Effective altruism (EA) is a 21st-century philosophical and

social movement A social movement is a loosely organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a social or political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to resist or undo one. It is a type of group action and may ...

that advocates "using

evidence Evidence for a proposition is what supports this proposition. It is usually understood as an indication that the supported proposition is true. What role evidence plays and how it is conceived varies from field to field. In epistemology, evidenc ...

and reason to figure out how to benefit others as much as possible, and taking action on that basis". People who pursue the goals of effective altruism, sometimes called , may choose careers based on the amount of good that they expect the career to achieve or donate to charities based on the goal of maximising positive impact. They may work on the prioritization of scientific projects, entrepreneurial ventures, and policy initiatives estimated to save the most lives or reduce the most suffering. Effective altruists aim to emphasize impartiality and the global equal consideration of interests when choosing beneficiaries. Popular cause priorities within effective altruism include global health and development, social inequality, animal welfare, and risks to the survival of humanity over the long-term future. The movement developed during the 2000s, and the name was coined in 2011. Philosophers influential to the movement include Peter Singer, Toby Ord, and William MacAskill. What began as a set of evaluation techniques advocated by a diffuse coalition evolved into an identity. With approximately 7,000 people active in the effective altruism community and strong ties to the elite schools in the United States and Britain, effective altruism has become associated with Silicon Valley and the technology industry, forming a tight subculture. The movement received mainstream attention and criticism with the bankruptcy of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX as founder Sam Bankman-Fried was a major funder of effective altruism causes prior to late 2022. Within the

Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gov ...

, it received criticism for having a culture that has been described as toxic and sexually exploitative towards women.

History

Beginning in the latter half of the 2000s, several communities centered around altruist, rationalist, and futurological concerns started to converge, such as: * The evidence-based charity community centered around GiveWell, including

Open Philanthropy Open Philanthropy is a research and grantmaking foundation that makes grants based on the doctrine of effective altruism. It was founded as a partnership between GiveWell and Good Ventures. Its current co-chief executive officers are Holden ...

, which originally came out of GiveWell Labs but then became independent. * The community around pledging and career selection for effective giving, centered around the Giving What We Can and 80,000 Hours organisations. * The

Singularity Institute The Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI), formerly the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (SIAI), is a non-profit research institute focused since 2005 on identifying and managing potential existential risks from artific ...

(now MIRI) for studying the safety of artificial intelligence, the Future of Humanity Institute studying topics such as existential risk, and the '' LessWrong'' discussion forum, which focuses on rationalism. In 2011, Giving What We Can and 80,000 Hours decided to incorporate into an umbrella organization and held a vote for their new name; the "Centre for Effective Altruism" was selected. The

Effective Altruism Global Effective Altruism Global, abbreviated EA Global or EAG, is a series of philanthropy conferences that focuses on the effective altruism movement. The conferences are run by the Centre for Effective Altruism. '' Huffington Post'' editor Nico Pit ...

conference has been held since 2013. As the movement formed, it attracted individuals who were not part of a specific community, but who had been following the Australian moral philosopher Peter Singer's work on applied ethics, particularly "

Famine, Affluence, and Morality "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" is an essay written by Peter Singer in 1971 and published in ''Philosophy & Public Affairs'' in 1972. It argues that affluent persons are morally obligated to donate far more resources to humanitarian causes than ...

" (1972), '' Animal Liberation'' (1975), and ''

The Life You Can Save ''The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty'' is a 2009 book by Australian philosopher Peter Singer, in which the author argues that citizens of affluent nations are behaving immorally if they do not act to end the poverty they know ...

'' (2009). Singer himself used the term in 2013, in a TED talk titled "The Why and How of Effective Altruism".

Notable philanthropists

An estimated $416 million was donated to effective charities identified by the movement in 2019, representing a 37% annual growth rate since 2015. Two of the largest donors in the effective altruism community, Dustin Moskovitz, who had become wealthy through co-founding Facebook, and his wife

Cari Tuna Cari Tuna is an American nonprofit businessperson. Formerly a reporter for ''The Wall Street Journal'', she co-founded and works for the organizations Open Philanthropy and Good Ventures. Education and career Tuna was born in Minnesota. The el ...

