The Most Good You Can Do

1. Effective Altruism: Doing the Most Good with Limited Resources

Effective altruism is based on a very simple idea: we should do the most good we can.

Defining effective altruism. Effective altruism is a philosophy and social movement that applies evidence and reason to determine the most effective ways to benefit others. It encourages individuals to consider how they can use their resources – time, money, and skills – to make the biggest positive impact on the world.

Key principles:

• Use evidence and reason to determine the most effective ways to help others
• Consider all causes and actions, and act in the way that brings about the greatest positive impact
• Use a significant portion of one's resources to improve the lives of others
• Be willing to act on these principles

Effective altruists often engage in activities such as:

• Donating a large percentage of their income to highly effective charities
• Choosing careers that allow them to earn more in order to give more
• Volunteering their time and skills to high-impact causes
• Spreading the ideas of effective altruism to others

2. Earning to Give: Maximizing Income to Maximize Impact

Matt is on the way to saving a hundred lives, not over his entire career but within the first year or two of his working life and every year thereafter.

The power of high-earning careers. Earning to give is a strategy where individuals pursue high-earning careers with the explicit goal of donating a significant portion of their income to effective charities. This approach can often lead to a greater positive impact than working directly for a charity.

Benefits of earning to give:

• Potentially much larger donations than working for a non-profit
• Ability to fund multiple effective charities
• Flexibility to switch causes as new evidence emerges

Examples:

• Matt Wage, who chose a career in finance to donate half his income
• Jim Greenbaum, who built a successful telecom company to fund charitable efforts
• Ian Ross, who donates over 95% of his substantial income

However, earning to give is not for everyone. It requires:

• Strong ethical commitment
• Ability to resist lifestyle inflation
• Careful consideration of personal fit and potential impact

3. Global Poverty: The Most Pressing and Solvable Issue

You may be thinking that this figure could be misleading because of the greater purchasing power of money in poorer countries, but that is already taken into account.

The scale of global poverty. Over a billion people live in extreme poverty, defined as living on less than $1.53 per day (in 2014 US dollars, adjusted for purchasing power parity). This level of poverty leads to widespread suffering, premature death, and lost potential on a massive scale.

Why focus on global poverty:

• Huge disparity in living standards between rich and poor countries
• Highly cost-effective interventions available
• Potential for transformative impact with relatively small donations

Effective interventions:

• Distributing insecticide-treated bed nets to prevent malaria
• Providing direct cash transfers to extremely poor families
• Deworming children to improve health and education outcomes

By focusing on the global poor, effective altruists can achieve an outsized impact. For example, the cost to save a life in a developing country through effective interventions is often thousands of times less than in developed countries.

4. Evidence-Based Charity: Evaluating Impact Objectively

GiveWell has gone into partnership with Good Ventures, a philanthropic foundation set up by Cari Tuna and her husband, the Internet entrepreneur Dustin Moskovitz, to set up the Open Philanthropy Project with the goal of investigating a much wider range of giving opportunities than GiveWell does when it evaluates and recommends specific charities.

The importance of rigorous evaluation. Effective altruism emphasizes the use of evidence and reason to determine which charitable interventions are most effective. Organizations like GiveWell conduct in-depth research to identify and recommend top-performing charities.

Key aspects of charity evaluation:

• Measurable impact
• Cost-effectiveness
• Transparency
• Room for more funding

Methods of evaluation:

• Randomized controlled trials
• Systematic reviews of existing research
• Cost-effectiveness analyses

Effective altruists often rely on these evaluations to guide their giving decisions, ensuring that their donations have the greatest possible impact. This approach contrasts with traditional giving, which is often based on emotional appeals or personal connections.

5. Expanding Our Moral Circle: From Family to All Sentient Beings

Effective altruists do not discount suffering because it occurs far away or in another country or afflicts people of a different race or religion. They agree that the suffering of animals counts too and generally agree that we should not give less consideration to suffering just because the victim is not a member of our species.

Broadening ethical considerations. Effective altruism encourages expanding our moral circle to include not just our immediate family and community, but all humans globally, and even non-human animals. This expansion is based on rational consideration of the capacity for suffering and well-being.

Implications of expanding the moral circle:

• Prioritizing global poverty over local causes
• Considering animal welfare in ethical decisions
• Thinking about long-term future and potential existential risks

Challenges:

• Overcoming innate biases towards helping those close to us
• Developing empathy for large numbers of distant individuals
• Balancing personal relationships with impartial ethical considerations

This expanded view of ethics leads effective altruists to consider a wide range of causes and to prioritize those that affect the largest number of sentient beings, regardless of species or location.

