togher in Cork, worked as part of a civilian search and rescue team on the island of Lesvos, Greece, often in conjunction with Greek Coast Guard until he was arrested, along with Sarah Mardini, and Nassos Karakitos, on trumped up charges of people smuggling. They started an organization called ‘free humanitarians’, which advocates for their own case, and for the many other people in similar situations. I asked Sean, why, especially in the past two years, have we seen such a spike in the criminalization of humanitarian activists?
Sean Binder
You’re absolutely right in saying that it’s been the last few years, but I remember engaging in EU funded research for 2019, and at that point, we had already found at least 180 individuals who were being prosecuted for, suppose a crime similar to my own. And that didn’t even didn’t even capture the kinds of cases that we probably haven’t even heard of that relates to asylum seekers being criminalized for the same things that I have. I’m very lucky insofar as I’m a European citizen. And so my case is well known.
Sean Binder
Getting to the reasons of why it might be happening. I think that’s pretty clear, we’ve seen a shift in the narrative around around asylum claims. Now, the obvious exception to that is the Ukrainian issue, because there and very rightly, we’ve been incredibly welcoming to refugees as we should be, as our international legal obligations require us to be. However, with with regards to folks transiting through the Mediterranean, for example, or through the eastern Europe, we haven’t seen quite the same level of solidarity. This is because we’ve seen a shift in that narrative, going from framing this as a legal right to seek asylum to a new narrative where we speak about people as illegal immigrants, as being undocumented as being somehow unworthy of help.
Sean Binder
People often often say to me, Sean, I can see why you meant to do it. It’s, you know, it’s a moral thing. All right. But you know, what you did isn’t legal. Or I’m framed as being some kind of radical who wants the European Union and its member states to do something completely different, something entirely new, something so charitable that it could should never been conceived of before. And that’s just false. What I asked the European Union to do what we expect the European Union to do is nothing more than what it has itself said it will do what is itself bound to do by law.
Sean Binder
In another context in which very normal work becomes radical or is labeled radical is when it comes up against a an agenda or a political worldview, that is fundamentally different. So for example, one of the most well respected aid organizations, charities is medicines on frontier, which is Doctors Without Borders. They are hugely respected, and they will make it onto European Union. Advertisements talking about how they MSF exemplify precisely the values that the European Union stands for. When the MSF provides clinics, or emergency aid. in Sub Saharan Africa, for example, they are praised for it by the European Union. Now, MSF has also been criminalized in the Mediterranean for providing exactly the same humanitarian aid and clinical work, but on a ship, right? In Europe. And this time, it’s different. This time, it’s viewed as radical. What has changed here, not the modus operandi of the organization, not what they do at all. What has changed is the political context. which they do it through charity, to help is blind to this political context.
Sean Binder
It doesn’t matter who you are. You could be a refugee, you could be an economic migrant, you could be a fascist, I don’t care. Everyone has the right to be protected, as far as the law will offer them protection. That’s all we ask for. The right to seek asylum and who’s ultimately given asylum is different to helping someone in distress. We, and for some reason, our policy effectively now of course, this is never stated, but in practice is conflating these two things. And so when policymakers decide, actually, we would rather not have people seek asylum, despite them having a right to do so what you should do then is just abandon them to drown matters. So obviously, morally corrupt, as well as being illegal.
Bairbre Flood
I was interested to know why Sean got involved in humanitarian work in the first place, and how his childhood might have influenced this?
Sean Binder
You know, where I got my inspiration was looking at my friends around the the referendum in Ireland, and how people, you know, it was so obvious, it was so commonplace for my friends to campaign for the equal marriage rights, which I found so heartening, because when I was young, my my two grandmother’s, my grandmother and her lifelong partner, you know, they were, were like the first openly that has been people in back in the village where I grew up, you know, and then to have it be recognized by people who, who were so uncertain whose parents had made such such nasty comments to me about, about the kind of openness that my family expressed later on campaigning for rights that would protect my grandmother’s right to love each other, was deeply heartwarming, and hardening. And they just apply the same reasoning. You know, I think that for the same reasons, we should help people where we can. And it’s nothing more than that. I think what I’m trying to say, Barbara, is that it should be the most normal thing.
