Randal Rauser's Blog, page 118

What’s So Confusing About Grace? My Interview with Bob Dutko

I’ve been on The Bob Dutko Show several times now. In this twenty minute interview we talk about the theme of my new book, What’s So Confusing About Grace?

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Effective Altruism and the Christian: A Conversation with Joshua Parikh

Last week I posted a review of Peter Singer’s 2015 book The Most Good You Can Do in which Singer discusses the concept of effective altruism. This article was the catalyst for several conversations including, the following exchange with Christian philosopher Joshua Parikh.

Josh is a student at Oxford who just completed an undergraduate degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, and is going onto a Masters in Philosophical Theology next year. He is interested in apologetics, social justice, and Artificial Intelligence. He also appeared last year as a guest on “Unbelievable” with Justin Brierley . In 2015 he won Tyndale Fellowship’s 2015 IVP ‘Young Philosopher of Religion’ Prize for his essay on the problem of evil. Josh also writes for “Christianity Magazine”. Here are links to his recent articles on sex robots and the Christian and Donald Trump.

In this article we explore the concept of effective altruism in light of Christian belief and commitment.

* * *

This is Joshua Parikh. (Of course it is. Who else would it be?)

Randal: Josh, thanks for agreeing to have this dialogue on effective altruism and the Christian. Let’s begin with definitions: how would you define “effective altruism”?

Josh: Thanks Randal for inviting me to do so! In its broadest sense, Effective Altruism is about “the use of high-quality evidence and careful reasoning to work out how to help others as much as possible”, as defined by the Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA). This broad sense of doing the most good you can do, as put by Peter Singer, is then specifically applied to different areas from charitable giving to career choice to issue prioritisation to ensure that we do the maximum amount to make the world a better place.

Randal: Interesting. Singer defends effective altruism within the framework of a utilitarian philosophy. That is, for Singer, effective altruism involves making altruistic choices that produce the most good for the greatest number of sentient beings.

If one has concerns with utilitarianism are there other ways one can seek to do the most good? Or does effective altruism require a commitment to utilitarianism?

Josh: Singer is definitely an influential voice within the Effective Altruism movement, and many utilitarians are sympathetic to Effective Altruism. Nonetheless, the two ideas are independent- Effective Altruism is about doing the most good you can do, and the concept of “good” can be given a thick content, from individual rights to freedom to desert to much more. What Effective Altruists agree about, again from the CEA, is that “helping others is important”- and this commits us to using our time, money and other resources to maximally benefit the world.



We could look at the story of Kitty Genovese, who was brutally murdered in the sight of 37 or 38 witnesses, according to the common story, and yet not one of them rang the police. Whether your preference is for deontological ethics, where this is a horrific infringement of her rights, or for utilitarian ethics focussing on the horrendous suffering she underwent and consequent deprivation of life, we can still all agree that someone should have rung the police.



And yet we have resources and abilities which we could use to benefit others far more than ourselves, and we choose not to- we spend almost all of our money on ourselves instead of donating a proportion of that money to effective charities which lift people out of material poverty or deworm children, for example. This seems morally problematic from a range of ethical perspectives. (I should note that I give far less money than I believe I am morally obliged to, and remain an outstanding hypocrite for the moment.)

Randal: You say you give less than you should. My response is, who doesn’t?

I give a lecture on consumerism in which I describe the numbers of people who die from easily preventable illness like diarrhea. With that in mind, I invite the audience to imagine that they can save one of those lives for a paltry $5. “Now,” I say, “imagine that you win $50,000. Since you don’t have a car, you could choose to buy a new Audi and few people would judge you. But if you make that choice, 10,000 people will die. So you consider buying a new Honda for $25,000 and donating $25,000 to save people. Generous, right? After all, that choice would save 5000 lives … but 5000 will still die. So after some soul searching, you decide to give all your money to the poor — you’re a saint! — and you resign yourself to keep walking to your destinations. But since it is a hot day you keep a measly five bucks from your winnings so that you can buy a frappuccino at Starbucks to refresh yourself on your long walk. Seems fair, right? On the other hand, that coffee means that one person will die.”

From that perspective, how can I possibly justify buying that drink?

