Extreme poverty is not only a condition of unsatisfied material needs. It is often accompanied by a degrading state of powerlessness.

I don't see how anyone could really think that if you have a choice between saving the life of one person and saving the lives of a million people, to say - well, I've saved the one - can you really take that seriously? I can't.

Effective altruism is the form of altruism in which we bring our rational capacities to bear in order to do the most good that we can.

To be a utilitarian means that you judge actions as right or wrong in accordance with whether they have good consequences. So you try to do what will have the best consequences for all of those affected.

Of all the arguments against voluntary euthanasia, the most influential is the slippery slope: once we allow doctors to kill patients, we will not be able to limit the killing to those who want to die.

Becoming a vegetarian is not merely a symbolic gesture. Nor is it an attempt to isolate oneself from the ugly realities of the world, to keep oneself pure and so without responsibility for the cruelty and carnage all around. Becoming a vegetarian is a highly practical and effective step one can take toward ending both the killing of nonhuman animals and the infliction of suffering on them.

We need to learn how to capture and kill wild fish humanely - or, if that is not possible, to find less cruel and more sustainable alternatives to eating them.