, hope to donate most of their net worth of over $11 billion for effective altruist causes through the private foundation

Good Ventures Good Ventures is a private foundation and philanthropic organization in San Francisco, and the fifth largest foundation in Silicon Valley. It was co-founded by Cari Tuna, a former ''Wall Street Journal'' reporter, and her husband Dustin Moskov ...

. Others influenced by effective altruism include Sam Bankman-Fried, as well as professional poker players Dan Smith and Liv Boeree. Jaan Tallinn, the Estonian billionaire founder of Skype, is known for donating to some effective altruist causes. Sam Bankman-Fried launched a philanthropic organization called the FTX Foundation in February 2021, and it made contributions to a number of effective altruist organizations, but it was shut down in November 2022 when FTX collapsed.

Notable publications and media

A number of books and articles related to effective altruism have been published that have codified, criticized, and brought more attention to the movement. In 2015, philosopher Peter Singer published '' The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically''. The same year, the Scottish philosopher and ethicist William MacAskill published '' Doing Good Better: How Effective Altruism Can Help You Make a Difference''. In 2018, American news website '' Vox'' launched its ''Future Perfect'' section, led by journalist

Dylan Matthews Dylan Matthews is an American journalist. He is currently a correspondent for ''Vox (website), Vox'', an online media venture. Professional life Early writing In 2004, at the age of 14, Matthews launched a personal blog on politics and other is ...

, which publishes articles and podcasts on "finding the best ways to do good". In 2019, Oxford University Press published the volume ''Effective Altruism: Philosophical Issues'', edited by Hilary Greaves and Theron Pummer. More recent books have emphasized concerns for future generations. In 2020, the Australian moral philosopher Toby Ord published '' The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity'', while MacAskill published ''

What We Owe the Future ''What We Owe the Future'' is a 2022 book by the Scottish philosopher and ethicist William MacAskill, an associate professor in philosophy at the University of Oxford. It argues for effective altruism and the philosophy of longtermism, which MacA ...

'' in 2022. In 2023, Oxford University Press published the volume ''The Good it Promises, The Harm it Does: Critical Essays on Effective Altruism'', edited by Carol J. Adams, Alice Crary, and

Lori Gruen Lori Gruen is an American philosopher, ethicist, and author who is the William Griffin Professor of Philosophy at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. Such philosophical questions shift the starting point of reasoning from "what to do" to "why" and "how". There is little consensus on the answers, and there are differences between effective altruists who believe that they should do the most good they possibly can with all of their resources and those who only try do the most good they can within a defined budget. According to MacAskill, the view of effective altruism as doing the most good one can within a defined budget can be compatible with a wide variety of views on morality and

meta-ethics In metaphilosophy and ethics, meta-ethics is the study of the nature, scope, and meaning of moral judgment. It is one of the three branches of ethics generally studied by philosophers, the others being normative ethics (questions of how one ought ...

, as well as traditional religious teachings on altruism such as in Christianity. Effective altruism can also be in tension with religion where religion emphasizes spending resources on worship and evangelism instead of causes that do the most good. Other than Peter Singer and William MacAskill, philosophers associated with effective altruism include

Nick Bostrom Nick Bostrom ( ; sv, Niklas Boström ; born 10 March 1973) is a Swedish-born philosopher at the University of Oxford known for his work on existential risk, the anthropic principle, human enhancement ethics, superintelligence risks, and the rev ...

, Toby Ord, Hilary Greaves, and

Derek Parfit Derek Antony Parfit (; 11 December 1942 – 1 or 2 January 2017) was a British philosopher who specialised in personal identity, rationality, and ethics. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential moral philosophers of ...

. Economist

Yew-Kwang Ng Yew-Kwang Ng (; English pronunciation or simply ; born August 7, 1942) is a Malaysian-Australian economist, who is currently Special Chair Professor of Economics at Fudan University, Shanghai, and a Distinguished Fellow of the Academy of th ...

conducted similar research in welfare economics and

moral philosophy Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns ma ...