Sean Binder
Oftentimes, as I said, already, as I hinted at that people give me a fierce amount of stick and tell me I’m a smuggler, or criminal or worse. The other side, people often tell me, you know, what you did this so heroic, it’s great. And those are problematic for exactly the same reasons. Because when you say something as heroic, or you say something is criminal, you imply that helping someone, which is all I did, and very modestly to, is somehow abnormal. And it isn’t, is the most normal thing to do. And so, I try to always just point out that helping someone out at sea is motivated by the same impulse as you know, helping your neighbors or helping friends or family. During the COVID 19 pandemic, I, I drove some folks around who are doing Meals on Wheels distribution.
Sean Binder
Now that’s the same impulse. The only difference is that these people that I’ve helped in the Mediterranean, were in a lot more danger. Yes. They also were not seen as being as deserving. And so my main focus has been trying to address this narrative that there are somehow people who are less deserving of basic help than others. There cannot be such a distinction. And there shouldn’t be such a distinction.
Bairbre Flood
For more info on Sean Binders case, please go to free humanitarians.org. As Sean was saying there, it shouldn’t make any difference where someone is from in order for them to be treated with respect and fairness. I think most people, at least in theory would agree that people far away geographically matter just as much as those next door to us. But perhaps when thinking of people far away in time, we aren’t so conscientious yet. William MacCaskill his new book, ‘what we owe the future’ explores why we should prioritize future generations and be thinking in a more long term kind of way.
Bairbre Flood
He’ll tell us more about this later in the program. But first he tells me about the basics of Effective Altruism, which he wrote about in his first book, how to do good, better Effective Altruism is about using our time and money as effectively as possible to help other people, largely through charitable donations and the careers we pursue. MacCaskill tells me how it’s different from our usual way of thinking about altruism.
William MacAskill
I think a lot of traditional altruism or philanthropy, it’s not often that reflective. So one thing that’s really distinctive about us is that we’re just trying to think of all the problems that are facing in the world, where can we have the biggest impact possible? And what’s the way that, you know, what are the methods we can pursue to have that impact, rather than necessarily just going with whatever’s kind of most salient to us at the time? Organizations like givewell@givewell.org, they do enormous amount of research to work out, what are those charities that can help other people buy as much as possible, and make those recommendations, and it’s just far more research than any individual could otherwise do. But means that you can ensure that your money’s really going as far as possible.
Bairbre Flood
I asked MacCaskill if there’s room for acting on emotional connections, while we’re helping others.
William MacAskill
I think emotional connection can be very important for kind of getting us off our seats and actually money making us want to do anything, you know. But the where that kind of reason, and rationality comes in is about how we channel that. And do we just help the first person we see? Or do we think, look, they’re just so many people suffering? So many people in need of help? How can we help others by as much as possible? And that’s where the effective optimist comes in. The reason it’s crucial to think, kind of more rationally about our giving, and whereby that I mean, really thinking about what is the benefit that we’re providing for other people with the money that we’re donating.
William MacAskill
The reason that’s so crucial is just because the degree of impact between different organizations vary so dramatically. So it’s not just that one organization might do 50%, more good than another one. It’s more like a factor of 100, or even a factor of 1000. And so if, for example, you’re donating to an organization that’s helping to save or improve lives, in a rich country, like Ireland, to the UK, I mean, you’re doing an enormous amount of good, that’s like absolutely under undeniable. But I think that by focus, focusing on highly effective nonprofits in developing countries, you can actually do 100 times more good again. So it’s like the difference between saving 10 lives or saving 1000 lives. And that’s just an only unintuitive fact about the world. But just shows that by thinking carefully and reasoning critically about this, well, you can do just huge amounts more good than you might otherwise have done.
Bairbre Flood
Stay with us until after the news, we’ll continue to talk to William MacCaskill about Effective Altruism, and explore more about what it means to be a Good Samaritan.
Bairbre Flood
William McCaskill continues to explain why it’s so important for us to really think about how we can help others.
William MacAskill
If you’re on just a typical income in a country like Ireland, or the United Kingdom, you are 100 times richer than the poor 700 million people alive today. And that just means we can do so much good. It means that money for the poorest people in the world does 100 times as much to benefit them as it would do to benefit me. And that’s this incredible opportunity.
Bairbre Flood
MacCaskill set up a project called 80,000 hours, where you can find information and advice on what careers could potentially help in the best way.
William MacAskill
I call them up this organization 80,000 hours because that’s how many hours we typically work in the course of our lives. It’s like a really big decision. And it’s possible to have enormous amount of I don’t know mass amounts of good to do that, whether that’s working in research or policy or working for nonprofits. Or if you’re taking a high earning career and donating part of your income. That’s a way of you know, having an impact too.
