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William David MacAskill (; born 24 March 1987) is a Scottish philosopher and
author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...
, as well as one of the originators of the effective altruism movement. He is an Associate Professor in Philosophy and Research Fellow at the Global Priorities Institute at the
University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in contin ...
, and Director of the Forethought Foundation for Global Priorities Research. MacAskill is also the co-founder of Giving What We Can, the Centre for Effective Altruism and 80,000 Hours. He is the author of the 2015 book '' Doing Good Better'', the 2022 book '' What We Owe the Future'', and co-author of the 2020 book ''Moral Uncertainty.''


Early life and education

MacAskill was born William Crouch in 1987, and grew up in Glasgow. MacAskill was educated at
Hutchesons' Grammar School Hutchesons' Grammar School is a co-educational independent day school for pupils aged 3-18 in Glasgow, Scotland. It was founded as Hutchesons' Boys' Grammar School by George Hutcheson and Thomas Hutcheson in 1641 It is a selective school, ...
in Glasgow. At the age of 15, after learning about how many people were dying as a result of AIDS, he made the decision to work towards becoming wealthy and giving away half of his money. At the age of 18, MacAskill read
Peter Singer Peter Albert David Singer (born 6 July 1946) is an Australian moral philosopher, currently the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. He specialises in applied ethics and approaches ethical issues from a secular, ...
's 1972 essay " Famine, Affluence, and Morality", which later became a guiding principle for his life. MacAskill earned a BA in philosophy at
Jesus College, Cambridge Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's full name is The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge. Its common name comes f ...
, in 2008 followed by a BPhil at
St Edmund Hall, Oxford St Edmund Hall (sometimes known as The Hall or informally as Teddy Hall) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. The college claims to be "the oldest surviving academic society to house and educate undergraduates in any universit ...
in 2010. He went on be awarded a DPhil at
St Anne's College, Oxford St Anne's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It was founded in 1879 and gained full college status in 1959. Originally a women's college, it has admitted men since 1979. It has some 450 undergraduate and ...
in 2014 (spending a year as a visiting student at
Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the n ...
), supervised by John Broome and Krister Bykvist. He then took up a junior research fellowship at
Emmanuel College, Cambridge Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer to Elizabeth I. The site on which the college sits was once a priory for Dominican m ...
, before taking an associate professorship at
Lincoln College, Oxford Lincoln College (formally, The College of the Blessed Mary and All Saints, Lincoln) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford, situated on Turl Street in central Oxford. Lincoln was founded in 1427 by Richard Fleming, t ...
.


Career

In 2009, MacAskill, along with Toby Ord, co-founded the organisation Giving What We Can to encourage people to pledge to donate 10% of their income to effective charities. He co-founded the Centre for Effective Altruism in 2011 as an umbrella organisation of Giving What We Can and 80,000 hours, which he co-founded with Benjamin Todd, to provide advice on how to use your career to do the most good in the world. MacAskill is Chair of the Advisor Board at the Global Priorities Institute at the University of Oxford and Director of the Forethought Foundation for Global Priorities Research. He is an advisor to Longview Philanthropy. MacAskill was named in the team list of the ''FTX Future Fund'' that committed around $160 million in grants. However, following the bankruptcy of FTX, MacAskill and the rest of the team resigned from the FTX Future Fund.


Research

One of the main focuses of MacAskill's research has been the issue of how one ought to make decisions under normative uncertainty; this was the topic of his dissertation for his DPhil. MacAskill has published on this issue in ''Ethics'', ''Mind'', and '' The Journal of Philosophy''. He was named as external investigator on a December 2017 grant to the
Center for Election Science The Center for Election Science (CES) is an American 501(c)(3) organization that focuses on voter education and promoting election science. The organization promotes electoral systems favored by social choice theorists, primarily cardinal vo ...
from Open Philanthropy.


Books


''Doing Good Better''

MacAskill's first book, ''Doing Good Better'', was published in 2015. In the book, MacAskill argues that many of the ways people think about doing good achieve very little, but that by applying data and
scientific reasoning Models of scientific inquiry have two functions: first, to provide a descriptive account of ''how'' scientific inquiry is carried out in practice, and second, to provide an explanatory account of ''why'' scientific inquiry succeeds as well as it ap ...
to the normally sentimental world of doing good, opportunities to have a much larger positive impact can be found. The book goes on to propose that
fair trade Fair trade is an arrangement designed to help producers in developing countries achieve sustainable and equitable trade relationships. The fair trade movement combines the payment of higher prices to exporters with improved social and envir ...
does very little to help the poorest farmers, how boycotting sweatshops makes things worse for the global poor, and why people who pursue high-income careers could do more good than charity workers by donating large portions of their wealth to effective charities i.e. earning to give. In the same year the book was published, MacAskill deemphasised earning to give saying "only a small proportion of people should earn to give long term".


