Effective altruism
Effective altruism is a social and philosophical movement that uses evidence and reason to find ways of helping others as much as possible.
Cause prioritization: The practice of comparing problem areas to decide where limited resources can do the most good. It directs attention toward problems judged especially large, neglected, and tractable.
Effective giving: Charitable giving guided by evidence about which donations produce the greatest benefits. It is one of the movement’s most direct ways to translate analysis into action.
Longtermism: The view that improving the long-run future is a key moral priority because it may affect vast numbers of people. It is an influential approach within effective altruism, but not a commitment shared by everyone in the movement.
Peter Singer: An Australian moral philosopher known for arguments about animal ethics and duties to people in extreme poverty. His 1972 essay “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” helped shape arguments for giving more effectively.
Open Philanthropy: A philanthropic organization that funds research, policy, global health, and other causes using explicit impact analysis. Its large grants have made movement-linked cause priorities influential beyond individual giving.
Cost-effectiveness analysis: A method for comparing interventions by the outcomes they produce per unit of cost. It helps estimate how much good different charitable interventions achieve for each dollar.
Earning to give: Choosing a high-earning career partly to donate a substantial share of income to effective causes. It applies impact reasoning to career choice rather than only to charitable selection.
Existential risk: A risk that could cause human extinction or permanently and drastically curtail humanity’s potential. Prioritizing these risks has become a prominent and contested application of the movement’s framework.
Famine, Affluence, and Morality: A 1972 essay by Peter Singer arguing that people should prevent serious suffering when they can do so without comparable sacrifice. Its argument became a philosophical precursor to the movement’s demands on affluent donors.
Sam Bankman-Fried: An American entrepreneur who founded the cryptocurrency exchange FTX and was convicted of fraud. His public association with effective altruism intensified scrutiny of the movement after FTX’s collapse.