Bairbre Flood
80000 hours offers free career coaching, and has a wealth of information on the impacts of different careers at 80,000 hours.org.
Sarah Leahy
My name is Sarah Leahy, and I’m a project coordinator with Medicines San Frontier.
Bairbre Flood
Sarah Leahy spent years working on missions in the Central African Republic, Afghanistan. And at the moment Ukraine. I asked her if her work in previous jobs helped with this humanitarian project work.
Sarah Leahy
Yes, I think it’s really useful, particularly in roads like Project Coordinator, you learn so many skills in other industries. So I had worked in human resources and in finance before, so they were the more obvious skills that I could bring to MSF before learning all of the skills that are needed for working in Project locations. I mean, many of these contexts, like I’ll be honest, before I went to Central African Republic, you know, I had to google exactly where it was, and you know, learn all about the country, because it’s not a place that we, that we know that we learn about here. It’s not, it’s not in the media, it’s not really spoken about. So then when you start to realize the immense needs, and you see the life expectancy, you see the, you know, the struggles that people have, and, you know, something like providing free health care, which is a necessity for everybody. It’s just not there. So I mean, in some locations, people literally don’t have access to paracetamol, or to, you know, really, really basic health needs. And you see the rates of maternal deaths and all these things and malnutrition in children under five things that we can’t really relate to in in, in Western society. It’s, it’s quite amazing to think, well, I can actually go there and be part be kind of a small cog in the big wheel of – I can only really say of MSF as that’s my experience.
Sarah Leahy
But it is it is quite immense. And as I said, I think the the key thing to notice that most of the staff when we talk about solidarity or altruism are people who are helping their own communities, because that’s, you know, that’s where they live, they’re locally hard, and they do the brunt of the work. So to be able to support those communities to help themselves with health care and, and bring what we can knowledge expertise from from Western society and kind of blended with local local knowledge is that that’s really, really important to know.
Sarah Leahy
It’s important to note that, indeed, we have press officers and problems departments and advocacy and humanitarian affairs and all these other elements to that support medical work. Actually, James Orbinski who was the international president of MSF. In 1999. He accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of MSF. And he said that we can’t be sure that word save lives. But we know that silence can kill. I mean, for me working for an organization like MSF is, it’s incredible. And you learn so much from working in other cultures and contexts. And supporting communities and providing free health care to those who cannot otherwise accesses. It’s just immense and you get to see the results in front of your eyes. So for me, I really think that as a person, you kind of get so much more than you can ever even give and although challenging, the rewards are really immense.
Mary Coffey
‘Is a sca cheile a mhairimid’ – it means ‘we live in the shelter of each other’. I first came across that a couple of years ago. Padraic O’Tuama.
Bairbre Flood
Mary Coffey welcomed Bilal, a young Syrian man into her home in 2018 and afterwards helped with a community sponsorship scheme and County Meath, finding a home for a family and kills. Mary has also worked as a doctor in Tanzania, and recently opened her home to an Afghan human rights lawyer and to Malika and Afghan students who had to flee when the Taliban took off.
Mary Coffey
‘Is a sca cheile a mhairimid’ We live in the shelter of each other. One translation translates as we live in the shelter of each other and the other one translates as People live in the shelter of each other. And to me, it means a whole lot more, but it’s in the first person rather than in the third person. And, yeah, I just think it’s beautiful. It reminds me as well, a little bit of why I gave my house the name that I gave it. And it’s called quatoo, which is a Swahili word. And in Swahili, there is no way of seeing my house. Even if I intend to see my house, if it’s quite obvious that the meaning of what I’m saying is my house, I have to say our house. We live in the shelter of each other. I think what I love about it is the mutuality, that worried giving reached receiving, I need to answer today, I need support. I need encouragement and tomorrow to the other person needs to support the shutter and the encouragement that it’s not all a one way, a one way traffic.
Bairbre Flood
Mary is retiring from medicine soon, and plans on teaching English to people seeking refuge here.
Mary Coffey
Yeah, I think I think with people in that situation, think it matters, that they are worth my time, they’re worth my attention. And I think great friendship is formed in this language journey. And I think also, because I had the experience of trying to learn Swahili, when I went to East Africa, I know what it’s like to be in a strange place with a strange language. And, and yes, the friendships that were formed with the people who spend time with me went for walks with me or whatever. There’s always the call to go the extra mile. There’s always the opportunity to do a bit more to do a bit different to see outside the box. And I just find it very, very life giving.
