How much do they disvalue each other losing money? If they don’t care at all, then the given scenario would be better than nothing for all involved.
Perhaps there’s an intervention (buying a certain number of free range eggs and selling them at the price of eggs from cage-raised hens, let’s say), which costs $20 and prevents as much suffering as Alice would prevent by becoming a vegetarian for exactly one month in the above example. In this case, Alice, Bob, and Carol would better achieve their goals by donating to an organization which buys free range eggs and sells them to the public at the same price at which normal eggs are sold, than they would by investing in making Alice a vegetarian.
In this way, having multiple people believe that they should be the sole individual to receive credit for causing a given intervention to be implemented can result in suboptimal outcomes.
If Alice knows Bob and Carol would otherwise donate to such an intervention, and she goes with that other plan you gave, then she’s responsible for the donations they failed to receive. I think it can generally be assumed that people will not donate their money wisely, so you don’t have to worry.
Perhaps there’s an intervention (buying a certain number of free range eggs and selling them at the price of eggs from cage-raised hens, let’s say), which costs $20 and prevents as much suffering as Alice would prevent by becoming a vegetarian for exactly one month in the above example. In this case, Alice, Bob, and Carol would better achieve their goals by donating to an organization which buys free range eggs and sells them to the public at the same price at which normal eggs are sold, than they would by investing in making Alice a vegetarian.
In this way, having multiple people believe that they should be the sole individual to receive credit for causing a given intervention to be implemented can result in suboptimal outcomes.
If Alice knows Bob and Carol would otherwise donate to such an intervention, and she goes with that other plan you gave, then she’s responsible for the donations they failed to receive. I think it can generally be assumed that people will not donate their money wisely, so you don’t have to worry.