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Doing Good Better
Book

Doing Good Better

How Effective Altruism Can Help You Make a Difference

William MacAskill
Gotham Books, 2015

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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Applicable

Recommendation

With so many people needing help and thousands of worthy causes vying for your donations, how do you decide where to invest your time, energy and money? William MacAskill, the co-founder of the nonprofit organizations Giving What We Can and 80,000 Hours, offers a framework of scientific reasoning to address this problem. His approach to “effective altruism” includes asking, “How can I make a substantial positive impact?” and he uses hard evidence and thoughtful analysis to find the answer. getAbstract recommends MacAskill’s practical approach to leaders of charities, to those responsible for corporate giving and to anyone who wants to “do good better.”

Take-Aways

  • In charitable endeavors, “unreflective altruism” results in good intentions failing to produce the desired positive effects.
  • “Effective altruism” requires taking an analytical approach to philanthropy.
  • The money you donate goes 100 times further in helping the extremely poor than it does when you spend it on yourself.

About the Author

William MacAskill is a co-founder of the effective altruism movement. He also co-founded two nonprofit organizations – Giving What We Can and 80,000 Hours. MacAskill is an associate professor of philosophy at Lincoln College, Oxford University.

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