As for his various eccentricities, I don’t think they add anything to an understanding of his philosophy, but I find him very moving as a person. When I was interviewing him for the first time, for instance, we were in the middle of a conversation and suddenly he burst into tears. It was completely unexpected, because we were not talking about anything emotional or personal, as I would define those things. I was quite startled, and as he cried I sat there rewinding our conversation in my head, trying to figure out what had upset him. Later, I asked him about it. It turned out that what had made him cry was the idea of suffering. We had been talking about suffering in the abstract.
The person who broke down in tears during an interview is actually Derek Parfit, also an effective altruist. Source: http://bostonreview.net/books-ideas-mccoy-family-center-ethics-society-stanford-university/lives-moral-saints
Thanks for the correction. Idk why I thought it was Toby Ord.