The Generosity of Philosophy Students
At University of Zurich, when students register for classes, they have the option of donating to charities supporting needy students and foreign students. Bruno Frey and Stephan Meier found, in 2005, that economics students were a bit less likely to donate to the charities than other students (62% of economics students vs. 69% of others gave to at least one charity). However, the effect seemed to be more a matter of selection than training: Economics majors were less charitable than their peers from the very beginning of their freshman year. Thus, they were not made less charitable, Frey and Meier argue, by their training in economic theory.
How about philosophy students? Could the ethical component of philosophical education have any effect on rates of charitable giving? This relates to my general interest in whether ethicists behave any morally better than non-ethicists.
Frey and Meier kindly sent me their raw data, expanded with several new semesters not reported in the 2005 essay. Here are some preliminary analyses. I looked only at undergraduates no more than 30 years old. In total, there were 164,550 registered student semesters over the course of 6 years of data.
In any given semester, 72.0% of students gave to at least one charity. Majors with particularly high or low rates of giving and at least 1000 registered semesters were:
Below 65%
Teacher training in math & natural sciences: 54.8%
Business economics: 58.7%
Italian studies: 61.4%
Teacher training in humanities & social sciences: 62.9%
Over 80%
Sociology: 81.3%
Ethnology: 82.7%
Philosophy: 83.6%
Among large majors, philosophy students were the most generous! Does this bode well for the morally salutary effects of studying philosophy?
Unfortunately, as in the original Frey & Meier study, a look at the time-course of the charitable giving undermines the impression of an indoctrination or training effect.
Percentage of Philosophy majors giving to at least one charity, by year:
1st year of study: 85.4% (of 411 student semesters)
2nd year: 86.9% (of 289)
3rd year: 85.2% (of 250)
4th year: 85.2% (of 236)
5th year: 82.5% (of 171)
6th year: 83.1% (of 136)
7th year: 81.3% (of 107)
8th year or more: 73.2% (of 183)
It seems that studying philosophy is not making students more charitable. If anything, there is a decrease in contributions over time.
There is also a decrease among non-philosophers, from 75.4% in Year 1 to 66.0% in Year 7 and 61.0% in Year 8+. This looks like a sharper rate of decrease, but difference in the decrease may not be statistically significant, given the small numbers of advanced philosophy students and the non-independence of the trials. Looking at individual students (under age 40) for whom there are at least 7 semesters of data, philosophy majors are just as likely to increase (37.4%) or decrease (27.2%) their rates of giving as are an age-matched sample of non-philosophy majors (42.4% up, 30.2% down).
(Oddly, although overall rates of giving are lower among more advanced students, more students increase their rates of giving over time than decrease their rates of giving. These facts can be (depressingly) reconciled if students who donate to charity are less likely than students who don't donate to continue in their studies.)
Why are Zurich philosophy students more likely to donate to these charities than students of other majors? Does philosophy attract charitable people? I'm not ready yet to draw that conclusion: It could be something as simple as higher socio-economic status among philosophy majors. They might simply have more money to give. (Impressionistically, in the U.S., philosophy seems to draw wealthier students; students from lower income families tend, on average, to be drawn to more "practical" majors.)