Quality versus Quantity: Donors, Unlike Beneficiaries, Prefer to Make Lives Better, Not Longer

Abstract: Which is morally better: Funding a sick kid’s trip to Disneyland or veterinary services for 9 rescue dogs? This question arguably comes down to a question of which more effectively converts dollars into moral good. S1 shows that while Ps are sensitive to effectiveness information (‘impact/$100 donated’) when making donation decisions *within* a cause area (eg two health charities), they’re under-sensitive to effectiveness information when comparing across two different cause areas (eg health vs environment). Typically, such comparisons are facilitated by a common metric such as “quality-adjusted life years” (QALYs), which is notably indifferent to interventions that improve longevity vs quality. Are people similarly indifferent? Across 3 studies, we show that donors prefer interventions that improve *quality* of life over those that extend life. This is driven by an affective forecasting error: Ps assume they wouldn’t want a longer life if they were in the recipients’ shoes. Yet, contradicting this, archival data from aid recipients living in extreme poverty in Kenya & Ghana show a strong preference for life-extending support.

Keywords: Moral psychology, tradeoffs, effective altruism, behavioral ethics, donations