Doing Good Better: Effective Altruism and a Radical New Way to Make a Difference

by William MacAskill

Consider ethical consumption, like switching to Fairtrade coffee, or reducing how much meat you buy. Suppose someone stops buying chicken breasts, instead choosing vegetarian options, in order to reduce the amount of animal suffering on factory farms. Does that person make a difference? You might think not. If one person decides against buying chicken breast one day but the rest of the meat-eaters on the planet continue to buy chicken, how could that possibly affect how many chickens are killed for human consumption? When a supermarket decides how much chicken to buy, they don’t care that one fewer breast was purchased on a given day. However, if thousands or millions of people stopped buying chicken breasts, the number of chickens raised for food would decrease – supply would fall to meet demand. We’re then left with a paradox: individuals alone can’t make a difference; millions of them acting together can; but the action of millions is simply the combined actions of many individuals. Moreover, an iron law of economics is that, in a well-functioning market, if demand for a product decreases, the quantity of the product that’s supplied decreases. How, then, can we reconcile these thoughts? The answer lies with expected value. If you decline to buy some chicken breast then most of the time you’ll make no difference: the supermarket will buy the same amount of chicken in the future. Sometimes, however, you will make a difference. Occasionally the meat buyer will assess chick...