Post on 28-Jan-2015
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CAN THE CITY BE ETHICAL?
Will Crouch
Faculty of Philosophy
University of Oxford
will@highimpactcareers.org
www.highimpactcareers.org 2
INTRODUCTION
City careers have a bad reputation. Often, graduates are presented with a
dilemma:
High paying, exciting career?
Or an ‘ethical’ career?
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INTRODUCTION
City careers have a bad reputation.
Often, graduates are presented with a dilemma: High paying, exciting career? Or an ‘ethical’ career, in the charity sector?
I’ll show that this dilemma is ill-conceived.
I’ll show that one can do far more good through a city career than by working in the charity sector.
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Part I: How to Think about Careers Normally, we think that charity careers are the
most ethical. I’ll suggest that’s wrong, based on mistakes
regarding: indirect benefit; fungibility; marginal benefit; and harm.
Part II: How much good can you do? I’ll look at how many lives you could save. I’ll conclude that we can do a tremendous
amount to help others if we put our minds to it.
OVERVIEW OF THIS TALK
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WHAT’S THE POINT OF THINKING ABOUT THIS?
You’ll spend 70 000 hours of your life working. Career choice is one of the most important
decisions you’ll ever make.
If you’re thinking ethically, the decision is even more important.
It’s not just a critically important decision for you. It’s also a life-or-death decision for hundreds or
thousands of other people.
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PART I
HOW TO THINK ABOUT CAREERS
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THE STANDARD VIEW
According to the Standard View, the paradigm examples of ethical careers are the ‘direct benefiters’.
But consider the following story…
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Suppose that Jo becomes a doctor working in the developing world. She performs 10 life-saving surgeries every week:
THE STORY OF THE DOCTOR AND THE ALTRUISTIC BANKER
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Suppose that Lorna becomes an professional philanthropist, earns £400k/yr, and donates enough money that she pays for 10 developing-world doctors:
THE STORY OF THE DOCTOR AND THE ALTRUISTIC BANKER
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That means 100 lives per week would be saved:
THE STORY OF THE DOCTOR AND THE ALTRUISTIC BANKER
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THE STORY OF THE DOCTOR AND THE ALTRUISTIC BANKER
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DOCTORS, BANKERS, AND INDIRECT BENEFITS: THE MORAL
The banker was able to save ten times as many lives as the doctor, even though she wasn’t directly saving any lives in her career.
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DOCTORS, BANKERS, AND OPPORTUNITY COST: THE MORAL
The Moral: Ways of indirectly benefiting others, such as earning big and donating, can do much more good than directly benefiting.
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FUNGIBILITY
The previous story underestimated the discrepancy between the banker and the doctor.
The discrepancy in cost-effectiveness among different causes is huge.
And the doctor is limited in her choice about where to work. Let’s suppose she’s an HIV/AIDS specialist… 14
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CHARITY COST-EFFECTIVENESS
- 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0
Cost-effectiveness (QALYs / £1,000)
Treatment of Kaposi’s Sarcoma
Antiretroviral therapy
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CHARITY COST-EFFECTIVENESS
- 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0
Cost-effectiveness (QALYs / £1,000)
Treatment of Kaposi’s Sarcoma
Antiretroviral therapy
£20,000 / QALY barrier
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CHARITY COST-EFFECTIVENESS
- 2 4 6 8 10
Cost-effectiveness (QALYs / £1,000)
Treatment of Kaposi’s Sarcoma
Antiretroviral therapy
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CHARITY COST-EFFECTIVENESS
- 2 4 6 8 10
Cost-effectiveness (QALYs / £1,000)
Treatment of Kaposi’s Sarcoma
Antiretroviral therapy
Prevention of transmission during pregnancy
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CHARITY COST-EFFECTIVENESS
- 10 20
Cost-effectiveness (QALYs / £1,000)
Treatment of Kaposi’s Sarcoma
Antiretroviral therapy
Prevention of transmission during pregnancy
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CHARITY COST-EFFECTIVENESS
- 10 20
Cost-effectiveness (QALYs / £1,000)
Treatment of Kaposi’s Sarcoma
Antiretroviral therapy
Distribution of condoms
Prevention of transmission during pregnancy
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CHARITY COST-EFFECTIVENESS
- 20 40
Cost-effectiveness (QALYs / £1,000)
Treatment of Kaposi’s Sarcoma
Antiretroviral therapy
Distribution of condoms
Prevention of transmission during pregnancy
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CHARITY COST-EFFECTIVENESS
- 20 40
Cost-effectiveness (QALYs / £1,000)
Treatment of Kaposi’s Sarcoma
Antiretroviral therapy
Distribution of condoms
Prevention of transmission during pregnancy
Education for high-risk groups
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FUNGIBILITY
By choosing to work on the right areas, the doctor can multiply her impact by a factor of hundred.
