On doing good
Why it matters, what it might mean, and how we can navigate this nebulous concept
In this newsletter I share some thoughts on the notion of “doing good”. I won’t be able to give answers, but hopefully point you in the direction of asking the right questions.
Wherever I use philosophical terms, I have linked to a source that explains the concept in more clarity and detail than I could in this post.
Why it matters
I believe we should critically question what doing good entails even if we cannot reach definitive answers. Firstly, we need to make countless decisions in our daily lives, almost all of which have moral consequences (e.g., choosing between honesty vs. loyalty in a friendship, deciding which job to take, where you should volunteer and donate to, how you eat, what you buy and where you travel to…).
Secondly, for those of us interested in impactful entrepreneurship it is helpful to start with the end in mind. The word entrepreneurship stems from the thirteenth-century French verb “entreprendre” and means “to undertake”. By the mid-eighteenth century an entrepreneur was understood as someone who undertakes a project. Whilst profit orientation is now an essential component in many definitions of entrepreneurship, I have this original broader definition in mind to include both for-profit and non-profit entrepreneurship. Thus, by “impactful entrepreneurship”, I mean undertaking a project with which you seek to have a positive impact. By “end in mind”, I mean that you have a defined outcome which you hope to achieve through your actions. To know whether your outcome, if achieved, does good, I believe you must first have some notion of what “doing good” entails. This is what this post seeks to help you with.
What does “doing good” mean? – Questions and Questions
I think when unpacking the concept of doing good, asking three key questions is helpful.
Firstly, what do you care about?
Do you care mainly about saving lives? Increasing levels of happiness? Avoiding suffering? Increasing income? Improving physical and mental health? And if your answer is well-being, what do you consider important for well-being? Is it maximizing pleasure, satisfying your desires, or realizing goods such as knowledge and autonomy?
Secondly, whom do you care about, and how much?
Who do you include as a subject worthy of moral concern (a concept known as your moral circle)? Most of us include ourselves, and our closest family and friends. Many of us also include our local or religious community, and fellow citizens of our country. But what about all other humans living in this world? Should we care most about those who have it the worst? And what about people who aren’t yet born, people of the next generation, or those possibly existing in a million years? Should we care about them, and if so, how much? And what about animals, and if so, which ones? Should you include your dog, a cow in a factory farm, or an insect?
Thirdly, how may you act (to bring about what you care about for whom you care about)?
Are you allowed to create a lesser evil to avert a bigger one? For instance, are you allowed to take a job that you think has a slightly negative direct impact, but which pays a high salary, allowing you to donate more to causes you care about? A utilitarian who cares most about total welfare would argue yes if the good you create outweighs the harm, whilst a deontologist would argue no, as the ends cannot justify the means. A virtue ethicist might approach the question differently entirely, asking whether he would be acting honestly, courageously, wisely or justly by taking the job. Most peoples’ views on such matters are highly context-specific, and probably somewhat inconsistent (you can read more about this here).
I cannot answer these questions for you, and I myself don’t have the answers. As Voltaire (apparently) said: “Judge a man by his questions rather than by his questions”. So, I invite you to keep asking these questions.
Toolkits/ Mental models for thinking about these issues
I wanted to share with you three tools that help me navigate the uncertainty regarding what doing good entails.
The first framework I find helpful is the concept of reflective equilibrium, made famous by John Rawls in „A Theory of Justice“. Seeking reflective equilibrium entails finding consistency between a range of different beliefs, values and judgements. Our initial beliefs and judgements, e.g., about what doing good means, serve as starting points, and can and should be revised in the process. We all implicitly seek reflective equilibrium when thinking about whether our opinion in one situation holds for similar cases (e.g., if it is ever acceptable to lie). I think there is great value in seeking reflective equilibrium more explicitly as well, and actively trying to integrate a wide range of beliefs including those you disagree with. If nothing else, this will help build understanding in an increasingly fragmented and polarized world.
The second concept I wanted to emphasize is the idea of trade-offs. We all have to make trade-offs when choosing which causes to spend our time, energy and money on. Having to choose whom to help is uncomfortable, which is why it is tempting to ignore trade-offs. Yet, I think considering trade-offs is important for two reasons: Firstly, whatever our definition of doing good, actively confronting trade-offs can help us identify the highest-impact opportunities. It forces us to think about which trade-offs we want to make, thereby helping us clarify our priorities. Secondly, recognising trade-offs is important for our well-being: Knowing, and accepting, that we can‘t do it all is fundamental to feel that we are doing enough.
Whilst there are many trade-offs we have to make, the one I want to mention is the trade-off between scope and level of control/influence: The only well-being we can genuinely control is our own (which is why it is so important we take care of it). We also have a strong influence/ control over that of our immediate family and closest friends. After that, as we expand the scope of people/ moral subjects, our level of influence typically decreases. With that I mean that it becomes harder to control the outcome. When helping a larger number of people/ moral subjects we typically (not always) are more removed from them. Helping many moral subjects usually requires adopting a higher-level strategy (e.g., working on improving legislation or donating money to different charities). For instance, when trying to change legislation (e.g., to improve conditions in factory farms), it is hard to control if and how the laws will be implemented and enforced. Importantly, this does not mean we should not focus on these bigger issues; I believe this is where for many of us our highest impact opportunities lie. We should, however, factor in our uncertainty when thinking about the expected value of our actions. How you want to trade-off scope vs. level of control depends, I believe, strongly on your risk appetite and who you care about.
