A donor gives $10,000 to a local symphony because 'music enriches our community.' A GiveWell-recommended charity could use the same money to prevent roughly two deaths from malaria. Which principle of effective altruism does the donor's reasoning most directly violate?
AThe principle that all charitable giving should be directed to global poverty
BScope sensitivity — the donor's emotional resonance with local culture does not scale with the magnitude of impact
CExpected value reasoning — the donor failed to calculate the probability that the symphony would fail without their donation
DNeglectedness — local symphonies receive far too little funding compared to global health
The donor's reasoning reflects scope insensitivity: the warm feeling of supporting local culture is not proportional to the actual difference made. Effective altruism's core demand is that if you are going to help, you should take seriously the differences in how much good different interventions do — including the difference between saving two lives and enriching one community's concert season. The violation is not that the donor chose arts over poverty (EA is not prescriptive about cause areas) but that the decision was driven by emotional resonance rather than comparative impact.
Question 2 Multiple Choice
The EA prioritization framework evaluates causes by scale, neglectedness, and tractability. Which of the following best describes why 'neglectedness' is a distinct criterion from 'scale'?
ANeglectedness measures how emotionally urgent the problem feels; scale measures how many people are affected
BA large-scale problem may already be well-funded, meaning marginal resources have limited impact — neglectedness captures where additional resources can do the most good
CNeglectedness applies only to global health causes; scale applies to existential risks
DNeglectedness and scale are actually the same criterion measured in different units
A problem can be enormous in scale (affecting billions) and still be heavily funded, leaving little room for marginal impact. Neglectedness asks: given existing resources, how much can one more dollar or hour of effort accomplish? A smaller problem that receives almost no attention may offer much higher returns to additional investment than a huge problem that already commands billions in funding. This is why EA analysis separates the size of the problem from the gap between the problem's importance and current resource allocation.
Question 3 True / False
Effective altruism is by definition a utilitarian framework — it requires believing that the main thing that matters morally is maximizing total welfare.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: False
EA is a framework for improving the *effectiveness* of whatever moral values you hold, not a commitment to any specific ethical theory. Someone who values animal welfare, existential risk reduction, or systemic justice can apply EA principles — scope sensitivity, expected value reasoning, cause prioritization — to pursue their values more effectively. The claim is methodological, not first-order ethical: be deliberate and quantitative about impact. This is one of the most common misconceptions about EA.
Question 4 True / False
If Charity A costs $5,000 per life saved and Charity B costs $1,000,000 per life saved, then according to EA reasoning, $1,000,000 donated to Charity A does 200 times more good than the same amount donated to Charity B.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: True
This is exactly the kind of calculation EA demands. $1M to Charity A saves 200 lives; $1M to Charity B saves 1 life. The 200x difference is real and morally significant — not an artifact of cold calculation but what scope sensitivity actually means. Many donors resist this reasoning because Charity B may have higher emotional salience or personal resonance. EA's contribution is to insist that these differences matter and should drive decision-making.
Question 5 Short Answer
Why isn't 'giving to the cause that resonates most emotionally' a reliable guide to maximizing impact, even when the donor genuinely wants to do good?
Think about your answer, then reveal below.
Model answer: Emotional resonance tracks identifiability, vividness, and personal connection — not scale of impact. Identified, visible suffering (a child in a news story) generates more emotional response than statistical suffering (millions dying from preventable disease), even when the statistical harm is vastly greater. This is scope insensitivity: our feelings do not scale with the magnitude of the problem. Giving by emotional resonance also favors causes with compelling narratives over neglected causes where marginal impact is highest. The gap between emotional salience and quantitative impact is exactly what EA tries to close.
This is the core problem EA was designed to address. The psychology of charitable giving is well-documented to favor proximity, identifiability, and narrative. These are not reliable signals of where additional resources will do the most good. EA does not say emotions are bad — it says they should be calibrated against evidence, not used as the final arbiter of cause selection.