Josh: Sounds like a fantastic lecture, I’m sad to miss it! My first response to “who doesn’t” is a resounding AMEN. That’s not an excuse of my own greed, but a recognition that so many of us fail to give generously, and even if generously, without thinking about effectiveness. Paul’s comment that there is “not one good, not even one” becomes pretty understandable when we see how radically flawed we are.



And yet we should also notice that self-love is important intrinsically and instrumentally. The Second Greatest Commandment is to “love your neighbour as yourself”- and that’s a massive ask in terms of loving others, but also preserves an important place for self-love, insofar as we matter intrinsically. Jesus had food, drink, sleep and friendships too!

One important risk is burnout- mental health difficulties are pervasive for servant-hearted people, from clergy to mental health professionals. If we fail to look after ourselves, whether by buying the Starbuck’s Frappucino, or by spending time and resources on close relationships, then we damage our ability to serve others well in the long term and accomplish far less.

Randal: Awesome. The next time someone judges me for owning a motorcycle and a muscle car, I’ll reply, “But Josh said….”

Seriously though, I do sometimes find myself caught between futility and complacency. If I can never climb the mountain of good will, why even start? I’ll just kick my feet up and relax at base camp. What I do appreciate about ethical altruism is that it offers all sorts of practical suggestions for starting the climb even if we recognize we’ll never reach the top.

In my review of Peter Singer’s book The Most Good You Can Do I begin by noting that we often engage in two types of giving: what Singer calls “warm glow” giving and what I call “perfunctory” giving. Perhaps I could get your thoughts on each.

So first off, Singer says we often give because we are emotionally drawn to some cause and we get the warm glow when we give. From the perspective of an ethical altruist, what role, if any, should that warm glow serve in guiding our charitable choices?

Josh: Definitely agree on the practicality of the EA movement- there are genuine things we can accomplish which add value to the world, and that excites me.

I think that warm glows are helpful but need proper context. It’s not the worst thing ever that we sometimes feel happy about giving. The problem is that we leave it there and don’t think about it any more; and for a range of reasons, this is problematic. One problem is that human impulses are easily manipulated- I was at a Christian concert a few years ago, and they gave a heartfelt plea for child sponsorship with a particular charity in the interval. Though I was moved at the time, I found out later that the band was paid £50 by that charity for every child sponsorship they achieved; somewhat cheapening the experience.

The second problem is that we are persistently irrational creatures, prey to what psychologists term “cognitive biases”- consistent bad patterns of thinking. One relevant bias is “scope neglect”- which means we often don’t care about the size of our effect, but just about the purchase of moral satisfaction. For example, in one study, “three groups of subjects were asked how much they would pay to save 2000 / 20000 / 200000 migrating birds from drowning in uncovered oil ponds. The groups respectively answered $80, $78, and $88”- clearly not responsive to the problem’s size. Intellectual humility forces us to recognise our limitations and respond accordingly, acting in ways that have bigger effects and not necessarily the first or most obvious option.

Randal: Well said, Josh. I mentioned above that many people are perfunctory givers: that is, they give out of habit or a general sense of obligation, but without much by way of warm glow or critical reflection. I’m thinking, for example, of the Christian who automatically tithes a portion of their income to their local church.

So let’s put this in concrete terms. Picture a Baptist congregant who faces the choice to donate $1000 to one of GiveWell’s top-rated charities, the Against Malaria Foundation, or to their local church. If they donate to the Against Malaria Foundation, they can have assurance that their donation will buy approximately 200 mosquito nets which will thereby avert untold suffering and save many lives. By contrast, if they donate to their local church, they don’t have any assurance that their funds will be used effectively. And even if the local church’s use is effective, it seems hard to justify subsidizing the cost of plastic communion cups and steam-cleaning the church carpet when you could be averting the spread of malaria.

How would effective altruism guide a person in facing a choice like this?

Josh: So I don’t want to say that people shouldn’t give any money to the local church. I think our duty to the local church can be thought of like friendships or family, as we have a particular obligation to them, looking at the special relationship we have, or a reciprocity-based obligation.

Nevertheless, we can also recognise that the Bible does not merely suggest we should support the local church, but enjoins upon us a range of moral obligations; “remember the poor” (Galatians 2); or to care for the gospel going to the “ends of the earth” as in Acts 1. We may recognise these are done more effectively than others than our local church- and given the contingencies of our locations, and the numerous analogous stories to your hypothetical Baptist congregants, this seems fairly likely. I think we need to give substantially more to more effective charities, and when increasing our giving, we should care about that first and foremost. I would give the vast majority of that money to effective charities in this instance.

