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Effectiveness and Demandingness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 April 2020

Brian Berkey Open the ORCID record for Brian Berkey [Opens in a new window]
Brian Berkey*
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
*
Corresponding author. E-mail: bberkey@wharton.upenn.edu
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Abstract

It has been argued in some recent work that there are many cases in which individuals are subject to conditional obligations to give to more effective rather than less effective charities, despite not being unconditionally obligated to give. These conditional obligations, it has been suggested, can allow effective altruists (EAs) to make the central claims about the ethics of charitable giving that characterize the movement without taking any particular position on morality's demandingness. I argue that the range of cases involving charitable giving in which individuals are subject to conditional effectiveness obligations is in fact quite narrow. Because of this, I claim, EAs must endorse the view that well off people have at least fairly demanding unconditional obligations.

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Article
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Utilitas , Volume 32 , Issue 3 , September 2020 , pp. 368 - 381
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

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