Ian Keller 2/26/23 PHL 313 Professor Bauer I. Introduction I'll be discussing William MacAskill's 2013 essay, "To Save the World, Don't Get a Job at a Charity; Go Work on Wall Street." Instead of working for charities directly, MacAskill argues that people who want to have the biggest impact on the world should pursue lucrative positions in finance and donate a sizeable amount of their wealth to worthwhile causes. I will set out MacAskill's position, emphasizing his main thoughts and points. I'll then provide my own philosophical response to this argument, outlining a different viewpoint on how people can affect change in the world. In particular, I'll argue that while earning to donate can be an effective way to donate money to effective charities, there are limitations to this approach. Instead, I will offer a more comprehensive strategy that takes into account the necessity of working directly for a charity and solving systemic challenges, as well as the relevance of pursuing meaningful employment. II. Exposure According to MacAskill, working directly for a charity is not the best method to change the world; instead, earning to donate is. He offers three primary arguments to back up this claim. First, there is a huge wage gap between employment in finance and those in charitable …show more content…
In other words, if someone else had taken the job instead, applying for a job at a charity might not necessarily have had a big difference. MacAskill explains this idea further saying “The competition for not-for-profit jobs is fierce, and if someone else takes the job instead of you, he or she likely won’t be much worse at it than you would have been.” (MacAskill, 2013) However, people can have a greater impact by giving more to successful organizations when they earn to give than they could have if they had accepted a lower-paying position with a