Randal: Josh, thanks for sharing your thoughts. You’ve definitely given us a lot to think about. As we wrap this up, I’d like to return to the concept of the good. As you said, this concept can be given “thick content”. For Singer, the good involves pursuing actions that seek to minimize suffering and maximize happiness. In addition, Singer eschews any prioritization of the human species in our calculation of the good. How might a Christian give “thick content” to the concept of the good in a way that differs from Singer?

Josh: Let me focus on two relevant aspects, rather than an exhaustive account. Firstly, I think we should have a strong focus on individual virtue and discipleship- we must focus massively on becoming like Christ, or growing in the fruit of the Spirit- kindness, gentleness, self-control, etc. Though valuable instrumentally too, they’re also intrinsically valuable, and, there is therefore extreme value to serving and living in community, and practice of the spiritual disciplines (Richard Foster’s “Celebration of Discipline” is magisterial).



Secondly, there’s the good of relationship with God which is extremely valuable- the possibility of relationship with a Supreme Creator who died for us in love is an amazing privilege, and Christians should prioritise finding ways of helping introduce as many as possible to this awesome good. This could take place through individual evangelism, perhaps aided by apologetics, or supporting effective evangelistic ministries.



This is relevant as we might support some different charities to others as Christians sympathetic to Effective Altruism. GiveWell recommend some fantastic charities- the Against Malaria Foundation have been mentioned; I’m a fan of the Schistomiasis Control Initiative. I also highly recommend two other charities, which (loosely) link to the previous thoughts:

The group Just Love UK exist to inspire and release every Christian student to pursue the Biblical call to social justice. They run student-led groups across a number of universities in the UK, and both have a practical impact, such as through campaigning and fundraising; as well as an exciting long term impact, through developing students and pushing them on trajectories to pursue justice through their careers, whether in business, politics or elsewhere. I think they’re exceptionally effective and truly brilliant, having enjoyed interacting with them myself; and you can see the following video about their impact, from founder Tom Christmas; as well as this video explaining their vision from their incredible staff team.
500,000 Churches is a highly effective church planting organisation, which funds church planters in India for a mere £50 per month. I’ve had the privilege of meeting their founder Ed, who’s a truly awesome guy, and hearing his passion for radical giving; and his older brother Alex is mentioned within The Most Good You Can Do, as someone limiting his salary to give, and motivated by his Christian faith. You can find out more about 500,000 Churches here; and read a profile of Alex here.

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Cross Abuse: One reason you might not want to work for a Christian organization

Some years ago I met a member of a local atheist group. He introduced himself as a graduate of Taylor University College (TUC), the sister school of the seminary where I teach (TUC closed in 2009).

An atheist graduate of a Christian university? How’d that happen? The young man then explained that following graduation he had taken a position at a Christian organization. The experience was so demoralizing that after a year he left the church altogether. Six months after that, he was an atheist. (Well, at least it wasn’t the school’s fault…)

This is one example of the perils of working for a Christian organization, but I could list many more. Based on extensive anecdotal evidence that I’ve accumulated over the years, I conclude that on the whole jobs in government and private business offer better security and healthier work environments for than avowedly Christian organizations.

I suspect there are several reasons for this. In this article I’d like to consider one reason based on this case. I call it cross abuse.

Back when he was initially hired, this young university graduate was regularly pressured to work over-time for no extra pay. And he was discouraged from receiving proper remuneration for expenses based on the the notion that this would detract from the ability of the organization to help the poor. Not only was he exhausted and disheartened, but given his previous positive experiences working for secular organizations, he also became increasingly cynical.

So what gives rise to this notion that the organization can take advantage of its employees? In Luke 9:23 Jesus calls his disciples to take up their crosses daily. Thus, the Christian life is supposed to be characterized by self-denial for the sake of Christ and his kingdom.

Set against this backdrop, the organizational culture tacitly accepted the notion that shortchanging employees and eschewing professionalism in the workplace could be justified by this call of discipleship. What is taking up one’s cross daily if not working without over-time and not claiming your expenses?

