Doing Good
An Introduction to Effective Altruism
About the Course
About the Course
That’s where effective altruism comes in. It’s a movement that uses evidence-based research and careful analysis to determine the most effective way to improve the lives of others. Altruism refers to enhancing the welfare of other people rather than ourselves. Effectiveness refers to using reason and evidence to do the most good we can with the limited resources we have.
In this four-week live and online course, Doing Good: An Introduction to Effective Altruism, you’ll discover the principles of effective altruism, sharpen your moral reasoning skills, explore the most pressing existential risks to humanity (such as artificial intelligence and biotechnology), and most importantly, understand how to put everything you learnt into practice.
With instruction from a leading figure in the effective altruism movement, as well as a community of like-minded peers, you’ll finish the course prepared to live more in line with your values and ready to make the world a better place.
And the best part: all proceeds from this course go directly to charity. Start your effective altruism journey now and register below!
About your instructor
Luke K. Freeman
Course structure
The course consists of four 90-minute classes and takes place in our virtual classroom over Zoom.
It is a live and interactive course, which features:
- Assigned readings,
- Live lectures,
- Live Q&A sessions with the instructor,
- and Zoom breakout rooms with your intellectually curious classmates.
Can’t make the live classes? No dramas! All lessons are recorded and accessible forever.
To maintain an optimal learning environment, classes are kept small — so be quick in securing your spot!
Lecture Schedule
Over the course of Week 1 we aim to introduce you to the core principles of Effective Altruism. This week we’ll investigate what opportunities to do good we have available to us; come to terms with the trade-offs we face in our altruistic efforts; and explore tools that can help us find unusually high impact opportunities.
In this week’s session we build on last week’s themes by discussing expanding the moral circle (who we are considering) with regards to how much we value different lives, whether they be people, future generations, or animals. We will then discuss the implications of these considerations on effective cause area recommendations.
One of the main ways in which we can affect the world for the better is through our actions. For this final week we hope to help you apply the principles of effective altruism to your own life and also critically reflect back on the rest of the course.
What You'll Learn
Principles
Worthy Causes