But she’s still limited to HIV/AIDS reduction.
In contrast, money is completely fungible. It can be used to further any cause, including those far more cost-effective than HIV/AIDS reduction: 23
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CHARITY COST-EFFECTIVENESS
- 20 40
Cost-effectiveness (QALYs / £1,000)
Treatment of Kaposi’s Sarcoma
Antiretroviral therapy
Distribution of condoms
Prevention of transmission during pregnancy
Education for high-risk groups
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CHARITY COST-EFFECTIVENESS
- 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500
Cost-effectiveness (QALYs / £1,000)
Treatment of Kaposi’s Sarcoma
Antiretroviral therapy
Distribution of condoms
Prevention of transmission during pregnancy
Education for high-risk groups
Treatment for parasitic infections
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FUNGIBILITY
So the altruistic banker can target her donations only to the very best causes; whereas the doctor is much more limited.
Moreover, if she changes her views about which causes do the most good, the banker can easily change where her donations go; in contrast, the doctor is tied down to one specific cause.
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FUNGIBILITY: THE MORAL
The Moral: Do something which is flexible with respect to causes.
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MARGINAL BENEFIT
The story underestimated the discrepancy between the banker and the doctor for a second reason.
This is because: had Jo not become that doctor, someone else would have.
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MARGINAL BENEFIT
In contrast, if Lorna had not earned and donated the money, the result would have been fewer doctors.
If she hadn’t become an altruistic banker, all 100 people would have died.
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MARGINAL BENEFIT: THE MORAL
The Moral: Do something that wouldn’t have happened anyway.
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The most obvious objection to my suggestion is: what if the career you pursue causes harm? Or supports an evil system?
Surely that’s the reason why it’s not ethical to go into the city.
CAUSING HARM?
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Even granting the premise that a typical city career causes harm, that doesn’t mean that it’s unethical for you as a professional philanthropist to pursue a city career.
You need to consider what would happen if you don’t take the job.
If someone else would be doing the same evil work anyway, then you don’t help anyone by refusing the job.
CAUSING HARM?
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To illustrate this, let’s consider an extreme example.
Suppose that the typical manager in a munitions factory causes 10 deaths, by enabling more soldiers to fight in unjust wars:
CAUSING HARM?
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Now suppose that you pursue this career path, for the high pay.
You, being altruistically minded, will almost certainly cause fewer deaths than the typical manager of this factory:
CAUSING HARM?
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Far from harming people, the world is benefited in virtue of you working for a munitions factory. This is a benefit independent of the good that your donations do.
CAUSING HARM?
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This example isn’t just hypothetical…
The previous story described Oskar Schindler, a war hero who ran Nazi munitions factories and used his earnings to pay for 1200 Jewish lives.
CAUSING HARM?
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The Moral: High-impact careers needn’t also involve making people worse off.
CAUSING HARM?
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Moreover, if you oppose the current capitalist system, the best thing you can do is take a city job.
Then you can fund many anti-capitalist campaigners.
Finally, any bad aspects of your career need to be weighed against the good that you do.
So let’s turn to that.
SUPPORTING AN EVIL SYSTEM?