This is what I call “cross abuse”: it’s an appeal to the cross to justify abusing or taking advantage of others. Secular organizations are susceptible to cross abuse as well, though they wouldn’t present it in explicitly religious terms. The fact is that any business may place unreasonable and even abusive expectations upon employees for the sake of the institutional mission.

Nonetheless, the centrality of the Christian teaching that discipleship involves suffering and self-denial provides for Christian organizations a uniquely powerful and tempting way to forgo their own obligations to their employees in a manner that undermines professionalism and cultivates a culture of abuse.

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Back When Kids Did Things: Lamenting the time before smartphones

My daughter said she wished she was born in the 80s so she could grow up with friends who did stuff instead of living on social media. ?

— Randal Rauser (@RandalRauser) August 19, 2017

The iconic bike scene from “E.T.” (1982) featuring Elliott and E.T.

My daughter loves Stranger Things (a Netflix television series) and Super 8 (a movie), two period programs set in 1983 and 1979.

She loves the mixture of mystery, suspense, and peril in the story lines. But she also loves the fact that these shows depict kids doing things together: riding their bikes around town, making home movies, solving mysteries, playing board games, standing in the rain, and simply interacting socially as flesh-and-blood human beings.

I love Stranger Things and Super 8 for those same reasons. But for me, it is a matter of nostalgia: I remember those days. To be sure, I never experienced a dramatic train crash, a secret government laboratory, or the dreaded demogorgon. At least not in reality.

But our imaginations contained all of that and more. We rode our bikes around town; we experienced sugar highs on the picnic bench beside the 7-11; we swam in the lake; we played “manhunt” in the abandoned orchard and barn out back with toy guns and walkie talkies; we had a blast making bad home movies (one of our movies about Vietnam even featured a dramatic fight in the middle of a ring of fire; good thing my parents never asked what happened to the can of gasoline in the garage).

The other day when my daughter said she wished she’d grown up in the 80s, I felt something inside me break. She lives in a world where kids spent their free time shut up in their rooms, staring at their smartphones and laptops, interacting at a distance via Snap Chat and Instagram.

So when she watches kids living in a world of thirty plus years ago, she senses a deep envy. She’d trade her smartphone, her social media, and all her apps in a heartbeat just to have a Commodore 64 on her desk, a banana seat bike in the garage, and a friend calling her up on her rotary dial phone inviting her out for untold adventures.

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Confused About Grace? Read my new interview with myself

In keeping with past tradition, I decided to interview myself on the publication of my new book. (Don’t worry, interviews with people other than myself are in the schedule too, including one with Bob Dutko this coming Tuesday.) You can read the interview here.

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A Case Where I Spend WAY TOO MUCH Time Analyzing a Snide Atheist Meme

Here is a tweet from the folks at “Atheist Republic”. Call it a meme if you want. (Might as well since the word “meme” seems to apply to most anything that gets retweeted.) So here’s the meme:

pic.twitter.com/AduwjnloUq

— Atheist Republic (@AtheistRepublic) August 16, 2017

I’m not sure what definition of “bullshit” the folks at Atheist Republic are intending (and AR ignored my request for clarification). So let’s consider the possibilities.

Bullshit as Posture

Harry Frankfurt famously defined bullshit as the use of language for the end of persuasion irrespective of whether what one says is true. Consider, for example, the used car salesman who says “This car was never driven in winter.” Is that true? Maybe, maybe not. Frankly, the salesman doesn’t care: he just said it to get the person to buy the car. That’s bullshit by Frankfurt’s definition.

Could Atheist Republic be referring to this? Could he be claiming that people who say “God is good” don’t care about the truth of what they’re saying? Perhaps. But if so, then his tweet is clearly false. People who say God is good surely do care about the truth of what they say. To be sure, their language may also function as a form of persuasion. But they are not feigning a concern for the truth of what they say.

Bullshit as Unclarifiable Clarity

The second type of bullshit was defined by G.A. Cohen as “unclarifiable unclarity”. In this case, a statement might initially appear meaningful, but upon closer examination it is not meaningful. Analytic philosopher Paul Edwards once wrote a scathing review of the philosophy of Heidegger titled Heidegger’s Confusions. The core of Edwards’ charge is that Heidegger’s lofty-sounding verbiage is, in fact, nothing more than unclarifiably unclear bullshit.

