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 ...

In 1971, the philosophy department at Oxford University was confronted with an unusual student. One of the few vegetarians on campus, Peter Singer staged alarming demonstrations with papier-mâché ...

I've got a new article in the New Yorker this week about the persistent paradox of altruism. It's subscription only, but here's the beginning: The vampire bat emerges from its cave at the darkest hour ...

Children raised in nonreligious households are more generous than those from religious families, according to a study published this month in the journal Current Biology. In a test involving 1,170 ...

Spot and change behaviors that undermine your own altruistic goals. Delusional altruism is rampant in the philanthropic sector. I coined the term “Delusional Altruism ® ” to describe situations in ...

Sign up for the Concord Monitor's morning newsletter and get essential news each day. Sign up Life is complex. The more black and white we try to make it, the further ...

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 ...

The countries with more individualistic values are also the countries with higher levels of altruism, according to an upcoming study in the journal Psychological Science. A team of psychologists from ...

In today’s inter-connected world some of the most innovative models for social innovation will become those that can modularize, “crowdsource,” and aggregate small tasks. Philanthropy was once ...

On 21st Street, between L and K, there is a homeless man who sits perched atop his small pile of possessions, observing, with a kind of detached curiosity, Washington’s harried pedestrians. I pass him ...

Altruism might have evolved for fairly selfish reasons, at least in insects. When a warring termite colony loses its king and queen — the only members capable of reproduction — then its survivors ...