Want to Make a Difference with Your Life?

Below, 1 refer to jobs of this kind as ‘social justice jobs’.

These recruiting practices are analysed incisively by Pryor Lisa in her now-famous book The Pinstriped Prison (Pan Macmillan Australia, 2008).

MacAskill William , Doing Good Better (Faber & Faber, 2015) 16. For other seminal works on effective altruism, see: Singer Peter , The Most Good You Can Do (Yale University Press, 2015); Singer Peter , The Life You Can Save (Random House, 2009); Friedman Eric , Reinventing Philanthropy: A Framework for More Effective Giving (Potomac Books, 2013).

See, eg, the now high-profile GiveWell, a not-for-profit which ranks charities for their effectiveness. GiveWell was founded by former hedge-fund analysts, and uses rigorous quantitative techniques to arrive at its rankings.

The organisation's name requires some explaining: if you work forty hours a week, fifty weeks a year, for forty years, you will work for exactly 80 000 hours in the course of your career. Most lawyers will work a good deal more than this.

This analysis derives from Gregory Lewis, discussed in MacAskill, above n 3, 82. For a further treatment of replaceability and related concepts, see MacAskill William , ‘Replaceability, Career Choice, and Making a Difference’ (2014) 17(2) Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 269, 272–3.

Of course, much medical work has the effect not of ‘saving’ lives, but rather of improving a patient's quality of life. A better approach to this example would therefore measure the impact of a medical career in quality-adjusted life years (usually referred to as QALYs). See MacAskill , above n 3, 42. This approach has been eschewed here to avoid technicality.

MacAskill , above n 3, 82.

Ibid.

Some will object that a career in corporate law may actually cause social harm. I have proceeded here on the basis of an underlying assumption that a career in corporate law is ‘morally innocuous’ or, in other words, that it is likely to do neither good nor harm in and of itself. Yet it should be noted that even if it were assumed that a career in corporate law causes social harm, there may yet be an altruistic argument for pursuing such a career. MacAskill mounts a persuasive argument in favour of choosing a lucrative yet ‘morally controversial’ career in order to earn to give: MacAskill , above n 6, 274–82.

Against Malaria Foundation, ‘Why Nets?’ <http://www.againstmalaria.com/WhyNets.aspx>.

See MacAskill , above n 3, 59.

Matthews Dylan , ‘Join Wall Street. Save The World’, The Washington Post (Washington) 31 May 2013 <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/05/3I/join-wall-street-save-the-world/>.

Brooks David , The Way to Produce a Person’, New York Times (New York) 3 June 2013 <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/04/opinion/brooks-the-way-to-produce-a-person.html>.

I am also mindful of the likelihood that arguments like this can be used as a blind by those whose pursuit of a corporate career stems from selfish motivations.