The third concept I wanted to mention is our conscience. Coming back to Voltaire, he (apparently) wrote that: “The safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.“ Our conscience captures a lot of implicitly held moral beliefs. Thus, whilst the first two concepts require deliberate thinking and reflection, not acting against our conscience is a more intuitive process. Importantly, we can internalise horrible moral beliefs (e.g., many Nazis didn’t feel guilt for their atrocities) or feel bad when doing something that isn’t wrong (e.g., many people feel some guilt after leaving a toxic relationship). We thus shouldn’t rely too heavily on our conscience. Our conscience also cannot ensure we end up doing the most good, and well-intentioned actions can have unintended harmful consequences. Nonetheless, and with these caveats in mind, I believe not doing x if we think we would have a bad conscience afterwards, is still a powerful rule of thumb to mitigate our risk of doing harm. This is especially so if we reflected on our beliefs having spent time seeking reflective equilibrium.
How Impact Drive fits into my notion of doing good
Personally, I would like to have a positive impact on i) my close family and friends, ii) existing people, especially the worst off, and iii) future people. Being there for my friends and family is non-negotiable for me. Between helping existing and future people, I would like to test my fit with different projects. Impact Drive in my opinion fits best into ii), helping existing people. I imagine many projects realised through Impact Drive will aim to help existing people, though I am equally excited about projects trying to help future people or animals!
Through Impact Drive, I hope to give each of you the space to openly share and develop ideas, and get connected with a community of curious, driven, and entrepreneurial individuals. Moreover, I hope to remove inefficiencies in the entrepreneurship space, thereby facilitating the creation of more impactful projects. And by sharing content, amongst others through this newsletter, I hope to help each of you find and act on your definition for impact.
Summary of key lessons
Starting with the end in mind is important for impactful entrepreneurial projects
It is helpful to reflect on what doing good entails even if we can‘t find the answers
The ideas of reflective equilibrium, trade-offs, and not acting against our conscience, can help us navigate the uncertainty of what doing good entails
Thank you for reading and all the best,
Caroline
Apply to join the Impact Drive Facebook Group and our first Challenge
Thank you for reading this far. If you are interested in bringing your notion of doing good into practice, you can apply to join the Impact Drive Facebook group (application takes only 2 min)!
Everyone who is accepted can join our first challenge: “Generating an impactful entrepreneurial idea”.
The challenge will start on the 26th of June and last 7 days. You can spend as much or as little time as you want on it, though we believe you will benefit most if you spend at least one hour per day on it. When applying you are of course not committing yourself to the idea. We therefore welcome applicants who don’t know whether they can/ want to start a project now.
Why you should apply:
We will help you: Generate an impactful idea by identifying a problem you want to solve and its’ bottlenecks, come up with and rank different ideas, and develop a pitch.
Get connected to fellow Impact Drive readers, a community of already over 50 curious and impact-driven individuals.
Everyone who applies to join the FB group will get access to our templates that guide you through the process of generating an impactful idea.
Complete the challenge and you will win a free book of your choosing.
The person with the best idea, and the person giving the best feedback on ideas, will each receive £250. Impact Drive members will get to vote on who wins.
Sources and further resources
Crisp, R. (2017). Well-Being (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Stanford.edu. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/well-being/
D’Olimpio, L. (2016, June 3). The trolley dilemma: would you kill one person to save five? The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/the-trolley-dilemma-would-you-kill-one-person-to-save-five-57111
Daniels, N. (2016). Reflective Equilibrium (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Stanford.edu. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reflective-equilibrium/
Driver, J. (2013). Virtue Ethics. International Encyclopedia of Ethics. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444367072.wbiee616
Expected Value – Probably Good. (n.d.). Retrieved June 22, 2023, from https://probablygood.org/core-concepts/expected-value/
Giubilini, A. (2016). Conscience (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Stanford.edu. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/conscience/
Hurley, P. (2013). Deontology. International Encyclopedia of Ethics. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444367072.wbiee681
MichaelA. (2020, July 24). Moral circles: Degrees, dimensions, visuals. Forum.effectivealtruism.org. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/M2gBGYWEQDnrPt6nb/moral-circles-degrees-dimensions-visuals#:~:text=A%20person%27s%20
Oxford Dictionary. (2023). Oxford Languages. Oxford Languages; Oxford University Press. https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/
Voltaire Quote: “Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.” (n.d.). Quotefancy.com. Retrieved June 22, 2023, from https://quotefancy.com/quote/3971/Voltaire-Judge-a-man-by-his-questions-rather-than-by-his-answers
Voltaire Quote: “The safest course is to do nothing against one’s conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from d...” (n.d.). Quotefancy.com. Retrieved June 22, 2023, from https://quotefancy.com/quote/929438/Voltaire-The-safest-course-is-to-do-nothing-against-one-s-conscience-With-this-secret-we
West, H. R. (2013). Utilitarianism. International Encyclopedia of Ethics. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444367072.wbiee178
So well said