Bairbre Flood
ideas about how best to help people change a lot over the years. In 1950s, Ireland’s Majella McCarron thought the best way to help people who was to become a missionary nun, she spent over 30 years in Nigeria teaching and doing considerable activist work against the oil companies who are polluting the country.
Majella McCarron
When I was in my early teens, a lot of missionary magazines came to the school. And you read them and you distributed them to the neighbors, whoever. Because it was big, it was big that time. So you’re affected by the culture that you grew up in.
Bairbre Flood
I asked her about her initial intentions going over there. And whether she ever thought about the colonial aspects of missionary work at the time.
Majella McCarron
I’d be very strong on that and filled me with a lot of misgivings. Now, when I look back on life, we probably didn’t think out very much about what we were doing or how we were doing it or why we were doing it. There are these people in society who have great imaginations, that the leaders division race, under very committed, and they totally are immersed, in this case, in the redemption of souls for Christ. And that can only happen if you are baptized. Now that theology wouldn’t be as strong nowadays, like it, it will be a whole different kind of ballgame as what you call the theology of redemption. And what I would be involved in now would be more a theology of liberation. It’s how you see the words and how you see what’s going on in the world. The collision between the two theologists can be quite severe as well. I remember reading a book about the church in Brazil. And I had the notion that the church in Brazil was all liberation theology, but it wasn’t indeed, there’d be quite, there would be two theologies working there already.
Bairbre Flood
So when you went over to Nigeria to do how, like, didn’t you knew about the rest of theology? Had you got this in your head or…?
Majella McCarron
No, not at all. We would have been working on the other, but then there is also the notion of caring for the vulnerable and that’s a very strong In tennis in the Christian tradition and in other traditions as well. So we somehow believed that the Western way of being was the right way, or it was a step up from the way that existed. So building schools and getting children’s schools, getting literacy going the same with medication, like we had medication for malaria, eventually not in the beginning. So, I like to think of that we went and shared what we had, and thought it was very appropriate for what the people need it. I wouldn’t be assured of that nowadays.
Bairbre Flood
A lot has changed in our attitudes towards charity work in the years since Sr. Majella McCarron first signed up. I asked Sara Leahy, Project Coordinator with MSF, who you heard earlier in the program, about any concerns she might have about white saviorism in the humanitarian field.
Sarah Leahy
Yeah, I mean, I think it depends regarding MSF, which is the only organization that I can comment on. When you when you operate with the principles of say neutrality, independence, impartiality, it’s hard to really criticize. It’s important to note that 90% of the staff recruited by – roughly 90% – in project locations are local people. So there are people who are part of the community, who are themselves going through a crisis or displacement or whatever the challenges they have, and also managed to, you know, to work in solidarity with their communities. So that to me was something really, really interesting.
Bairbre Flood
We get something called a helpers high where dopamine, oxytocin and serotonin are released whenever we help others. These hormones boost our mood and counteract the effects of cortisol, the stress hormone. But sometimes we can overdo it, we can neglect our own financial or emotional needs. And we can find the suffering just too much. For Sara Leahy, MSF provides excellent mental health care services for their workers. And she also knows how her colleagues are a great source of support.
Sarah Leahy
You work with teams as well, and you know, being able to share those experiences is really important. And indeed, that’s an enormous support for when you when you’re back home as well, that you can connect with people. And because sometimes, you know, it’s not exactly burnout. But you know, you it can be hard to, for people at home to relate to your experiences, because they haven’t lived them. And they can seem really crazy or extreme. But then when you have friends and colleagues who you can talk to who have been in those situations, it’s really, really helpful because you can just share them and and many people are going through the same, you know, the same things that you are.
Bairbre Flood
But even with the best self and community care, the sheer magnitude of the problems facing us can be overwhelming. I asked William MacCaskill, if he ever gets depressed about the scale of suffering in the world right now?
William MacAskill
Yeah, I mean, it’s very easy to get depressed by just the sheer amount of suffering in the world. And the risks we face as well. And sometimes depressed by how little action people are taking on it. I really thought there would be this enormous moment after COVID-19. And the world will get its act together about new pandemics. And it seems like that hasn’t happened. And that’s pretty depressing.
