Understanding Effective Altruism

Ben’s been thinking a lot about effective altruism recently, including what it really is, how it's framed, and how people misunderstand it.

We recently released an article on misconceptions about effective altruism – based on Will MacAskill’s recent paper The Definition of Effective Altruism – and this episode can act as a companion piece.

Links to learn more, summary and full transcript.

Arden and Ben cover a bunch of topics related to effective altruism:

• How it isn’t just about donating money to fight poverty
• Whether it includes a moral obligation to give
• The rigorous argument for its importance
• Objections to that argument
• How to talk about effective altruism for people who aren't already familiar with it

Given that we’re in the same office, it’s relatively easy to record conversations between two 80k team members — so if you enjoy these types of bonus episodes, let us know at podcast@80000hours.org, and we might make them a more regular feature.

Get this episode by subscribing: type 80,000 Hours into your podcasting app. Or read the linked transcript.

Producer: Keiran Harris.
Audio mastering: Ben Cordell.
Transcriptions: Zakee Ulhaq.