this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2024
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Right, so I think you could push it even further than what I said. Maybe something more qualitative like "What are you willing to give up to help others?"
That said you can also go too far the other way and say that a very rich person who does or doesn't give away things hadn't really giving up much, but we certainly would want to say a rich person giving away 90% of their disposable income is still doing something good. (And practically speaking it's going to have almost as good of an outcome if they gave to the point of diminishing their well-being).
Your angle here is actually getting really close to Peter Singer's Famine, Affluence and Morality. (Personally I stop a little short of where he's at, but I think your position more closely resembles his).
This is a very heavily qualified "yes" for me.
It depends on how they're giving it away and to whom. If they're doing the usual billionaire "charity", no, they're not doing anything good and indeed it may be worse than them just hoarding their cash. Because the norm for billionaire "charity" is to support political parties that aid them in their hoarding of riches and to "charities" of their own founding which are generally used to force their viewpoint on the world, effectively being just another source of power for them.¹ They tend to displace actual expert charities in favour of their own PR branding, their foundations tend to work on projects that mysteriously aid their for-profit enterprises and personal wealth, and tend to fund lobbyists in government (not to mention the occasional hate group or ten).
That kind of "giving away" we can do without. Just eat that kind of billionaire.
If, however, you've got a billionaire donating to established, experienced charities with no strings attached, that's doing something very good. Wake me up when that actually happens.
¹ https://newrepublic.com/post/177019/billionaire-philanthropy-scam-bill-gates