Imagining Altruism: An Interpretive Analysis of the Giving Pledge

Philanthropy has become an increasingly important topic for normative theorists (i.e. Reich 2018), given the massive influence that wealthy donors and foundations exert over public policy. Advocates of “effective altruism” focus on maximizing the returns of elite philanthropy through quantifiable, means-tested methods; critics worry that elite philanthropy can hollow out public services and introduce a plutocratic bias into public policy by giving wealthy donors unequal voice. The “Giving Pledge” is a movement, started by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, encouraging the super-rich to donate at least half of their wealth to charity. Donors must write a letter formalizing their decision to sign the pledge. In practice, these “pledge letters” offer remarkable insights on the mindset of today’s mega-donors—an unprecedented data set encompassing hundreds of intimate first-person reflections penned by the world’s wealthiest people. This essay provides an interpretive analysis of these pledge letters, focusing on how wealthy donors conceptualize the terms of their own power and privilege. By paying close attention to the language employed in the letters, I identify various “folk” conceptions of desert, privilege, opportunity, responsibility, civic obligation, and distributive justice, among other themes. These reflections are nestled within more personalized ruminations on the vocation of the philanthropist in a market economy, on the proper way of doing philanthropy, and on the relationship between philanthropy and the good life. These pledge letters display, then, a surprisingly complex and multilayered “normative grammar” which also underscores the intense personal and ethical importance of philanthropy in the lives of the super-rich; an ethical dimension that must command our respect. But while many letters acknowledge the wider normative dilemmas (such as rising inequality) that have accompanied the growth of elite philanthropy, they are generally less willing to think critically about the philanthropist’s own elevated position in contemporary democratic societies. This essay thus contributes to wider debates about the normative standing of philanthropy, and to debates about democratic institutional design more generally.