. The Centre for Effective Altruism lists the following four principles that unite effective altruism: prioritization, impartial altruism, open truthseeking, and a collaborative spirit. These four principles were first called "values" and were added to the cited web page sometime betwee

an

To support people's ability to act altruistically on the basis of impartial reasoning, the effective altruism movement promotes values and actions such as a collaborative spirit, honesty, transparency, and publicly pledging to donate a certain percentage of income or other resources.

Impartiality

Effective altruism aims to emphasize impartial reasoning in that everyone's well-being counts equally. Singer, in his 1972 essay "

",On the influence of Singer's essay "

" see, for example: , , and Singer's arguments for impartiality were later repeated in other books by him (such as , ). wrote:

It makes no moral difference whether the person I can help is a neighbor's child ten yards away from me or a Bengali whose name I shall never know, ten thousand miles away ... The moral point of view requires us to look beyond the interests of our own society. The essay was republished in book form in 2016 with a new preface and two extra essays by Singer:

Impartiality combined with seeking to do the most good leads to prioritizing benefits to those who are in a worse state, because anyone who happens to be worse off will benefit more from an improvement in their state, all other things being equal.

Scope of moral consideration

One issue related to moral impartiality is the question of which beings are deserving of moral consideration. Some effective altruists consider the well-being of non-human animals in addition to humans, and advocate for animal welfare issues such as ending

factory farming Intensive animal farming or industrial livestock production, also known by its opponents as factory farming and macro-farms, is a type of intensive agriculture, specifically an approach to animal husbandry designed to maximize production, while ...

. Those who subscribe to longtermism include future generations as possible beneficiaries and try to improve the moral value of the long-term future by, for example, reducing existential risks.

Criticism of impartiality

The

drowning child analogy "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" is an essay written by Peter Singer in 1971 and published in ''Philosophy & Public Affairs'' in 1972. It argues that affluent persons are morally obligated to donate far more resources to humanitarian causes than i ...

in Singer's essay provoked philosophical debate. In response to a version of Singer's drowning child analogy, philosopher

Kwame Anthony Appiah Kwame Akroma-Ampim Kusi Anthony Appiah ( ; born 8 May 1954) is a philosopher, cultural theorist, and novelist whose interests include political and moral theory, the philosophy of language and mind, and African intellectual history. Appiah wa ...

in 2006 asked whether the most effective action of a man in an expensive suit, confronted with a drowning child, would not be to save the child and ruin his suit—but rather, sell the suit and donate the proceeds to charity. Appiah believed that he "should save the drowning child and ruin my suit". In a 2015 debate, when presented with a similar scenario of either saving a child from a burning building or saving a

Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

painting to sell and donate the proceeds to charity, MacAskill responded that the effective altruist should save and sell the Picasso. Psychologist Alan Jern called MacAskill's choice "unnatural, even distasteful, to many people", although Jern concluded that effective altruism raises questions "worth asking". MacAskill later endorsed a "qualified definition of effective altruism" in which effective altruists try to do the most good "without violating constraints" such as any obligations that someone might have to help those nearby., especially section 4.1, "Misconception #1: Effective altruism is just utilitarianism"; . William Schambra has criticized the impartial logic of effective altruism, arguing that benevolence arising from

reciprocity Reciprocity may refer to: Law and trade * Reciprocity (Canadian politics), free trade with the United States of America ** Reciprocal trade agreement, entered into in order to reduce (or eliminate) tariffs, quotas and other trade restrictions on ...

and face-to-face interactions is stronger and more prevalent than charity based on impartial, detached altruism. Such community-based charitable giving, he wrote, is foundational to civil society and, in turn, democracy. Larissa MacFarquhar said that people have diverse moral emotions, and she suggested that some effective altruists are not unemotional and detached but feel as much empathy for distant strangers as for people nearby. Ross Douthat of ''The New York Times'' criticized the movement's telescopic philanthropy' aimed at distant populations" and envisioned "effective altruists sitting around in a San Francisco skyscraper calculating how to relieve suffering halfway around the world while the city decays beneath them", while he also praised the movement for providing "useful rebukes to the solipsism and anti-human pessimism that haunts the developed world today".

