The why and how of effective altruism
Based on the TED Talk by Peter Singer
In this TED Talk, Peter Singer describes how our society can be helpful towards suffering people. He stress the fact that we need to help not only based in our emotions, but mainly based on our reason. For Singer, altruism needs to provoke the best consequences to all those involved on it, which is a rational idea called consequentialism.
My impressions about this lecture by Peter Singer is that is so easy to be altruist and helpful to society, yet we see ourselves as unable to change the bad side of our reality. His speech also talks about the efficiency of altruism, due to the fact we cannot only use our hearts (emotions) in helping, because it will likely not be useful the way it could be, therefore we need to use our brains (reason).
This lecture can be related to the area of knowing: ethics; and to the ways of knowing: reason and emotions.
Knowledge Questions:
- What role does emotion play in the knower's altruism?
- To what extent are humans influenced by emotions to behave in a certain way?
- Can altruism only be based on reason, lacking therefore of emotion?
