Marcus A. Davis

@amarcusdavis.bsky.social

173 Followers 353 Following

CEO of Rethink Priorities Charity for All: amarcusdavis.substack.com

kid Marcus with his hands raised in triumph
Still, as much as others and I seek to improve the world, some people wish to undermine the values of equality, freedom, and opportunity that millions of people work every day to expand. So, having “charity for all” doesn’t mean being naive about those out to destroy you. After all, when Abraham Lincoln made that statement, he was in the middle of a civil war where hundreds of thousands of people had died, and his opponents wanted to impose a strict hierarchical, race-based slave society on the rest of the country.
This type of approach isn’t a panacea. I take each of these principles as guidelines, not dictates, and I have more than my share of quibbles with how particular people apply these principles in practice. I don’t want to just tease this, you will hear some of those quibbles and gripes in forthcoming posts as I think some of these are pretty substantive disagreements.
I'd add the moral constraint that when I seek to help, I want to help those who need it most, without regard to how much they resemble me or how close they are to my daily life. I don't think the accident of my birth in America should justify valuing Americans—explicitly or implicitly—as orders of magnitude more important than people from Bangladesh or Kenya. This means prioritizing based on need and impact rather than familiarity or convenience. To the extent I'm fortunate enough to be in a position to help others, I value charity for all.