When we talk about doing good, or having a positive impact, we mean creating increased well-being: improving the opportunity for others to live healthy, happy and fulfilling lives that are free from unnecessary suffering. How much good an action does therefore depends on how many individuals’ well-being is affected and by how much.
We strive to be impartial about whose welfare we care about. For one thing, we do not attach importance to factors such as ethnicity or gender. We also don’t care where someone lives. If we can do more good with our resources for people who live on the other side of the world, we should prioritize that over doing less good for people who live geographically closer to us, all things being equal. Nor do we believe—and this is probably a thought new to many—that there is good reason to discriminate against the well-being of others based on time. This means that it is important to also take into account future generations when we evaluate how we can do the most good. Finally, we also believe that the welfare of animals should be considered, although we are not sure to what extent, compared to humans.
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What does it mean to “make a difference”? – article by 80,000 Hours