''What We Owe the Future''

MacAskill's second book, ''What We Owe the Future'', makes the case for longtermism. His argument for longtermism has three parts: first, future people count morally as much as the people alive today; second, the future is immensely big since humanity may survive for a very long time; and third, the future could be very good or very bad, and our actions may affect what it will be. The book also discusses how bad the end of humanity would be, which depends on whether the future will be good or bad and whether it is morally good for happy people to be born—a key question in population ethics. He concludes that the future will likely be positive on balance. ''What We Owe the Future'' received coverage in ''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issue ...
'', ''
Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, t ...
'', and ''
The Bookseller ''The Bookseller'' is a British magazine reporting news on the publishing industry. Philip Jones is editor-in-chief of the weekly print edition of the magazine and the website. The magazine is home to the ''Bookseller''/Diagram Prize for Oddest ...
''. Adaptations of the book's central thesis have been published by MacAskill in ''
Foreign Affairs ''Foreign Affairs'' is an American magazine of international relations and U.S. foreign policy published by the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, membership organization and think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and ...
,'' ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'','''' and the BBC.


Talks and media appearances

MacAskill has appeared on ''
The Tim Ferriss Show Timothy Ferriss (born July 20, 1977) is an American entrepreneur, investor, author, podcaster, and lifestyle guru. He became well-known through his ''4-Hour'' self-help book series—including ''The 4-Hour Work Week'', ''The 4-Hour Body'', and '' ...
'', the '' Making Sense'' podcast with Sam Harris, and '' The Ezra Klein Show'' podcasts. In 2022, he appeared on ''
The Daily Show with Trevor Noah ''The Daily Show'' is an American late-night talk and satirical news television program. It airs each Monday through Thursday on Comedy Central with release shortly after on Paramount+. ''The Daily Show'' draws its comedy and satire form from ...
'' to discuss his book ''What We Owe the Future''. In 2018, MacAskill gave a
TED talk TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". TED was founded by Richard Sau ...
on effective altruism at the TED conference in Vancouver. MacAskill has a chapter giving advice in Tim Ferriss' book '' Tools of Titans''.


Personal life

MacAskill (born Crouch) argues that men should consider changing their last names when they get married. He and his ex-wife changed their last name to "MacAskill", her maternal grandmother's maiden name. MacAskill and his former wife authored articles together on topics of ethical debate. They separated in 2015 and later divorced. MacAskill has experienced both anxiety and depression. Out of concern for animal welfare, he is a
vegetarian Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat ( red meat, poultry, seafood, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slaughter. Vegetaria ...
. MacAskill lives in
Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the Un ...
.


Publications

* ''What We Owe the Future''. Basic Books, 2022. . * ''Doing Good Better: Effective Altruism and a Radical Way to Make a Difference''. London: Guardian Faber, 2015. . * with Krister Bykvist and Toby Ord.
Moral Uncertainty
'. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. . * with Darius Meissner and Richard Yetter Chappell
Utilitarianism.net
— an introductory online textbook on
utilitarianism In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for all affected individuals. Although different varieties of utilitarianism admit different charac ...
.


References


External links

*
TED talk: What are the most important problems of our time?
(April, 2018) {{DEFAULTSORT:MacAskill, William 1987 births 21st-century essayists 21st-century non-fiction writers 21st-century Scottish male writers 21st-century Scottish philosophers Academics from Glasgow Alumni of Jesus College, Cambridge Alumni of St Anne's College, Oxford Alumni of St Edmund Hall, Oxford Analytic philosophers Anti-poverty advocates Contemporary philosophers Cultural critics Founders of charities Founders of philosophical traditions Freethought writers Futurologists Living people Moral philosophers People associated with effective altruism People associated with the University of Oxford People educated at Hutchesons' Grammar School People from Glasgow Philosophers of culture Philosophers of economics Philosophers of ethics and morality Philosophers of history Philosophers of mind Philosophers of science Philosophers of social science Philosophy academics Philosophy teachers Philosophy writers Probability theorists Rationality theorists Scottish essayists Scottish ethicists Scottish non-fiction writers Scottish philosophers Scottish political philosophers Social critics Textbook writers Theorists on Western civilization Utilitarians Writers about activism and social change Writers about globalization Writers from Glasgow