What is Effective Altruism?

Combining empathy with evidence

Effective Altruism (EA) is an intellectual project and social movement that advocates the use of careful reasoning to determine the most effective ways of improving the world. The core idea is simple: the world is filled with so much injustice and suffering—from climate change to global extreme poverty to pandemics & infectious diseases—yet each of us only has one life and career to try to make the world a better place. Effective Altruism provides a framework to think about the scope of different global problems, determine which causes are most pressing, consider which cause is the best fit for you to work on, and plan your career to improve the world in that domain.

A few key principles characterize Effective Altruism thinking:

• Impact-oriented: Good intentions are essential, but to make sure that we are actually improving people’s lives, we need to focus on the material effects of our actions. Effective Altruism-aligned organizations put exceptional effort into collaborating with at-risk communities to learn about where resources should be allocated. 

• Openness to many causes: Since there are so many different problems that we can spend our lives tackling, Effective Altruism advocates thinking carefully, using the best available evidence, to determine which cause has the potential to do the most good. Effective Altruism takes seriously the idea that the most important causes—those that have the greatest potential to reduce suffering and improve lives—may at first appear intuitively surprising, such as factory farming or reducing risks from artificial intelligence. 

• The necessity of triage: We can only do so much. While we maintain solidarity across different projects to reduce suffering and injustice, choosing a career usually means focusing on one specific project to help the world. EA proposes that we should think about which project has the best chance at helping others the most, in combination with being the best personal fit. 

To learn more about Effective Altruism, we recommend watching the video below by one of its founders, William MacAskill. We also recommend watching the talks below by Peter Singer, another founder of Effective Altruism, and Ajeya Cotra, a former UC Berkeley student. If these concepts interest you, consider getting involved with Effective Altruism at UCLA!