Blog #1 Southan’s Essay

In Southan’s Article, the concept of Effective Altruism is thoroughly discussed. The main concept which I thought particularly interesting, is “working hard to earn money, and then giving as much of it as you can to the needy.” They believe that instead of donating your time to charitable causes, you should donate as much of your income as you can. They believe that efforts are best suited to making money in your own way and then donating it to a charity that you see fit. Another part of Southan’s article that I perceived to be interesting but somewhat disagreed with was when Southan stated “From this point of view, the importance of most individual works of art would have to be negligible compared with, say, deworming 1000 children.” This Effective Altruists view is somewhat correct when they say efforts dedicated to art would be better served set to charitable purposes, but it is not a question of importance. Art is art. It’s existence and creation should not be removed out of respect to charity. I disagree with the effective altruist perspective here as if someone wishes to paint, they should paint. But if they wish to deworm children then they should do so. One should do charitable deeds because they want to, not because they feel as if they need to.