(Whatever you think of Heidegger, it is simply a fact that academics, particularly those in the more speculative and abstract branches of the humanities, do occasionally stumble into this kind of bullshit. Notice that I said stumble: you see, those who purvey this kind of bullshit may be earnest. They may really believe what they have to say is true and important. But when you try to get them to articulate what it is that they believe, one finds their assertions evaporating like dew in the morning sun.)

So is it possible that Atheist Republic is charging those who say “God is good” with committing the sin of unclarifiable unclarity?

This interpretation has two things in its favor: first, unlike Frankfurt’s bullshit, this type doesn’t impugn the good intentions of the speaker. As I already said, when people say “God is good” they typically mean what they say, and unclarifiable unclarity is consistent with that earnest stance.

Second, it is at least prima facie plausible in light of the structure of the tweet: one proceeds from a woman almost raped, to a woman raped, to a woman raped and murdered. In each case the response is the same: “God is good.” But if God is good irrespective of what happens to that woman, then what can it possibly mean to say that God is good? Isn’t this assertion itself unclarifiably unclear?

While this interpretation is more plausible, if this is what the folks at Atheist Republic intended then they are simply mistaken: the claim that God is good is perfectly clear. It means (among other things) that God always acts in a way consistent with bringing about the final shalom of creation. You may reject that claim (see below), but that doesn’t change the fact that it is clear.

Bullshit as Strong Rejection

There is one more possibility, and it seems to me the most plausible. In this case “bullshit” functions not as an analysis of the assertions of another; rather, the use of the word functions as a statement of personal incredulity.

Consider, while Dave and Steve are drinking beers on the tailgate of Steve’s truck, Dave insists that his hopped up 77′ Trans Am could outrun a Ferrari Enzo on the Nürburgring. Steve retorts: “Bullshit!” The most plausible interpretation of Steve’s statement is that he is simply intending to express his strong rejection of Dave’s claim.

By the same token, it seems to me most plausible to interpret Atheist Republic as expressing a strong rejection of the theist’s claim that God is good.

In other words, the meme reduces to an expression of an atheist’s indignant personal incredulity toward an aspect of theistic belief.

A Deeper Look

Why are the folks at Atheist Republic skeptical of the claim that God is good? Alas, the meme does not tell us. It could be that the writer(s) of the meme are implying that the claim is unfalsifiable and we should be skeptical of claims which are unfalsifiable. Think, for example, of the man who says the earth was created this morning with apparent age and false memories. The claim may be unfalsifiable, but we would probably all be incredulous toward such a claim.

However, it is doubtful that unfalsifiability alone is the problem. After all, we believe many things to be perfectly reasonable even though they are unfalsifiable. Here’s an example: I suspect we would probably all believe that there is no evil Cartesian deceiving us into (wrongly) believing that 2+2=4. And yet, we have no means to falsify that belief.

The real issue, I suspect, relates to background plausibility frameworks. Relative to a widely held plausibility framework, the belief that there is no evil Cartesian demon is sensible while the belief that the world is a day old is anything but.

As for the question of whether it is sensible to believe in God in the midst of the evil in the world, that judgment too is made relative to background plausibility frameworks. To the atheist who insists we evolved with no purpose and that suffering regularly happens for no reason at all, it is sensible to see the horrors of attempted rape, rape, and murder as further evidence of one’s beliefs.

However, to the theist who insists there is a good God, it is sensible to remind oneself that God only allows these horrors because of his morally sufficient reasons, whatever those may be. And we, finite humans that we are, are not in a place to know definitively what those reasons may be.

Conclusion

From that perspective, it seems to me quite unhelpful to express personal incredulity by labeling those with different interpretations of reality as “bullshit”. Such vulgarisms merely cheapen the public discourse and encourage  tribal superiority.

For further discussion of the topics of providence, evil, and divine goodness see my article “‘But God was faithful’ as if he might have been otherwise?“

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Against Trump’s Absurd Moral Equivalence Thesis

Today Donald Trump presented a moral equivalence thesis according to which protesters against racism are as culpable for violence that resulted in Charlottesville as the neo-Nazis, the Klan, and white nationalists whose views they were protesting.

Unfortunately, some Christians have also courted this notion of moral equivalence. Consider, for example, this tweet from Michael Brown:

I denounce violence and hate whether it comes from neo-Nazis or Antifa. Do you?

