Are we conditionally obligated to be effective altruists?

Abstract

Arguments for a conditional obligation of effective altruism, which assert that if one makes charitable donations one is morally required to maximize the good achieved, are critically examined. Such arguments, particularly those advanced by Theron Pummer and Joe Horton, derive from “Rescue Cases” that suggest a conditional duty to save as many people as possible if one is to save anyone at all. This approach is characterized as “half-hearted non-consequentialism” because it views moral options as licensed deviations from a background presumption of optimizing action, justified primarily by costs to the agent. A “thoroughgoing non-consequentialism,” by contrast, rejects this optimizing default and grounds morality in duties and claims. This alternative framework offers a more compelling analysis of rescue cases, preserving a distinction between duties to meet claims and supererogatory acts, and better accommodating the moral significance of the “separateness of persons” in situations involving conflicting claims. Consequently, the half-hearted non-consequentialist defenses of the conditional obligation of effective altruism are flawed. While a thoroughgoing non-consequentialist version of the Rescue Argument might be constructed, its reliance on extensive individual duties of rescue is disputable, and its conclusions would be significantly more limited, applying solely to the satisfaction of claims rather than all optional beneficent actions, and potentially not mandating numerical maximization in all conflict scenarios. – AI-generated abstract.