Cause prioritization

A key component of effective altruism is "cause prioritization". Cause prioritization is based on the principle of cause ''neutrality'', the idea that resources should be distributed to causes based on what will do the most good, irrespective of the identity of the beneficiary and the way in which they are helped. By contrast, many non-profits emphasize effectiveness and evidence with respect to a single cause such as education or climate change. One tool that EA-based organizations may use to prioritize cause areas is the framework. Importance is the amount of value that would be created if a problem were solved, tractability is the fraction of a problem that would be solved if additional resources were devoted to it, and neglectedness is the quantity of resources already committed to a cause. The information required for cause prioritization may involve

data analysis Data analysis is a process of inspecting, cleansing, transforming, and modeling data with the goal of discovering useful information, informing conclusions, and supporting decision-making. Data analysis has multiple facets and approaches, enco ...

, comparing possible outcomes with what would have happened under other conditions ( counterfactual reasoning), and identifying uncertainty. The difficulty of these tasks has led to the creation of organizations that specialize in researching the relative prioritization of causes.

Criticism of cause prioritization

This practice of "weighing causes and beneficiaries against one another" was criticized by Ken Berger and Robert Penna of

Charity Navigator Charity Navigator is a charity assessment organization that evaluates hundreds of thousands of charitable organizations based in the United States, operating as a free 501(c)(3) organization. It provides insights into a nonprofit’s financial s ...

for being "moralistic, in the worst sense of the word" and "elitist". William MacAskill responded to Berger and Penna, defending the rationale for comparing one beneficiary's interests against another and concluding that such comparison is difficult and sometimes impossible but often necessary. MacAskill argued that the more pernicious form of elitism was that of donating to art galleries (and like institutions) instead of charity. Ian David Moss suggested that the criticism of cause prioritization could be resolved by what he called "domain-specific effective altruism", which would encourage "that principles of effective altruism be followed within an area of philanthropic focus, such as a specific cause or geography" and could resolve the conflict between local and global perspectives for some donors.

Cost-effectiveness

Some charities are considered to be far more effective than others, as charities may spend different amounts of money to achieve the same goal, and some charities may not achieve the goal at all. Effective altruists seek to identify interventions that are highly cost-effective in

expectation Expectation or Expectations may refer to: Science * Expectation (epistemic) * Expected value, in mathematical probability theory * Expectation value (quantum mechanics) * Expectation–maximization algorithm, in statistics Music * ''Expectation' ...

. Many interventions have uncertain benefits, and the expected value of one intervention can be higher than that of another if its benefits are larger, even if it has a smaller chance of succeeding. One metric effective altruists use to choose between health interventions is the estimated number of quality-adjusted life years (QALY) added per dollar. Some effective altruist organizations prefer randomized controlled trials as a primary form of evidence, as they are commonly considered the highest level of evidence in healthcare research. Others have argued that requiring this stringent level of evidence unnecessarily narrows the focus to issues where the evidence can be developed.

Kelsey Piper Kelsey Piper is an American journalist who is a staff writer at '' Vox'', where she writes for the column ''Future Perfect'', which covers a variety of topics from an effective altruism perspective. While attending Stanford University, she foun ...

argues that uncertainty is not a good reason for effective altruists to avoid acting on their best understanding of the world, because most interventions have mixed evidence regarding their effectiveness. Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry and others have warned about the " measurement problem", with issues such as medical research or government reform worked on "one grinding step at a time", and results being hard to measure with controlled experiments. Gobry also argues that such interventions risk being undervalued by the effective altruism movement. As effective altruism emphasizes a data-centric approach, critics say principles which do not lend themselves to quantification—justice, fairness, equality—get left in the sidelines.

Counterfactual reasoning

Counterfactual reasoning involves considering the possible outcomes of alternative choices. It has been employed by effective altruists in a number of contexts, including career choice. Many people assume that the best way to help others is through direct methods, such as working for a charity or providing social services. However, since there is a high supply of candidates for such positions, it makes sense to compare the amount of good one candidate does to how much good the next-best candidate would do. According to this reasoning, the marginal impact of a career is likely to be smaller than the gross impact.

