Effective altruism is built on the simple but unsettling idea that living a fully ethical life involves doing the most good one can. In this course you will examine this idea's philosophical underpinnings; meet remarkable people who have restructured their lives in accordance with it; and think about how effective altruism can be put into practice in your own life.
What is Poverty?
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来自 Princeton University 的课程
利他主义实践
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从本节课中
Poverty and Affluence, Part 1
What obligations do the affluent have towards those who live in extreme poverty? In this week, we look at one distinct argument based on consequentialist ethics, and also begin the discussion of the effectiveness of aid programs. This week also includes a conversation with Raymond Offenheiser.
与讲师见面
Peter SingerIra W. Decamp Professor of Bioethics
University Center for Human Values
>> Welcome to this session of Effective Altruism, the online course.
I'm very to be in Boston at the offices of Oxfam America and
I have with me Ray Offenheiser, who has been president of Oxfam Ame,
America for the past 18 years.
Welcome, Ray.
>> Welcome to the Coast.
>> Nice to be with you, Peter.
>> Thank you.
So we're going to be talking about poverty and its causes and
what can be done about it today.
Let me start off by asking you where in the United States,
there's poverty in the United States, there's poverty around Boston.
And of course, there's poverty elsewhere in the world.
So why work on poverty far away from us rather than right here in Boston?
>> Well, I think Oxfam is historically become a poverty-based organization.
I think, initially as a response to the humanitarian crises in the aftermath of
World War II, where literally we had tens of millions of people
displaced by conflict and it, it, it was the cause of
it was actually those events that brought us into being as an organization.
And the humanitarian impulse of the British population at that time that
actually caused us to, to create Oxfam as a response to that humanitarian need.
But as time went on, we began to see that there were a variety of other
important needs that populations face and particularly the newly independent
countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
And we felt, you know, compelled in some sense to deal with those needs as well as
the immediate short term needs of the humanitarian crisis.
>> So tell me a little bit more about what poverty actually means for
people in those developing countries?
>> Well, I think perhaps the simplest way to describe it is the the absence of
public goods.
In other words, the absence of services that of, that we all take for granted,
education, health services, environmental services infrastructure and so forth.
And people lacking those, lack the opportunities to actually access
markets to access food, ina, inadequate supply.
Access educational opportunities that might enable them to,
you know, to lift themselves out of poverty, so that in some sense is the,
the historic way that poverty's been looked at.
And perhaps, this simple definition might be the absence of public goods to those,
to those marginalized or more vulnerable populations.
>> All right.
And if somebody said, well, what really is the cause of this is there,
is there any one underlying cause or are there a series of causes?
>> Well, I think what's happening in, in Oxfam, our, our, we've gone through
a bit of an evolution on this question and I think we, historically like many of
the organizations that do the work that we do and in similar context.
We actually worked with grass roots organizations to address these,
if you will, a public goods needs at a local level for many, many years.
And over time, we realized that we needed in some sense to create organizations
that can provide those services and built local NGOs, but we began to realize over
time that, that was not enough and that we needed to be looking at root causes and
we realized that the absence of public goods definition in some sense has,
had focusing on symptoms rather than causes.
And we adopted a somewhat different definition over time, which was defining
poverty as social exclusion with the assumption that in many countries where we
work, you find populations who are receiving all of these public services and
are receiving all these the access to these public goods, but
then you find excluded populations.
Populations that are excluded for a variety of different reasons and
different contexts that might have to do with race, ethnicity,
class location, a va, a variety of different issues.
And so we've gradually tried to figure out if we take out the definition of
social exclusion as sort of the, the root cause.
What does that mean in different contexts?
>> Mm-hm.
So yeah, if you could tell me a little bit more about that,
because if they're not getting these services, because of their race or
ethnicity or because of their geographic location perhaps.
Is this actually an attitude of other people in this region
that needs to be changed or?
>> Well, I guess as we've, we think about development.
We have come to believe that basically development is about supporting, you know,
states to become more effective in delivering these public goods.
And, but we've realized over time that, that just doesn't happen naturally and
that they are, there is market failure and there are reasons why states, perhaps,
either, because they are, you know, they are not adequately funded or
there are these, these reasons why particular populations are excluded,
that certain populations are disadvantaged.
And that what we need, in some sense to get effective development is to start
a conversation between affected citizens and their government or
the state about why those, why those particular barriers might exist that,
that limit people's access to those, those needed services.
And particularly, the needed services that are going to create the opportunities for
people to work their way out of poverty.
And we believe most people in poverty are, you know, very keen to actually find those
opportunities and will work very hard if given them.
And and so we've tried to build this conversation and maybe with the idea that
effective development is about building that social contract between citizens and
the state that will wield the best possible outcomes.
>> So, so
this sounds a little bit different from what I guess most people would imagine
that aid organizations would do if you're talking about building a conversation.
Does this mean that you're, you're not going in there and
providing things like say, clean water or sanitation or other better,
better agricultural techniques, something of that sort or
is that still part of the process that you regard as, as building this conversation?
>> Well, in all humanitarian work we do we're meeting immediate needs.
And we have a very large humanitarian operation
it's probably operating right now in ten countries and we're front line providers
in all of the major humanitarian emergency scenarios all over the world.
Syria, the Congo, South Sudan and so forth.
But in the work we're doing, in what we would characterize as long-term
development, what we, our starting point is with communities and with grass roots
organization or if you will partners, national indigenous organizations.
Trying to define what is the so, issue that is most top of mind for
them that they feel needs to be addressed.
And in some case, in, in most cases, we might be working with them to provide
a program that would allow for people to access water,
to access financial services, to access, better access food markets.
And what we try to do is create innovative solutions that might translate themselves
into a policy option for governments that can then be par, be the starting point for
that conversation with governments about how can we take a good
idea that's implemented at a particular local or original level and
translate it into something at a higher level that can actually become
national policy an advantage many more people who are perhaps,
perhaps suffering the consequences of in the same way as those communities
where we might start that initiative.
>> So you you see what you're doing as kind of model projects for
what can be done to help people and you hope that the governments will then
step in and say, this works, it's the kind of thing we want to do.
>> Yeah, I think one of the problems with, with the aid system, historically has been
often times, it, it started with the premise that we know best.
We bring the technology, we bring the ideas, we bring the solutions.
And I think what we've learned over decades has been, the development that has
actually been durable over time has actually started with the premise
that people in countries are going to have to develop themselves in some sense, but
given the chance to build that social contract with your government and
also build the institutions that would act, are actually going to,
to deliver those public goods over time.
And so we've sh-, since shifted our focus away from a Northern-centric
development approach that is maybe dri, driven by te, ideas of, you know,
delivering technology and ideas and so forth.
To one that's centered on people's desires and building citizenship and
building affective states and
fostering a conversation that's actually anchored in a human rights perspective.
In other words, that people have a right to food and a right to basic social and
economic opportunity.
And the question then it, how do you build the social contract or
the social compact that's actually going to enable people to just,
to negotiate the, the terms of that deal with, with the state such that resources
will be distributed adequately to, to meet their basic needs.
