What is Effective Altruism?

Effective Altruism (EA) is a global community and philosophy that began in the late 2000s. It focuses on using evidence and reason to do the most good. EA aims to identify the world’s most pressing problems and work collaboratively to solve them, whether through career choices, donations, or innovative projects.

Today, tens of thousands of people worldwide are actively engaged in EA, and the movement has inspired the creation of over 100 organizations dedicated to tackling global challenges such as extreme poverty, animal welfare, and existential risks.

Four Core Principles

EA is guided by four core principles:

• Scope sensitivity: Saving ten lives is more important than saving one, and saving a thousand lives is a lot more important than saving ten.

• Scout mindset: We can better help others and understand the world if we think clearly and orient towards finding the truth, rather than trying to defend our own ideas and being unaware of our biases.

• Impartiality: With the resources we choose to devote to helping others, we strive to help those who need it the most without being partial to those who are similar to us or immediately visible to us. (In practice, this often means focusing on structurally neglected and disenfranchised groups, like people in low-income countries, animals, and future generations.)

• Recognition of tradeoffs: Because we have limited time and money, we need to prioritize when deciding how we might improve the world.