Differences from utilitarianism

Although EA aims for

maximizing Maximization is a style of decision-making characterized by seeking the best option through an exhaustive search through alternatives. It is contrasted with satisficing, in which individuals evaluate options until they find one that is "good enough" ...

like utilitarianism, EA differs from utilitarianism in a few ways; for example, EA does not claim that people should always maximize the good regardless of the means, and EA does not claim that the good is the sum total of well-being. Toby Ord has described utilitarians as "number-crunching", compared with most effective altruists whom he called "guided by conventional wisdom tempered by an eye to the numbers".

Cause priorities

The principles and goals of effective altruism are wide enough to support furthering any cause that allows people to do the most good, while taking into account cause neutrality. Many people in the effective altruism movement have prioritized global health and development, animal welfare, and mitigating risks that threaten the future of humanity.

Global health and development

The alleviation of global poverty and

neglected tropical diseases Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are a diverse group of tropical disease, tropical infections that are common in low-income populations in Developing country, developing regions of Africa, Asia, and the Americas. They are caused by a variety ...

has been a focus of some of the earliest and most prominent organizations associated with effective altruism. Charity evaluator GiveWell was founded by

Holden Karnofsky Holden Karnofsky is an American nonprofit executive. He is a co-founder and co-chief executive officer of the research and grantmaking organization Open Philanthropy. Karnofsky co-founded the charity evaluator GiveWell with Elie Hassenfeld in 200 ...

and

Elie Hassenfeld GiveWell is an American non-profit charity assessment and effective altruism-focused organization. GiveWell focuses primarily on the cost-effectiveness of the organizations that it evaluates, rather than traditional metrics such as the percentag ...

in 2007 to address poverty, where they believe additional donations to be the most impactful. GiveWell's leading recommendations include: malaria prevention charities

Against Malaria Foundation The Against Malaria Foundation (AMF) is a United-Kingdom based charity that provides long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) to populations at high risk of malaria, primarily in Africa. As of December 2021, the foundation has raised $425 million ...

and

Malaria Consortium Malaria Consortium is an international non-profit organization specializing in the comprehensive control of malaria and other communicable diseases – particularly those affecting children under five. Established in 2003, Malaria Consortium wor ...

, deworming charities

Schistosomiasis Control Initiative The SCI Foundation (SCI), or the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative, is a non-profit initiative that works with governments in sub-Saharan African countries to develop sustainable programmes against parasitic worm infections ( schistosomiasis an ...

and Deworm the World Initiative, and GiveDirectly for direct cash transfers to beneficiaries. The organization The Life You Can Save, which originated from Singer's book of the same name, works to alleviate global poverty by promoting evidence-backed charities, conducting philanthropy education, and changing the culture of giving in affluent countries.

Animal welfare

Improving animal welfare has been a focus of many effective altruists. Singer and Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) have argued that effective altruists should prioritize changes to factory farming over pet welfare. 60 billion land animals are slaughtered and between 1 and 2.7 trillion individual fish are killed each year for human consumption. A number of non-profit organizations have been established that adopt an effective altruist approach toward animal welfare. ACE evaluates animal charities based on their cost-effectiveness and transparency, particularly those tackling factory farming. Other animal initiatives affiliated with effective altruism include

Animal Ethics Animal ethics is a branch of ethics which examines human-animal relationships, the moral consideration of animals and how nonhuman animals ought to be treated. The subject matter includes animal rights, animal welfare, animal law, speciesism, ani ...

' and

Wild Animal Initiative Wild Animal Initiative (WAI) is a nonprofit organization focused on supporting and producing academic research on improving wild animal welfare. It is one of three "Top Charities" recommended by Animal Charity Evaluators. History WAI was fo ...

's work on wild animal suffering, addressing farm animal suffering with cultured meat, and expanding the circle of concern so that people care more about all kinds of animals. Faunalytics focuses on animal welfare research. The

Sentience Institute The Sentience Institute (SI) is an American interdisciplinary think tank that specializes in effective altruism and social movement research. It was founded by Jacy Reese Anthis and Kelly Anthis in June 2017 and has published research reports o ...

is a think tank founded to expand the moral circle to other species.

