This advice seems to assume that either your reason for giving is simply to assuage guilt, or your guilt-feeling machinery is accurately calibrated to the moral and non-moral ends you seek to achieve.
The first case seems unlikely to apply to anyone who’s seriously trying to answer questions along the lines of “how much should I give?” by rational means. (But if it does, simply training oneself to feel less guilt would seem more efficient. Alas.)
The only reason that medical bills and supporting a family are even questions is that he values his family’s well being more than he does that of someone who might be helped by charity. Phrasing things in utilitarian terms, he puts a much higher utility on his family than on a random person. As such, he should only donate to charity once he has spent enough money on his family that the utility from doing is, per dollar, so much less that that factor overwhelms the large multiplier that he gives for his family’s welfare compared to a random person’s. Given his description, he clearly hasn’t reached that point yet, so he should spend nothing on charity.
This leaves guilt (or warm fuzzies, which are the flip side) as the only reason to spend anything at all. The rational amount (ignoring questions like “what utility to I get from assuaging my guilt”) is zero. Take care of your family, who needs it, and stop feeling guilty for not donating.
Given his description, he clearly hasn’t reached that point yet
I’m failing to follow your reasoning at this point. How does his description indicate that?
(“A random person” isn’t quite the right reference point, by the way. It seems reasonable to hope that a well selected charity will direct help to people who are in distinctly more need than average.)
It seems reasonable to hope that a well selected charity will direct help to people who are in distinctly more need than average
There are two factors here: how much he values the utility of a family member compared to the utility of someone else, and how much utility a given amount of money can produce for his family compared to someone else. The person helped by the charity is non-random with respect to the second factor, but random (in the not-special sense) with respect to the first.
Oh, I see. … Although, actually, it might be non-random w.r.t. the first factor too. (But probably in the “wrong” direction: that is, I guess that most people care more about a given person’s utility when that person is (a) near them and (b) like them, and when the person in question is an affluent Westerner these probably both anticorrelate with being among the world’s neediest.)
I apologize for being unclear in my description. At the moment, after all my bills I have money left over. This implicitly goes toward retirement. So it wouldn’t be slighting my family to give some more to charity. I also have enough saved to semi-retire today (e.g. if I chose to move to a cheap area I could live like a lower-middle class person on my savings alone), and my regular 401K contributions (assuming I don’t retire) would mean that I’ll have plenty of income if I retire at 65 or so.
This advice seems to assume that either your reason for giving is simply to assuage guilt, or your guilt-feeling machinery is accurately calibrated to the moral and non-moral ends you seek to achieve.
The first case seems unlikely to apply to anyone who’s seriously trying to answer questions along the lines of “how much should I give?” by rational means. (But if it does, simply training oneself to feel less guilt would seem more efficient. Alas.)
The second seems very optimistic.
The only reason that medical bills and supporting a family are even questions is that he values his family’s well being more than he does that of someone who might be helped by charity. Phrasing things in utilitarian terms, he puts a much higher utility on his family than on a random person. As such, he should only donate to charity once he has spent enough money on his family that the utility from doing is, per dollar, so much less that that factor overwhelms the large multiplier that he gives for his family’s welfare compared to a random person’s. Given his description, he clearly hasn’t reached that point yet, so he should spend nothing on charity.
This leaves guilt (or warm fuzzies, which are the flip side) as the only reason to spend anything at all. The rational amount (ignoring questions like “what utility to I get from assuaging my guilt”) is zero. Take care of your family, who needs it, and stop feeling guilty for not donating.
I’m failing to follow your reasoning at this point. How does his description indicate that?
(“A random person” isn’t quite the right reference point, by the way. It seems reasonable to hope that a well selected charity will direct help to people who are in distinctly more need than average.)
There are two factors here: how much he values the utility of a family member compared to the utility of someone else, and how much utility a given amount of money can produce for his family compared to someone else. The person helped by the charity is non-random with respect to the second factor, but random (in the not-special sense) with respect to the first.
Oh, I see. … Although, actually, it might be non-random w.r.t. the first factor too. (But probably in the “wrong” direction: that is, I guess that most people care more about a given person’s utility when that person is (a) near them and (b) like them, and when the person in question is an affluent Westerner these probably both anticorrelate with being among the world’s neediest.)
I apologize for being unclear in my description. At the moment, after all my bills I have money left over. This implicitly goes toward retirement. So it wouldn’t be slighting my family to give some more to charity. I also have enough saved to semi-retire today (e.g. if I chose to move to a cheap area I could live like a lower-middle class person on my savings alone), and my regular 401K contributions (assuming I don’t retire) would mean that I’ll have plenty of income if I retire at 65 or so.
Not sure why the above got so many downvotes… seems pretty reasonable to me.