— Dr. Michael L. Brown (@DrMichaelLBrown) August 15, 2017

Of course we “denounce violence and hate,” whatever the source. The problem is that the tacit message of this tweet in context — the implicature — is that there is some sort of moral equivalence between the two groups represented in Charlottesville.

There isn’t.

Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that both sides were equally violent. (That, of course, is a false assumption. For one thing, only one side included a bona fide terrorist act culminating in one murder and an additional nineteen casualties.)

Even if the hatred and violence that unfolded were equal, it wouldn’t follow that there was a moral equivalence for one simple reason: on the first side, the hatred and violence were borne of racism; on the second side, the hatred and violence were borne of a reaction, a moral censure, to the despicable racist views of the first side.

Let’s put it in simple terms. Imagine that you’re a school teacher on the playground at lunch when you see two boys — Jimmy and Johnny — fighting. After you break them up you ask why they were fighting. Jimmy, a Jewish child, tells you that Johnny called him a “dirty Jew.” And from that point, the fight was on.

Perhaps Jimmy shouldn’t have responded to that slur by fighting with Johnny, but who can seriously suggest there exists a moral equivalence between the two?

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What Christians (and everyone else) can learn from Peter Singer: A Review of The Most Good You Can Do

Peter Singer. The Most Good You Can Do. Yale University Press, 2015.

When I was a kid I once endured the indignity of traipsing door-to-door selling raffle tickets for my school. Most neighbors obligingly purchased a ticket for a prize they didn’t really want (an old donated car). But after listening to my sales pitch, one neighbor politely replied:

“Okay, very nice. However, I’m not going to buy your $1 raffle ticket, and here’s why…”

He then went on to deliver a sanctimonious lecture on how he and his wife had devised a plan to maximize the effective disbursement of their limited dispensable income so as to ensure it would have the greatest impact. To that end, they had researched a list of the most effective charities and they now concentrated all their charitable giving to those groups.

Not surprisingly, my school raffle had not made the short list of preferred charities.

As I walked back down that guy’s long driveway, I had a few choice words for him. Needless to say, “effective altruist” was not among them. And yet, after reading Peter Singer’s 2015 book The Most Good You Can Do, I have concluded that this is indeed what he was.

Warm Glow Giving

So what exactly is “effective altruism”?

To answer that question we should begin by noting that many people who give to charities are so-called “warm glow givers” (5). That is, their charitable donations are spurred by vivid and emotional stories and images. Think, for example, of the famous Sarah Mclachlan ASPCA commercials:

No doubt about it, that commercial is a tearjerker. The images of mournful dogs and cats complemented with Sarah’s soulful soundtrack has proven sufficient to open many wallets. (Incredibly, according to Mclachlan the series of ads generated more than thirty million dollars in donations for the ASPCA.)

This is warm glow giving par excellence: a pure appeal to emotionally driving charitable decisions.

Reason in Charity

Warm glow giving may be driven by an emotional response which makes the giver feel good, but is “following your heart” the most effective way to allocate limited resources to improve the world? In this excerpt from his “Mr. Universe” comedy show, Jim Gaffigan offers a humorous take on the ASPCA ads (watch until 5:12):

As the canine stars of Gaffigan’s humorous sketch put it, “This is a little heavy-handed Sarah. We are just dogs after all. There’s still kids starving in Africa, right?”

That humorous sketch raises an interesting question: should the welfare of homeless North American companion animals supersede the welfare of African children? And that specific question points us to the general question: should we allow the warm glow to guide our giving? Or should we hand the reins over to reason?

So what would it look like to focus on critical thinking and evidence rather than the warm glow? What would it mean to strive to make our altruism fully effective?

We will likely not all agree on how to answer that question (for further discussion see below). However, I do believe that Singer is right to push back against the lure of warm glow giving.

And let me add a point that Singer doesn’t make: we also need to push back against perfunctory giving. I suspect that many people give to particular charitable organizations without much reflection or warm glow. (I’m thinking in particular of Christians and other religious people donating to their religious communities.) Such giving is often perfunctory in nature, and it too fails the demands of reason.

Whether your giving is driven by a warm glow or a perfunctory commitment, Singer is right: we need to apply reason and evidence to ensure we are getting the most bang for our charitable buck. This involves both the eye of the pragmatist (what’s my return on the dollar?) as well as the philosopher (should I donate to stray dogs or starving children?). Let’s take a look at Singer’s contributions on each of these points.