Long-term future and global catastrophic risks

The ethical stance of longtermism, emphasizing the importance of positively influencing the long-term future, developed closely in relation to effective altruism. Longtermists have proposed that the welfare of future individuals is just as important as the welfare of currently existing individuals, as the prioritization of the former is coextensive with the wellness of the latter. Toby Ord has stated that "the people of the future may be even more powerless to protect themselves from the risks we impose than the dispossessed of our own time". Existential risks, such as dangers associated with biotechnology and

advanced artificial intelligence Strong artificial intelligence may refer to: "Strong Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an artificial intelligence that constructs mental abilities, thought processes, and functions that are impersonated from the human brain. It is more of a phil ...

, are often highlighted and the subject of active research. Existential risks have such huge impacts that achieving a very small change in such a risk—say a 0.0001-percent reduction—"might be worth more than saving a billion people today", reported Gideon Lewis-Kraus in 2022, but he added that nobody in the EA community openly endorses such an extreme conclusion. Organizations that work actively on research and advocacy for improving the long-term future, and have connections with the effective altruism community, are the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford, the

Centre for the Study of Existential Risk The Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) is a research centre at the University of Cambridge, intended to study possible extinction-level threats posed by present or future technology. The co-founders of the centre are Huw Price (Be ...

at the University of Cambridge, and the

Future of Life Institute The Future of Life Institute (FLI) is a nonprofit organization that works to reduce global catastrophic and existential risks facing humanity, particularly existential risk from advanced artificial intelligence (AI). The Institute's work is mad ...

. In addition, the

Machine Intelligence Research Institute The Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI), formerly the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (SIAI), is a non-profit research institute focused since 2005 on identifying and managing potential existential risks from artific ...

is focused on the more narrow mission of managing advanced artificial intelligence.

Approaches

Effective altruists pursue different approaches to doing good, such as donating to effective charitable organizations, using their career to make more money for donations or directly contributing their labor, and starting new non-profit or for-profit ventures.

Donation

Financial donation

Many effective altruists engage in significant charitable donation. Some believe it is a moral duty to alleviate

suffering Suffering, or pain in a broad sense, may be an experience of unpleasantness or aversion, possibly associated with the perception of harm or threat of harm in an individual. Suffering is the basic element that makes up the negative valence of a ...

through donations if other possible uses of those funds do not offer comparable benefits to oneself. Some even lead a frugal lifestyle in order to donate more. Giving What We Can (GWWC) is an organization whose members pledge to donate at least 10% of their future income to the causes that they believe are the most effective. GWWC was founded in 2009 by Toby Ord, who lives on £18,000 ($27,000) per year and donates the balance of his income. In 2020, Ord said that people had donated over $100 million to date through the GWWC pledge. Founders Pledge is a similar initiative, founded out of the non-profit Founders Forum for Good, whereby entrepreneurs make a legally binding commitment to donate a percentage of their personal proceeds to charity in the event that they sell their business. As of April 2023, nearly 1,800 entrepreneurs had pledged over $9 billion and nearly $900 million had been donated.

Organ donation

EA has been used to argue that humans should donate organs, whilst alive or after death, and some effective altruists do.

Career choice

Effective altruists often consider using their career to do good, both by direct service and indirectly through their consumption, investment, and donation decisions. 80,000 Hours is an organization that conducts research and gives advice on which careers have the largest positive impact.

Earning to give

Founding effective organizations

Some effective altruists start non-profit or for-profit organizations to implement cost-effective ways of doing good. On the non-profit side, for example, Michael Kremer and Rachel Glennerster conducted randomized controlled trials in Kenya to find out the best way to improve students' test scores. They tried new textbooks and flip charts, as well as smaller class sizes, but found that the only intervention that raised school attendance was treating intestinal worms in children. Based on their findings, they started the

Deworm the World Initiative The Deworm the World Initiative is a program led by a nonprofit Evidence Action that works to support governments in developing school-based deworming programs in Kenya, India, Ethiopia, and Vietnam. Deworm the World works with the Schistosomiasi ...

