Doing Good Better: Effective Altruism and a Radical New Way to Make a Difference
by William MacAskill (Guardian/Faber, £14.99)

The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically
by Peter Singer (Yale, £14.99)

A decade or so ago, I worked in an office on Tottenham Court Road in London. As well as being home to a sizeable proportion of the capital’s electrical goods emporia, the street was also a favourite of charity fundraisers—those young people with clipboards and winning smiles sometimes referred to dismissively as “charity muggers.”Like most of my colleagues, whenever I left the building I would try to avoid eye contact with them. But occasionally a snatched conversation with a representative of some charity or other would cause me to wonder how you might go about choosing between the many good causes asking for your money. Why give to a domestic charity supporting research into cancer, say, when you could be giving to one dedicated to improving the lives of millions in the poorest parts of the world? How many charities sh…

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