What Is Angus Deaton's Argument Against Altruism

Angus Deaton’s main argument in Response to Effective Altruism is that it is extremely difficult to help the poor people of the world. Deaton also states that foreign aid and other charities are an ethical problem. Arguing against effective altruism, Deaton says that the proof of charity effectiveness is based on technical outfits which are inaccurate. The charity GiveWell is the Consumer Reports for altruists according to Deaton, which means GiveWell creates a minimum cost for saving a child’s life. Deaton states that is an illusion that lives can be bought like cars, since a price tag cannot be put on a life. There is no uniform way to determine the effectiveness of a charity and the evidence of effectiveness is always in a quarrel as well. …show more content…
Those experiments also only consider the immediate effects of charity interventions and not the context with which they are in, which vary from place to place. The biggest reasons these experiments are wrong is because they do not say anything about the unintended consequences that occur as a result of an experiment. The aid industry and charity organizations make political problems worse. Deaton makes an example of this when mentioning Paul Kagame, the President of Rwanda. Kagame uses Singer’s utilitarian calculus against his own people, which means that by providing health care for mothers and children he has become a favorite recipient of aid. As a result of receiving aid, Kagame is farming Rwandan children by allowing more to live in exchange for support for his corrupt ruling of Rwanda. Deaton concludes that the true villains of these issues are disorganized and underfunded health care