Peter Singer The Most Good You Can Do Summary

To refer to someone as an “effective altruist,” means they are an individual that has chosen to live their life modestly in order to give more. Effective altruists can do this in several ways. Peter Singer in his book The Most Good You Can Do, four ways he believes an individual can be consider an effective altruist. First, Singer describes that if an individual that has chosen to live modestly in order to donate a large portion of his/her income to an effective charity. An effective charity would be classified as a charity that uses most of the money it receives to benefit those it is serving. A second way Singer believes one can be an effective altruist is through research. Singer explains that researching and discussing which charities are most effective is also beneficial. This is true in …show more content…
As I stated before, an effective charity is a charity that uses all or a large sum of what they get donated in order to benefit those they are serving versus other expenses like salaries, etc. How do we know which charities are effective and which are not? Singer discusses a few organizations that aid in helping us find organizations that will benefit the most in his book The Life You Can Save. These are the charities that when we give to them, we see the impact we have made. Another great thing about these organizations that help us distinguish which charities are effective is that some of them even tell us exactly what our impact is. One organization Singer discusses is the website Charity Navigator. This website has a list of the ten charities that have the highest ratio of administrative expenses to income (82). Another organization Singer discusses in The Life You Can Save, is GiveWell. This organization is dedicated to improving the transparency and effectiveness of charities (84). Both of these organizations are great tools for those interested in giving to charities because they will maximize their possible