Giving, data and compassion: Should Christians all be ‘effective altruists’?
Playback speed
A movement founded at the University of Oxford in 2009 has now captured the imagination – and the wallets – of some of the brightest and most successful across elite Western academic and business circles. Effective altruism, a 21st-century data-driven take on the philosophy of utilitarianism, claims we must give our time and money only to those causes which can be proven to increase the greatest amount of pleasure to the most people. Why has this eccentric community grown so fast, has it become unmoored from its original intentions, and what perverse incentives arise when we try to distil ethics into an algorithm? We then go on to explore the Christian sub-community within EA and ask whether the movement’s fundamental ideas are compatible with Christian tradition on giving. Is Christian EA a welcome challenge to our increasingly sentimental and selfish modes of charity, or has it actually missed the point on the nature of God?
• Subscribe to the Matters of Life and Death podcast: https://pod.link/1509923173
• If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, visit John's website: http://www.johnwyatt.com
• For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com
Released on 8 Jan 2025
Coming up next
An anxious generation: Are social media and smartphones ruining children’s mental health?
Since 2010 mental health problems among young people have exploded. At precisely the same time, smartphones and social media have become deeply embedded in the lives of children and teenagers. A growing body of evidence suggests these two things are...
Who do children belong to in an era of surrogacy and reproductive technology?
Advances in reproductive medicine in the past half century have meant it is entirely possible for as many as five different adults to be involved in the birth of one child (sperm and egg donors, a surrogate mother who carries the fetus, and the commi...
Should we try to save every one? Ethical dilemmas and Christian values when treating very premature babies
A recent Guardian article looked in depth at advances in neonatology – the care of extremely premature babies – and the complex ethical challenges now faced by parents and doctors alike. Modern medicine can now save the lives of babies born at just 2...