There is a growing movement called effective altruism. It's important because it combines both the heart and the head.
Interpretation
Effective altruism emphasizes a rational and emotional approach to doing good.
This quote by Peter Singer highlights the essence of effective altruism, which is a philosophy advocating for using evidence and reason to determine the most effective ways to benefit others. Singer suggests that effective altruism is significant because it merges both emotional compassion and logical reasoning, leading to more impactful charitable actions.
In practice
In a speech about philanthropy, one could use this quote to emphasize the balance of heart and thought in charitable efforts.
The belief that the animals exist because God created them - and that he created them so we can better meet our needs - is contrary to our scientific understanding of evolution and, of course, to the fossil record, which shows the existence of non-human primates and other animals millions of years before there were any human beings at all.
Pain and suffering are in themselves bad and should be prevented or minimized, irrespective of the race, sex, or species of the being that suffers. How bad a pain is depends on how intense it is and how long it lasts, but pain of the same intensity and duration are equally bad, whether felt by humans or animals.
What is faith? If you believe something because you have evidence for it, or rational argument, that is not faith. So faith seems to be believing something despite the absence of evidence or rational argument for it.
Almost everybody accepts that some people can be killed. 'The concept of 'brain death' - the belief that people on respirators can legitimately be killed - shows that.
If we all think only of our own interests, we are headed for collective disaster - just look at what we are doing to our planet's climate.
Even in the era of AIDS, sex raises no unique moral issues at all. Decisions about sex may involve considerations about honesty, concern for others, prudence, and so on, but there is nothing special about sex in this respect, for the same could be said of decisions about driving a car. (In fact, the moral issues raised by driving a car, both from an environmental and from a safety point of view, are much more serious than those raised by sex.)
Lies are essential to humanity. They are perhaps as important as the pursuit of pleasure and moreover are dictated by that pursuit.
That which we die for lives as wholly as that which we live for dies.
One must pass through the network of influence. One is obligated to be influenced, and one accepts this influence very naturally. From the start, one doesn't realize this. The first thing to know: one doesn't realize one is influenced. One thinks he is already liberated, and one is far from it!
Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference.
Whatever else it might be, the divine is certainly the thing that imposes with maximum intensity the sensation of being alive.
In proportion as a church is holy, in that proportion will its testimony for Christ be powerful.
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