The Eye of the Pragmatist

When it comes to the pragmatist’s focus, for years I depended on charitynavigator.org to guide my charitable decisions. So it was disheartening to read Singer’s critique of the website and their ratings:

In 2012 Charity Navigator’s website had 6.2 million visits. It rates about seven thousand charities, including all of the better-known ones, and has the capacity to rate one hundred new charities a month, but it can do this only because its ratings are so superficial. Until 2011 they were based solely on the financial health of the charity, using information taken from a form that all charities in the United States must provide to the Internal Revenue Service. That form is also one element of a second dimension added after 2011, accountability and transparency. The other element of the assessment of accountability and transparency is the organisation’s website. None of this information tells us anything about the outcomes of the charity’s programs. Charity Navigator plans to add a third dimension that will report on the charities’ achievements, but to do that properly for seven thousand charities would be a mammoth undertaking, and Charity Navigator has not set a timetable for doing it.” (150)

But Singer does not simply curse the darkness: he also shines a light. In fact, he shines several lights. For starters, he commends the ratings of another website, GiveWell. Unlike Charity Navigator’s thousands of superficial ratings, GiveWell commends a handful of charities. Those endorsements, while few in number, guarantee that one’s dollars will produce a maximal impact in terms of alleviating/preventing suffering. (For example, GiveWell endorses a charity that focuses on distributing mosquito netting in the tropics to prevent the spread of malaria and other mosquito-borne illnesses. A modest donation to this charity has a proven track record to prevent infections and thus avoid suffering and death.)

Singer also shines a light in terms of providing valuable guidance to ensure other charities become more effective. For example, he commends the use of arbitrage (114) and randomized controlled trials (154).

On the latter point, he notes that many people are resistant to the use of such trials. For example, when Elizabeth Bintliff, vice president of Heifer International’s programs in Africa, was invited to implement randomized controlled trials to test the effectiveness of their programs she refused: “We’re not about experiments,” she said. “These are lives of real people and we have to do what we believe is correct.” (155)

Singer retorts, “To those who say it is unethical to ‘experiment with people’s lives,’ the proper response is that the alternative–failing to use the resources available to improve the lives of as many people as possible–is much worse.” (156)

The Eye of the Philosopher

When it comes to the practical dimension of the argument I find Singer’s case to be very compelling. We definitely need to apply critical thinking to charitable giving: warm glows and perfunctory habits are simply not enough. And The Most Good You Can Do is chock full of practical advice to maximize the effect of our giving.

However, when it comes to the eye of the philosopher, matters become more complicated. It is no secret that Singer is the world’s foremost utilitarian and like every other normative philosophical theory, utilitarianism is controversial.

The objections to utilitarianism are well known. For example, if an action like torturing an innocent person could produce the most good for the greatest number then it would become morally permissible or even obligatory to torture an innocent person. Singer notes another case in which his utilitarian principles could justify the conclusion that “at least some of the guards and Auschwitz were not acting wrongly.” (53) This conclusion alone will be sufficient for many critics to repudiate utilitarianism.

Singer also insists that any view which privileges human flourishing is guilty of “speciesism.” Needless to say, those who begin with the principle that human beings are ontologically privileged will find the charge of speciesism itself to be specious.

[For those who are interested, Singer succinctly describes the debate over utilitarian reasoning as involving the conflict between two moral principles: “Do no harm” and “Do the most good you can” (a conflict of intuitions famously illustrated in the Trolley Problem).]

I’ll consider one more point. Key to utilitarian thinking is the principle of the equal consideration of interests: in the famous words of Jeremy Bentham, “each to count for one and none for more than one.” While there is something generally plausible about this principle, it becomes very implausible when applied consistently. Imagine, for example, if you attempted to treat each child you meet — let alone each child in the world — as equal to your own.

Singer recognizes that we cannot help but privilege our own kin to some degree:

“Nor would we want to discourage such bias because children thrive in close, loving families, and it is not possible to love people without having greater concern for their well-being than one has for others.” (8)

What is revealing is that Singer then goes on to suggest that all privileging of one’s own kin is a concession to our inability to be perfectly good:

“In any case, while doing the most good is an important part of the life of every effective altruist, effective altruists are real people, not saints….” (8)

There is certainly much more that could be said here, but suffice it to say many people will find this idea to be wrongheaded: the saint is not the person who manages to treat all children as indistinguishable from their own.

