Joshua Greene

Instead, we need to step back and think.

And maybe where that puts us is

a world in which we care more about other people, care more about other species, are willing to make certain sacrifices when necessary, but also listen to our hearts when they tell us that we're possibly doing something wrong.

But I think that self-knowledge is incredibly useful.

Well, we've created a donation platform that's supposed to help with this.

So with the trolley problem, the trolley problem feels like an impossible dilemma.

There is no happy solution to the footbridge case.

Either you're letting more people die, four people more dead than is necessary, or you're committing what feels like an act of murder.

And unless you sort of change the situation, you're stuck with that.

There is a similar kind of dilemma getting more into Peter Singer's zone, which is about where you give and how you give.

Most people, myself included, want to give from the heart.

They want to give to things that they feel personally connected to.

And if you love animals, that might mean giving to the local animal shelter.

Or if your grandmother died of breast cancer, you might want to give to a breast cancer charity.

And that makes sense, right?

And I want to support my local schools and food bank and things like this.

But the charities that actually do the most good are almost always not the ones that are closest to our heart.

And the difference between a typical charity, a typical good charity, and the charities that are most effective is enormous.

The difference between a really effective charity and a typical charity, it's like a redwood versus a shrub.

It's like a hundred times, or in some cases, like a thousand times.