Ep 1 - Feeling Bad About Doing Good

Apr 5 2021 • 32 mins

In this episode, Declan and Simon ask - should you feel bad about doing "good"?

"What?!" you may ask. But have you ever asked yourself if you should give almost all your money to charity? And, if you don't then how you should approach the question of whether you should do more? Is every one of your pleasures condemned to be a guilty pleasure? Cosmic Skeptic's video asking if Should You Sell All Your Possessions? kickstarted our discussion. And we think you'll enjoy where our discussion took this.

Main Talking Points

Should each of us be giving more to charity?
Why don't people give more to charity?
How could we approach beginning to give more to charity?
How do we know when we have donated enough to charity?
What is the effect of dependants on giving to charity?
What on earth has antinatalism got to do with any of this?

While we are on the subject of doing good, we would greatly appreciate it if you could please donate whatever you can afford to provide a life-saving mosquito net to someone who really needs it at http://www.againstmalaria.com/thephilosophists

Follow the show on Twitter at @philosophistpod

Other Links

Effective Altruism websites that rank charities in terms of impact per amount donated - http://givewell.org, https://www.thelifeyoucansave.org
David Pearce's Quora post listing What Are The Arguments Against Antinatalism? (You can follow David at @webmasterdave)
Wikipedia entry on David Benatar's book Better Never to Have Been
Wikipedia entry on Antinatalism
Wikipedia entries on Transhumanism and Humanity+
Wikipedia entry briefly covering some of the systems of ethics mentioned in this episode