What Christians Can Learn from Peter Singer

Few academics have been vilified among Christians like Peter Singer. And given our sound-bite age, it isn’t hard to see why: Singer’s rigorous application and defense of his philosophical position has led him to defend the ethics of such unsavory positions as infanticide and bestiality (aka “zoophilia”) and that makes him an easy target for many.

I agree that those positions are deeply problematic, and that counts among the reasons I could never follow Singer down the utilitarian road. But if Singer’s philosophy has unsavory implications, it also gets a lot right and it offers a stark, prophetic challenge to Christians. Throughout the book Singer is challenging the reader to consider how he/she can minimize suffering and maximize good, and I can only wish that more Christians (myself included) took this challenge as seriously as does Peter Singer. Consider this passage:

“Popes, bishops, and priests are quick to condemn supposed sins like the use of contraception, homosexual acts, and abortion, but they are much less willing to speak out against the blatant failures of wealthy Catholics to give to the poor what the Church says is owed to them.” (27, emphasis added)

Bam! Talk about nailing the problem of consumerism/materialism which is a major target of the book. (Needless to say, Protestants fare no better in this regard.)

Rethinking Christian Charity

This brings me to some difficult questions. Christians are no different from the general population in that our giving is often framed by sub-rational (warm glow; perfunctory) impulses. And we need to ask the same questions that Singer raises with admirable rigor: are we giving as we should?

Consider the fact that many Christians give to their local church as their primary (or sole) form of charitable giving. Now of course, the Christian will value particular activities — e.g. evangelism and church planting — that Singer will consider to have little-to-no value. Nonetheless, it is worth asking whether a larger portion of one’s charitable giving ought to be allotted to charitable agencies with rigorous and well-established positive impacts.

Would that hundred dollar check do more good buying juice boxes for vacation bible school or mosquito nets for poor Indonesian families?

Singer also raises the hard question of whether one can justify giving to the Arts and higher education in a world where people die for lack of clean drinking water and 50 cent medications. This is a hard question and one that Christians should ask as well.

In a world where millions still live in poverty can we justify replacing the church carpet or investing in seminary scholarships?

The questions are difficult, but that’s all the more reason to ask them.

Conclusion

Karl Marx famously opined, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.” Well, Peter Singer is one philosopher who is trying his best to change the world. And while I don’t agree with all the philosophical underpinnings of his case, I do agree with the need to apply reason to charitable giving. And that in turn forces me out of my ivory tower and into the daunting place of asking:

What’s the most good that I can do?

The post What Christians (and everyone else) can learn from Peter Singer: A Review of The Most Good You Can Do appeared first on Randal Rauser.

Read Chapter 14 of What’s So Confusing About Grace? and find out how to be damned by a cookie

You can read the chapter at my blog confusedaboutgrace.com.

The post Read Chapter 14 of What’s So Confusing About Grace? and find out how to be damned by a cookie appeared first on Randal Rauser.

Edward Babinski reviews Is the Atheist My Neighbor?

Edward Babinski, editor of the collection Leaving the Fold: Testimonies of Former Fundamentalists, reviewed my 2015 book Is the Atheist My Neighbor? at his blog. He writes:

“I applaud Randal’s attempt to spare atheists from being negatively stereo-typed by conservative Christians as the most blind, stupid, and vile lot of humanity. (Randal also would like to see Christians not negatively stereo-typed.) Randal invites his fellow Christians to view all people, including atheists, as individuals not as stereo-types (especially not as negative stereo-types) and see atheists treated with as much love and respect as the “neighbors” whom Jesus commanded his followers to love.”

However, Ed is not without criticism. For example, he goes on to challenge what he calls my “rosier” biblical interpretations. Later in the review he concludes:

“In summation, I hope more conservative Christians of all denominations get a chance to read and ponder Randal’s book, though I suspect that the broad “rebellion thesis” I mentioned above, rather than the narrow one that Randal focuses on in his book, is still something that will continue to divide not only Christians and atheists, but Christians with other Christians whose theologies and Bible interpretations or holy rites and practices differ.”

You can read the review here.

The post Edward Babinski reviews Is the Atheist My Neighbor? appeared first on Randal Rauser.