6. Career Choice: Aligning Profession with Altruistic Goals

GiveWell is at the opposite end of the spectrum to Charity Navigator. Instead of trying to evaluate all kinds of charities, it began with a focus on charities that help the poor.

Strategic career selection. Effective altruists carefully consider their career choices, aiming to maximize their positive impact on the world. This can involve direct work in high-impact fields, earning to give, or building career capital for future impact.

High-impact career paths:

• Research in neglected but important areas
• Policy and government roles to influence large-scale decisions
• Entrepreneurship in effective non-profits or social enterprises
• Technical roles in artificial intelligence safety

Factors to consider:

• Personal fit and skills
• Neglectedness of the field
• Potential for scalable impact
• Opportunities for skill-building and networking

Organizations like 80,000 Hours provide career advice specifically tailored to those seeking to have a high social impact through their work. They emphasize the importance of considering long-term career trajectories and building versatile skills.

7. Living Modestly: Finding Fulfillment in Giving

Julia realizes that she benefits because Jeff has above-average earnings, but she knows what it is like to live on not much more than the median income in the United States, as she and Jeff had to do it only a few years ago.

The joy of purposeful living. Many effective altruists find that living modestly and giving generously leads to greater life satisfaction than pursuing material wealth. This approach aligns actions with values and provides a sense of purpose.

Benefits of modest living:

• More resources available for effective giving
• Reduced environmental impact
• Freedom from consumerist pressures
• Deeper appreciation for non-material sources of happiness

Strategies for modest living:

• Budgeting and tracking expenses
• Focusing on experiences rather than possessions
• Building community with like-minded individuals
• Setting clear financial and giving goals

Examples like Julia Wise and Jeff Kaufman demonstrate that it's possible to live comfortably while donating a significant portion of income. Many effective altruists report feeling more fulfilled by their giving than by additional consumption.

8. Cause Prioritization: Tackling the Most Neglected Issues

Target groups you care about that other people mostly don't, and take advantage of strategies other people are biased against using.

Finding overlooked opportunities. Effective altruism emphasizes the importance of cause prioritization – identifying which issues are most pressing, tractable, and neglected. This often leads to focusing on areas that receive less attention from traditional philanthropy.

Criteria for cause prioritization:

• Scale: How many individuals does the issue affect, and how deeply?
• Neglectedness: How many resources are already dedicated to the cause?
• Tractability: How solvable is the problem with additional resources?

Examples of prioritized causes:

• Factory farming and animal welfare
• Biosecurity and pandemic prevention
• Artificial intelligence safety
• Global poverty interventions

By focusing on neglected causes, effective altruists can often achieve a greater marginal impact. This approach sometimes leads to counterintuitive conclusions, such as prioritizing animal welfare over more popular human-focused charities.

9. Long-Term Impact: Safeguarding Humanity's Future

If we compare this possible history to a day, what has occurred so far is only a fraction of a second.

Considering future generations. Effective altruism places significant emphasis on long-term outcomes and potential existential risks to humanity. This perspective considers the vast number of future lives that could be affected by our actions today.

Key long-term considerations:

• Existential risks (e.g., artificial intelligence, pandemics, climate change)
• Scientific and technological progress
• Institutional design and global governance
• Moral circle expansion

Challenges of long-term thinking:

• Uncertainty about long-term outcomes
• Difficulty in measuring impact
• Balancing immediate needs with future potential

Organizations like the Future of Humanity Institute focus on these long-term issues, aiming to ensure that humanity has a positive and flourishing long-term future. This approach can sometimes conflict with more immediate concerns but is justified by the potentially enormous impact on future generations.

10. The Rationality of Altruism: Reason as a Motivator for Good

Perhaps it is not love that motivates effective altruists but empathy, the ability to put oneself in the position of others and identify with their feelings or emotions.

The role of reason in ethics. Effective altruism emphasizes the use of reason and evidence in making ethical decisions, rather than relying solely on emotion or intuition. This approach allows for more impartial and potentially more impactful decision-making.

Key aspects of rational altruism:

• Impartiality: Treating all individuals equally, regardless of personal connection
• Quantification: Attempting to measure and compare different outcomes
• Openness to evidence: Willingness to change views based on new information
• Acknowledgment of uncertainty: Considering probabilities and expected value

Challenges to rational altruism:

• Overcoming emotional biases
• Dealing with complex, hard-to-measure outcomes
• Balancing rational considerations with personal relationships and values

While effective altruists recognize the importance of emotion in motivating action, they strive to guide their decisions through careful reasoning and evidence-based analysis. This approach can lead to more effective and far-reaching positive impact.

Last updated: January 24, 2025