It's both a philosophical outlook on life and an emerging movement.
The outlook on life is one of saying, I want my life
to make a positive difference to the world, to make the world a better place.
Not necessarily that everything I do in my life will be directed toward that,
you don't have to be a saint to be an effective altruist.
But a significant part of your life will be aimed at making the world better and
that's the altruistic part, if you like.
The effective part of it is,
but you want to use those resources that you have, whether it's time,
skills, money, you want to use them as effectively as possible.
You want to get the best value that you can for
what you're putting into making the world a better place.
So that's why you want to do the most good that you can with those resources.
So how do you do that?
That's one of the things we're going to start talking about in this course,
beginning with our responsibilities towards people living in extreme poverty.