. From 2013 to August 2022, GiveWell designated Deworm the World (now run by nonprofit

Evidence Action Evidence Action is an American non-profit organization founded in 2013 that scales cost-effective development interventions with rigorous evidence supporting their efficacy. The organization operates four main programs: the Deworm the World Init ...

) as a top charity based on their assessment that mass deworming is "generally highly cost-effective"; however, there is substantial uncertainty about the benefits of mass deworming programs, with some studies finding long-term effects and others not. The Happier Lives Institute conducts research on the effectiveness of

cognitive behavioral therapy Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a psycho-social intervention that aims to reduce symptoms of various mental health conditions, primarily depression and anxiety disorders. CBT focuses on challenging and changing cognitive distortions (suc ...

(CBT) in developing countries; Canopie develops an app that provides cognitive behavioural therapy to women who are expecting or postpartum; Giving Green analyzes and ranks climate interventions for effectiveness; the Fish Welfare Initiative works on improving animal welfare in fishing and aquaculture; and the Lead Exposure Elimination Project works on reducing

lead poisoning Lead poisoning, also known as plumbism and saturnism, is a type of metal poisoning caused by lead in the body. The brain is the most sensitive. Symptoms may include abdominal pain, constipation, headaches, irritability, memory problems, inferti ...

in developing countries.

Incremental versus systemic change

While much of the initial focus of effective altruism was on direct strategies such as health interventions and cash transfers, more

systematic Systematic may refer to: Science * Short for systematic error * Systematic fault * Systematic bias, errors that are not determined by chance but are introduced by an inaccuracy (involving either the observation or measurement process) inheren ...

social, economic, and political reforms have also attracted attention. Mathew Snow in ''

Jacobin , logo = JacobinVignette03.jpg , logo_size = 180px , logo_caption = Seal of the Jacobin Club (1792–1794) , motto = "Live free or die"(french: Vivre libre ou mourir) , successor = Pa ...

'' wrote that effective altruism "implores individuals to use their money to procure necessities for those who desperately need them, but says nothing about the system that determines how those necessities are produced and distributed in the first place". Philosopher

Amia Srinivasan Amia Srinivasan (born 20 December 1984) is a philosopher. Since January 2020, she has been Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at the University of Oxford. Early life and education Srinivasan was born on 20 December 1984 in Bahra ...

criticized William MacAskill's ''

Doing Good Better ''Doing Good Better: Effective Altruism and How You Can Make a Difference'' is a 2015 book by William MacAskill that serves as a primer on the effective altruism movement that seeks to do the most good. It is published by Random House and was re ...

'' for a perceived lack of coverage of

global inequality International inequality refers to inequality between countries, as compared to global inequality, which is inequality between people across countries. International inequality research has primarily been concentrated on the rise of internati ...

and oppression, while noting that effective altruism is in principle open to whichever means of doing good is most effective, including political advocacy aimed at systemic change. Srinivasan said, "Effective altruism has so far been a rather homogeneous movement of middle-class white men fighting poverty through largely conventional means, but it is at least in theory a broad church."

Judith Lichtenberg Judith Lichtenberg (born 1948) is an American philosopher and Professor Emerita of Philosophy at Georgetown University. She is known for her works on ethics and political philosophy. Books *''Distant Strangers: Ethics, Psychology, and Global Pov ...

in '' The New Republic'' said that effective altruists "neglect the kind of structural and political change that is ultimately necessary". An article in '' The Ecologist'' published in 2016 argued that effective altruism is an apolitical attempt to solve political problems, describing the concept as "pseudo-scientific". The Ethiopian-American AI scientist Timnit Gebru has condemned effective altruists "for acting as though their concerns are above structural issues as racism and colonialism", as Gideon Lewis-Kraus summarized her views in 2022. Philosophers such as Susan Dwyer, Joshua Stein, and

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò (; born 1990) is an American philosopher and professor of philosophy at Georgetown University. He is the author of two books: ''Reconsidering Reparations'' and ''Elite Capture''. Grist.org has described him as "one of Ame ...

have criticized effective altruism for furthering the disproportionate influence of wealthy individuals in domains that should be the responsibility of democratic governments and organizations. Arguments have been made that movements focused on systemic or institutional change are compatible with effective altruism. Philosopher Elizabeth Ashford posits that people are obligated to both donate to effective aid charities and to reform the structures that are responsible for poverty. Open Philanthropy has given grants for progressive advocacy work in areas such as criminal justice, economic stabilization, and housing reform, despite pegging the success of political reform as being "highly uncertain".