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PART II
HOW MUCH GOOD CAN YOU DO?
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HOW MUCH GOOD CAN YOU DO?
Bearing in mind the morals of part 1…
And bearing in mind that you can save a life for £300…
How much good can you do?
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Let’s suppose you pursue a lucrative career and donate 50% of your earnings, over your lifetime.
By pursuing certain careers, you can make a lot of money….
MONEY-MAKING
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Found a Business
Own a Hedge Fund
Estimates of average lifetime salary, salaries from prospects.ac.uk or contacts, my estimates of career progression
£21,500 £48,000 £70,000
£230,000
£1,500,000
£740,000
£1,250,000
£700,000
£120,000
£720,000
£210,000£90,000
£50,000£45,000
Med
ian S
alary
Privat
e Sch
ool T
each
er
Tutor
ial F
ellow
1st Y
ear i
n Ban
king
High-p
aid a
cade
mic GP
Low p
aid
barri
ster
Assoc
iate
Consu
ltant
Inve
stmen
t Ana
lyst
Mag
ic Circ
le Soli
citor
High-p
aid B
arris
ter
Prop
Trade
r
Bankin
g Dep
t Hea
d
Compa
ny C
EO
MONEY-MAKING
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Some career paths offer a small chance of hugeearnings. e.g. founding a business
– billions? 25mn lives?
HOW MUCH COULD YOU MAKE?
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Other career paths offer a good salary with high confidence. e.g. GPs can earn ~£3.6m, 2.25x the charity
worker.
Others offer good salaries with high certainty and small chances of very high income. e.g. the starting salary in finance/consulting
(£40-50k) is roughly equal the lifetime average of an academic or teacher. And there’s a tail…
HOW MUCH COULD YOU MAKE?
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$0
$500,000
$1,000,000
$1,500,000
$2,000,000
$2,500,000
$3,000,000
$3,500,000
$4,000,000
Source: http://www.careers-in-finance.com/ibsal.htm
BANKING: OVER A 30 YEAR CAREER
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If you level-out low in the ranks of: management consultants; investment
analysts; investment bankers; traders; barristers
Your lifetime earnings would be ~£6m. 10,000 lives saved and 4x the income to live
on.
At the top end, lifetime earnings can reach well beyond £20m (~10x the charity worker). By donating 50%, you could save 30 000
lives. And you’d still be a multi-millionaire.
HOW MUCH COULD YOU MAKE?
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INFLUENCING OTHERS
Moreover, your donations might not be your biggest impact.
Consider, for example, the canny persuader.
As well as being a professional philanthropist herself, over a few years she also persuades 10 of her colleagues to become professional philanthropists.
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INFLUENCING
Over the course of their careers: A altruistic banker can easily save ten thousand
lives. A canny persuader could persuade convince one
hundred people to become altruistic bankers. So one canny persuader could save over one
million lives.
Which would look like this:
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Turning Ideas into Action
High Impact Careers is launching in January.
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Turning Ideas into Action
We already have members who work, or are about to start working, in:
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Banking
Investment Entrepreneurship
Law
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Turning Ideas into Action
We’re researching which careers enable one to do the most good.
We’re publicising our findings and advocating that people put our ideas into practice.
We’re building a community of people who share our aims. We’ll help one another to be successful in our chosen high impact careers.
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CONCLUSIONS: THE MORALS• Earning big and donating
can do more than directly benefiting.
Benefit Indirectly
• Some causes do hundreds of times more good per pound than others.
Give Wisely
• Do something that wouldn’t have happened anyway.
Don’t be Replaceable
• High-impact careers needn’t also harm the world.
Understand Harm
• You can have a both a high-flying lifestyle and a massive impact.
No Need to Sacrifice 60
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FINAL CONCLUSION
You can do huge amounts of good if you really aim for it. But the means to that end are not intuitive.
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If you are convinced to any extent by the arguments given above, please send an email to info@highimpactcareers.org
www.highimpactcareers.org