Our Effective Altruism Manifesto
Our Effective Altruism Manifesto is an expression of our relationship with and faith in the Living God. It is based on a Mathew 25:30-40 worldview which mandates that we demonstrate the love of Christ in practical and tangible ways.
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Responsibility Towards Others: We care deeply about the welfare of others and are prepared to make major sacrifices for their sake. It's up to each person to choose what this means for them and how they may best put it into practice in their own lives. Regardless of the situation, the primary commitment of effective altruism is to make genuine efforts to improve the world.
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The scientific way of thinking guides our decisions, and we always look for further information to back up our hypotheses. We acknowledge how difficult it is to choose the most effective course of action and work hard to avoid arrogance, seek out educated criticisms of our own views, remain receptive to novel ideas, and give due weight to opposing viewpoints.
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We are a society bound together by our shared belief in these ideals rather than any one common purpose. As much good as we may be of service to, we seek out potential avenues for doing so without first committing to any one cause. We are flexible in terms of the recipients we choose to assist and the means by which we choose to do so. We are open to revising our views and strategies if better arguments and facts convince us that doing so would be more effective.
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Our commitment to being honest and trustworthy stems from our firm conviction that the best way to achieve positive change is via collective effort and the dissemination of truthful information. In a broader sense, we want to adhere to the norms of behavior that promote the success of neighborhoods and the people who live there. We care about the name effective altruism has earned and try to live up to it wherever possible.
This illustration may assist to clarify why the way we see Jesus's lack of efficacy may not correspond with reality. Since it's possible that, due to our cognitive limitations, we are not in a good position to determine the extent to which a person is successful in optimizing across a set of competing values, we may want to be wary of our first impressions of Jesus' level of effectiveness. Given that we do not have a comprehensive grasp of all sources of worth, much alone how various sources of value balance against one other, this humility is particularly crucial. With our limited minds, it's hard to say for sure whether or not Jesus' life was the best possible one to bring about good in light of all these potential benefits. Just as the optimum cake made by the second baker may not seem very ideal to the non-specialist, perhaps the optimal solutions to value-maximizing life might not appear to be particularly successful to individuals like us.
If Jesus was also concerned with maximizing the number of individuals who are near to God, for example, this would explain why he didn't spend all his time relieving pain as efficiently as possible. Simply stated, the time Jesus spent on the cross ensuring human salvation was time he could not have spent relieving pain. Given our limited cognitive capacity and inability to comprehend what is genuinely valuable, it seems conceivable that we simply aren't in a good position to be confident that the way Jesus lived wasn't the ideal method to deliver as much value as he possibly could.
Was Jesus an Effective Altruist?
Christians should turn to Jesus when doing good because He is the perfect embodiment of the good life. Christians interested in effective altruism can wonder if Jesus's example supports or refutes the need to include efficiency and maximal returns into our considerations of how to best do good. Jesus spent a lot of time serving others, yet it could seem at first glance that he didn't try to maximize his effectiveness in doing good, leading us to conclude that we don't need to either.
Jesus's pursuit of optimality across several dimensions
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One possible reason for Jesus's seeming lack of success is that he was optimizing across a myriad of values, and solutions that fail to take that into consideration can score lower. Let's pretend we have two bakers and each of them is paid $100 to make the best cake. The first baker is informed that the cake will be judged purely on size, whereas the second is told that the cake's quality will be judged on appearance, flavor, aroma, and how quickly it can be made. Let's assume that, given their requirements, the bakers all get the most out of their $100. The baker who optimizes for size is more likely to turn out a huge cake, which will show even laypeople that they made excellent use of their money. On the other hand, the other baker's cake could not stand out for any specific reason—it might not be very huge, delicious, aromatic, appealing, or quickly cooked. When considering the parameters and budget, it may still be the greatest cake that can be made. It would be far more difficult for the layperson to ascertain whether or not this second baker had made efficient use of the funds, given the intricacy of optimizing across several factors.
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Jesus prioritized.
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Many activities seem futile at first, but their long-term value becomes apparent after some time has passed. It's not uncommon for a chess grandmaster to make a seemingly illogical play that ultimately leads to her victory, even if it appears crazy at the moment. Thus, we must be wary of mistaking the seeming success of an activity for its actual success. Keeping this notion in mind is crucial while trying to understand Jesus's behavior, since it is entirely possible that he made choices on earth with the future in mind.
How do we know if Jesus' acts were not the most successful in the long run since we do not know all of the long-term implications of his deeds. It could be argued, that by consciously choosing to take time out to retreat from the crowds, Jesus was missing opportunities to do more good. However, it is also possible that by retreating, he was modeling the great mental health benefits and burn-out protection retreat have brought to millions of his followers over the subsequent millennia. Maybe there are other long-term justifications for Jesus' other activities that seem to be ineffectual in the short-run, just as it explains the success of his slipping away from the multitudes.
And if we still aren't convinced?
A few people may still be skeptical, though, and hold the view that Jesus' example of life goes against the principles of efficiency even after hearing these two reasons. But even if this is the case, maybe the appropriate approach to think about doing good is to use the principles of efficacy. The fact that Jesus' example of life seems at odds with practicality does not imply the two are incompatible. It's possible that our limited brainpower prevents us from figuring it out. It's worth noting that the Bible makes no direct claims either for or against efficacy. It may just be that God's measurement tool is not ours and cannot measure His purposes and will. Christian believers who find the principles of effectiveness to be academically credible but who also feel that Jesus' life contradicts them have every right to believe that there must be some undiscovered explanations that do in fact reconcile the two. For this reason, those who are struggling to find a way to reconcile effective altruism with Christianity in Jesus should not give up on either.
Introduction to Effective Altruism
Peter Singer: The why and how of effective altruism
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