Psychological research

Researchers in psychology and related fields have identified psychological barriers to effective altruism that can cause people to choose less effective options when they engage in altruistic activities such as charitable giving.

Controversies

Sam Bankman-Fried, the eventual founder of the

cryptocurrency exchange A cryptocurrency exchange, or a digital currency exchange (DCE), is a business that allows customers to trade cryptocurrencies or digital currencies for other assets, such as conventional fiat money or other digital currencies. Exchanges may acce ...

FTX FTX Trading Ltd., commonly known as FTX (short for "Futures Exchange") is a bankrupt company that formerly operated a cryptocurrency exchange and crypto hedge fund. The exchange was founded in 2019 and, at its peak in July 2021, had over one mi ...

, had a seminal lunch with philosopher William MacAskill in 2012 while he was an undergraduate at MIT in which MacAskill encouraged him to go earn money and donate it, rather than volunteering his time for causes. Bankman-Fried went on to a career in investing and around 2019 became more publicly associated with the effective altruism movement, announcing that his goal was to "donate as much as ecan". Bankman-Fried founded the FTX Future Fund, which brought on MacAskill as one of its advisers, and which made a $13.9 million grant to the Centre for Effective Altruism where MacAskill holds a board role. After the collapse of FTX in late 2022, the movement underwent additional public scrutiny. Bankman-Fried's relationship with effective altruism has been called into question as a public relations strategy, while the movement's embrace of him proved damaging to its reputation. Some journalists asked whether the effective altruist movement was "complicit" in FTX's collapse, because it was convenient for leaders to overlook specific warnings about Bankman-Fried's behavior or questionable ethics at the trading firm Alameda. However, several leaders of the effective altruism movement, including William MacAskill and

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, condemned FTX's actions. MacAskill emphasized that bringing about good consequences does not justify violating rights or sacrificing integrity. Critiques arose not only in relation to Bankman-Fried's role and his close association with William MacAskill, but also concerning issues of exclusion and

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. A 2023 Bloomberg article featured some members of the effective altruism community who criticized the philosophy as masking a culture of predatory behavior. In a 2023 '' Time'' magazine article, seven women reported misconduct and controversy in the effective altruism movement. They accused men within the movement, typically in the

, of using their power to groom younger women for polyamorous sexual relationships. The accusers argued that the majority male demographic and the polyamorous subculture combined to create an environment where sexual misconduct was tolerated, excused or rationalized away. In response to the accusations, the Centre for Effective Altruism told ''Time'' that some of the alleged perpetrators had already been banned from the organization and said it would investigate new claims. The organization also argued that it is challenging to discern to what extent sexual misconduct issues were specific to the effective altruism community or reflective of broader societal misogyny.

Other criticism of the movement

While originally the movement leaders were associated with frugal lifestyles, the arrival of big donors, including Bankman-Fried, led to more spending and opulence, which seemed incongruous to the movement's espoused values. In 2022, the Centre for Effective Altruism purchased the estate of

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for the purpose of running workshops.

Other prominent people

Businessman Elon Musk described MacAskill's book ''What We Owe the Future'' as "a close match for my philosophy". Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt has publicly stated he would like to bring the ideas of effective altruism to a broader audience. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, has called effective altruism an "incredibly flawed movement" that shows "very weird emergent behavior". Effective altruist concerns about AI risk were present among the OpenAI board members who fired Altman in November 2023.

Notes and references

External links

EffectiveAltruism.org
an online introduction and resource compilation on effective altruism {{Evidence-based practice