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Professor Jonathan Winterbottom
Paper 1
13 November 2015
Discussion about Having a Lucrative Career in Support of Philanthropy

1. INTRODUCTION
Not as controversial and focused publicly as abortion, the importance of the ethics of
career choice is somewhat underestimated, but this decision of career choice has great
influence on the life of a certain person or perhaps on the entire society. William MacAskill,

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an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Lincoln College, Oxford, introduced his arguments
about the career choice for pursuing a philanthropy life in Replaceability, Career Choice,
and Making a Difference. (MacAskill) Through the paper, he put forward a consequentialist
theory to highlight the significance of choosing a lucrative job for pursing an altruistic career
2. MACASKILLS VIEW
In his paper, William MacAskill focused on the question that within the domain of
altruistic career paths, which careers are ethically preferable to which others? (MacAskill 2)
He thought this question is important, because it can give instructive suggestion of how best
to live their lives to young people. In favor of pursuing a lucrative career in order to donate
the money earned to philanthropy, he mainly argued for two claims, Weak Claim and Strong
Claim:
Weak Claim: typically, it is ethically preferable to pursue philanthropy through a higher
paid but morally innocuous career than to pursue a career in the charity sector.
(MacAskill 3)
Strong Claim: often, it is ethically preferably to pursue philanthropy through a higher
paid but morally controversial career than to pursue philanthropy through a lower paid
but morally innocuous career. (MacAskill 3)
Significantly, in MacAskills definition, morally innocuous career means if there is no
strong non-consequentialist reason against pursuing that career; morally controversial
career means if there is typically a strong non-consequentialist reason against pursuing that
type of career. (MacAskill 3)
I will focus on Strong Claim in the following section. Strong Claim advocates a lucrative
but morally controversial career. For instance, Strong claim will encourage a career millions
of dollars by running a chemical plant, then distributing a large proportion of the money to
support numerous Aids and other charities. Besides, MacAskill deemed that Controversial

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careers is not like reprehensible careers, which are typically illegal, to avoid potential
misunderstandings by some non-consequentialists. (MacAskill 12)
3. THE HARM-BASED REASON OBJECTION
William MacAskill considered two sorts of non-consequentialist reasons against
pursuing philanthropy through morally controversial careers. (MacAskill 13) One of the
reasons was the harm-based reason, a victim-centered objection based on the idea that some
careers involve harming others. (MacAskill 13) In other words, someones interest will be
impaired when we give other people help, for example, taking all money from an ordinary
person to improve ten impoverished people living conditions. By common-sense intuition,
this act is impermissible, because it violates the property right of the victim.
The harm-based reason objected that many lucrative jobs cause harm to a given person or
the society. When we pursue a controversial career by opening a petrochemical company, it
pollutes the environment. Therefore, Strong Claim idea of engaging in a higher paid but
morally controversial career is not permissible.
4. THE TROLLEY PROBLEM AND THE TACTICAL BOMBING CASE
William MacAskill strongly supported a career, out of numerous morally controversial
careers, that not intentionally causes harm. (MacAskill 18) To deal with the harm-based
reason, he presented two cases, the Trolley Problem and the Tactical Bombing Case as
analogies of foreseen but unintended side-effects of ones actions. (MacAskill 18)
The Trolley case is that one has the option to switch the tracks of a runaway train,
redirecting the threat from the train and saving the five who would have been run over, but
running over and killing one other person instead. (MacAskill 19) In this case, it seems that
switching the tracks rather than doing nothing mitigates the harm. The Tactical Bombing Case
describes a situation in which one can end a war early by destroying an ammunitions
factory, foreseeably killing some civilians as an unintended side-effect. (MacAskill 19) The

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motivation in Tactical Bombing Case is that the benefit far outweigh the harmit can save
thousands of peoples life. The key point is, as MacAskill proposed, that, in both cases, the
reason why it can be ethically preferable to cause harm rather than do nothing is because one
intentionally brings about a significantly greater good, merely causing the harm as an
unintended side-effect of ones attempt to bring about that greater good. (MacAskill 19)
MacAskill gave an example of a philanthropist speculating on the price of wheat, which
obviously is a morally controversial career, to explain how the concept of foreseen but
unintended consequences apply in career choice scenario. The speculation affects the price
volatility of wheat, thereby having a detrimental effect on the wellbeing of the global poor.
(MacAskill 20) The only intention of the philanthropist is making money to help the poor
people. Under the context that the agent is an altruist, which I mentioned at the beginning of
MacAskills idea, she will try her best to ease the harm to the interests of the poor.
5. MY STANDPOINT
I am not agree with the William MacAskills Strong Claim, because his claim
oversimplified the career choice problem. He missed one important premise that different
careers vary in difficulty to pursue. A lucrative job actually is harder to obtain than a lower
paid job. The wealth inequality problem demonstrate how hard to become an affluent.
According to the Inequality.org, in 2013, the richest 3 percent of families hold 54 percent of
U.S. family wealth. (http://inequality.org/wealth-inequality/) Thus, the case is not that we can
easily choose a lucrative career, not matter morally controversial or innocuous, and then
pursue philanthropy.
Equal chances do not apply to achieving a higher paid but morally controversial career
or a lower paid but morally innocuous career, not as simple as the Trolley Problem
MacAskill described. (MacAskill 3)

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Works Cited