William MacAskill
At the same time, the thing that inspires me makes me feel optimistic is just there really are things that people can do. So you know, as an individual, by donating to effective nonprofits, you can save a life for a few 1000 pounds, that’s like amazing. That’s like this inspiring thing.
William MacAskill
And over the course of the last 10/12 years I’ve met now 1000s of people who are not, are not willing to simply, you know, get down and depressed about the scale of the problems in the world, but say, Well, yes, there’s enormous amount of suffering, but we can work to make it better. So let’s try.
Bairbre Flood
Do you think as well like just having that awareness or realization that where anyone in the west or in a developed country is kind of in the top 3% of the world’s population – that sometimes we we feel like we’re powerless or that we don’t have much wealth or access to resources, but actually we do have huge access to these?
William MacAskill
Yeah, it’s a very little known fact so I mean, I personally give away a large chunk of my income I give away everything above 26,000 pounds post tax that still puts me in the richest 3% of the world’s population. So it’s hard for me to say like, oh, this is a terrible sacrifice. And one thing that appreciating this can do can make you give you a bit of perspective and your own life. Like, you know, I have troubles in my life I have issues but they pale in comparison to the issues that affect the billion people who are living on less than $2 per day have to walk miles for clean water who are constantly risk of dying from easily preventable diseases.
Bairbre Flood
MacCaskill is latest book, ‘What we owe the future’ sets out a compelling case for thinking about future generations. I ask him why it’s so important to prioritize these future generations.
William MacAskill
I think the key thought is just future people matter mightily. Some of the things that we’re doing in the present will harm future generations. And it really just doesn’t matter, that those people are not yet here that they are still generation and the generations to come, that’s still vitally important, in just the same way as like the harms that have been inflicted on the present generation by previous generations, you know, should have been averted, and the benefits we should be thankful for.
William MacAskill
And I think they’re really are just major challenges that will be of enormous negative impact on not just the present generation, but future generations, too. So climate change is already familiar. But to that old one to add, like for risk of a third world war and nuclear war, the risk of future pandemics, including pandemics much worse than COVID-19, and potentially dual use technologies as well, such as advanced artificial intelligence, I think we need to be having conversations about that now, to ensure that those technological transitions go well.
Bairbre Flood
It sometimes feels like we’re only just getting around to thinking of people far away, geographically or culturally as being deserving of justice. I ask MacCaskill if he thinks we’re going to need another cultural shift to think of people far away in time in a similar way?
William MacAskill
Yeah, it’s tough. At the moment, we spend almost none of society’s resources or attention, thinking about the impact of our elections on future generations. But just as you said, we should care about the well being of people, even if they’re on the other side of the world, we should care about the well being of people, even if they’re in the next century, essentially, is to come. I believe that people can realize that I believe ultimately, it’s like a common sense, ethical view, and that we should be acting on that basis. But you’re right, we’ve got our work cut out for the cells to convince other people.
William MacAskill
So one enormously powerful way of doing good is through your donations, and an organization I set up in 2009. It’s called giving what we can and encourages people to give at least 10% of real income, to whatever causes they think are most effective. And this has been, you know, a big success there. Now, over 7000 people have made that 10% pledge we’ve moved hundreds of millions of pounds to highly effective organizations. And this is something that I think is accessible for just most people living in rich countries, you can give 10% of your income, you can make an enormous difference, literally saving lives every single year of your life.
Bairbre Flood
William MacCaskill’s book ‘what we owe the future’ is out now. And you can find out more about his projects and ideas at EffectiveAltruism.org.
William MacAskill
The idea of Effective Altruism has always squarely focused on the potential beneficiaries, taking seriously just who are all people who could be helping and thinking charity is not about me, or philanthropy is not about me, it’s about helping other people. And if you can help people buy more, you can benefit more people by a greater amount, then, yeah, surely we have an imperative to do that.
Bairbre Flood
‘On the one hand, we’re called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside,’ writes Martin Luther King, ‘but that will only be an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.’
Bairbre Flood
A huge thanks to Shaza Aldawameh, Mary Coffee, Dean McDonald of the Psychological Society of Ireland, William McCaskill of Effective Altruism, Sara Leahy of MSF, and Sean Binder of free humanitarians.org Thanks also to the Kabin Studio in Cork for their song ‘teach love harsh winter’. From me Bairbre Flood, Thank you for listening.
Music
{‘Teach Love Harsh Winter’ by the Kabin Studio}
