Adapted from the book "Doing Good Better: How Effective Altruism Can Help You Make a Difference" by William MacAskill http://www.effectivealtruism.com/

1. DOING GOOD
BETTER

2. Effective altruism asks:
“HOW CAN I MAKE THE
BIGGEST DIFFERENCE I CAN?”
and uses evidence & careful reasoning
to try to find an answer. It takes a
scientific approach to doing good.

3. Just as SCIENCE consists
of the HONEST AND
IMPARTIAL ATTEMPT TO
WORK OUT WHAT’S TRUE,
and a commitment to
believe the truth
whatever that turns
out to be… LEARN MORE

4. …EFFECTIVE ALTRUISM
consists of the HONEST
AND IMPARTIAL ATTEMPT
TO WORK OUT WHAT’S
BEST FOR THE WORLD,
and a commitment to
do what’s best,
whatever that turns
out to be.
LEARN MORE

5. These 5 questions will
guide you in your quest to
ensure you’re making not just
a difference, but the most
difference you can.
LEARN MORE

6. HOW MANY
PEOPLE
BENEFIT?
AND BY
HOW MUCH?
1!
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7. We need to make hard
decisions about who we help
and who we don’t; that means
thinking about how much
benefit is provided by different
activities. The quality-adjusted
life year allows us to compare
the impact of different
sorts of health programs.
OUTCOME
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8. IS THIS
THE MOST
EFFECTIVE
THING YOU
CAN DO?
2!
LEARN MORE

9. The very best health and
education programs are
hundreds of times better than
“merely” very good programs.
For example, smallpox
eradication did so much
good that it alone shows
development aid to be
highly cost-effective on
average.
IMPACT
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10. IS THIS
AREA
NEGLECTED?
3!
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11. Natural disasters get far more funding
than ongoing causes of death and
suffering such as disease; for that
reason, disaster relief usually isn’t the
most effective use of funds. Diseases,
like malaria, that affect people in the
developing world, get far less funding
than conditions like cancer; for that
reason you have a much bigger
impact treating people with
malaria than with cancer.
NEED
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12. WHAT
WOULD HAVE
HAPPENED
OTHERWISE?
4!?
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13. INEVITABLEThis question helps us
to avoid trying to do
good works that would
happen with or without
our involvement.
In careers like medicine,
you’re sometimes simply
doing good work that
would have happened
anyway.
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14. WHAT ARE
THE CHANCES
OF SUCCESS,
AND HOW
GOOD WOULD
SUCCESS BE?
5!
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15. REWARDSome activities—such as
voting, entering politics,
campaigning for systemic
change, or mitigating risks of
global catastrophe—are
effective not because they’re
likely to make a difference
but because their impact
is so great if they do
make a difference.
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16. "Beautifully written
and extremely smart.
DOING GOOD BETTER
should be required
reading for anyone
interested in making
the world better."
—STEVEN LEVITT,
Author of Freakonomics
GET BOOK HERE