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Lots of people say they want to “make a difference,” “do good,” “have a social impact,” or “make the world a better place” — but they rarely say what they mean by those terms.

By getting clearer about your definition, you can better target your efforts. So how should you define social impact?

Over two thousand years of philosophy have gone into that question. We’re going to try to sum up that thinking; introduce a practical, rough-and-ready definition of social impact; and explain why we think it’s a good definition to focus on.

This is a bit ambitious for one article, so to the philosophers in the audience, please forgive the enormous simplifications.

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Outline:

(00:51) A simple definition of social impact

(02:25) A simple definition of social impact

(03:43) In a nutshell

(06:44) Social impact is about making the world better

(10:47) What does it mean to make the world better?

(11:10) Impartiality: everyone matters equally

(14:47) Wellbeing: what does it mean to help others?

(17:56) How good is it to create a happy person?

(19:05) Expected value: acting under uncertainty

(20:02) Why do we say “without sacrificing anything that might be of comparable moral importance”?

(22:03) Is this just utilitarianism?

(23:47) Conclusion

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