How to be an Effective Altruist

A charity event presented by London Thinks, Effective Altruism and Giving What We Can in aid of the Against Malaria Foundation.

Peter Singer‘s ideas have been disturbing our complacency ever since the appearance of Animal Liberation. Now he directs our attention to a new movement in which his own ideas have played a crucial role: effective altruism.

Effective altruism is built upon the simple but profound idea that living a fully ethical life involves doing the “most good you can do.” Such a life requires an unsentimental view of charitable giving: to be a worthy recipient of our support, an organization must be able to demonstrate that it will do more good with our money or our time than other options open to us.

Peter Singer shows how living altruistically often leads to greater personal fulfillment than living for oneself.

His most recent book, The Most Good You Can Do, helps to develop the challenges Singer has made to those who donate to the arts, and to charities focused on helping our fellow citizens, rather than those for whom we can do the most good. Effective altruists are extending our knowledge of the possibilities of living less selfishly, and of allowing reason, rather than emotion, to determine how we live.

The event will be chaired by philosopher, Nigel Warburton.

Nigel Warburton is a freelance philosopher, writer, and podcaster. He is author of A Little History of Philosophy, interviewer for the popular Philosophy Bites podcast, and most recently wrote 48 animation scripts to accompany the BBC Radio 4 ‘History of Ideas’ series.

Peter Singer is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, and a Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne. He specialises in applied ethics and approaches ethical issues from a secular, utilitarian perspective.

All profits from this event will be donated to the Against Malaria Foundation.