The contemporary effective altruism movement seeks to transform philanthropy in two ways: 1) by directing philanthropy to the most important objectives, and 2) by ensuring that philanthropic dollars ...

Altruism is unselfish concern for the welfare of others. Like ‘empathy’, ‘altruism’ is a modern term, coined by the philosopher Auguste Comte (d. 1857) from the French autrui, which itself derives ...

Imagine that you discover a burning building, with no one else around. Through the windows you see that, in one of the bedrooms, a family of five is trapped. Next door, a small garage that belongs to ...

The Fast Company Executive Board is a private, fee-based network of influential leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. BY Gary Cooper I have many ...

Although the neural mechanisms underlying altruism remain unknown, empathy and its component abilities, such as the perception of the actions and intentions of others, have been proposed as key ...

A computer model of cultural evolution and between-group competition primed with data taken from studies of mankind's hyperviolent early years suggests a bloody origin for a celebrated modern behavior ...

The world’s population tops 7 billion—and counting. Spin the globe, and you’ll encounter all types of compelling problems: a health crisis here, an earthquake there. You want to make a difference, but ...

A new book explores the science of personality change and how to go about it, if you want to improve your life. Research suggests that children are more generous when they give voluntarily. When ...

Artificial intelligence systems absorb values from their training data. The trouble is that values differ across cultures. So ...

Keerthana Gopalakrishnan once considered herself an effective altruist. As a college student in India, she immersed herself in the social movement, reading its canonical texts like Doing Good Better, ...