Internationally renowned philosopher Peter Singer presents a challenging new movement in the search for an ethical life, one that has emerged from his work on some of the world's most pressing problems.

Effective altruism requires a rigorously unsentimental view of charitable giving: a substantial proportion of our money, and time, should be donated to the organisations that will do the most good with those resources, rather than those that tug the heartstrings.

Singer introduces us to an array of remarkable people who are restructuring their lives in accordance with these ideas, and shows how, paradoxically, effective altruism often leads to profound personal fulfilment.