William MacAskill

MacAskill earned his BA in philosophy at Jesus College, Cambridge, in 2008; his BPhil at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, in 2010; and his DPhil in philosophy at St Anne's College, Oxford, in 2014 (spending a year as a visiting student at Princeton University), supervised by John Broome and Krister Bykvist.[1] He then took up a junior research fellowship at Emmanuel College, Cambridge,[9] before taking an associate professorship at Lincoln College, Oxford.[10]

MacAskill's research has two main focuses. The first addresses the issue of how one ought to make decisions under normative uncertainty; in addition to a DPhil on the topic,[11] he has published on this issue in Ethics,[12] Mind,[13] and The Journal of Philosophy.[14]

His popular writing has been published in The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Independent, Time, The Atlantic, and The Washington Post.[15]

MacAskill has been an advisor to former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.[16] Bill Gates describes him as "a data nerd after my own heart."[17]

MacAskill's second research focus is on effective altruism. His book on the topic, Doing Good Better, was published in 2015, and reviewed in the London Review of Books,[18] The Guardian,[19] and The New York Times.[20]

In the book, he argues that many of the ways people think about doing good achieve very little, but that by applying data and scientific reasoning to the normally sentimental world of doing good, opportunities to have a much larger positive impact can be found. He starts by making the case that in decisions with tradeoffs we can and should choose options which save more lives. He then argues this case in a variety of ways, from saying that doing to effective causes might save far more lives than being a doctor, to making the case that Viktor Zhdanov, who led the eradication of Smallpox in the Soviet Union was "the best person who ever lived". MacAskill also discusses a range of tools to make decisions like these, such as the Disability-adjusted life year and the Importance, Neglectedness, Tractability framework.

MacAskill also explains why fair trade does very little to help the poorest farmers, why boycotting sweatshops makes things worse for the global poor, and why people who pursue high-income careers such as doctors or Wall Street bankers could do more good than charity workers by donating large portions of their wealth to effective charities (ie. Earning to give).[8] He provides the arguments that Fair Trade doesn't provide a feedback mechanism to find if it is benefiting the farmers involved, that while the conditions in sweatshops may be awful, the only alternatives for the people who work there would be much worse, and that the salary of a Wall Street banker is so high that they could donate the salaries of several charity workers, increasing their total number.

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".[21]

In 2016, MacAskill appeared on The Tim Ferriss Show[22] as well as repeatedly on the Making Sense podcast with Sam Harris.[23][24]

In 2018, MacAskill gave a TED talk on effective altruism at the TED conference in Vancouver, which was since viewed more than 2 million times.[25]

MacAskill has a chapter giving advice in Tim Ferriss' book Tools of Titans.

MacAskill (born Crouch) argued that men should consider changing their last names when they get married; he and his fiancée changed their name to "MacAskill", her maternal grandmother's maiden name.[26] MacAskill and his former wife, Amanda, have authored articles together on topics of ethical debate.[27][28]

MacAskill lives in Oxford.[29]

• What We Owe the Future: A Million-Year View. Basic Books, 2022. ISBN 978-1541618626.
• Doing Good Better: Effective Altruism and a Radical Way to Make a Difference. London: Guardian Faber, 2015. ISBN 978-1-78335-049-0.
• with Krister Bykvist and Toby Ord. Moral Uncertainty. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. ISBN 978-1-78335-049-0.
• with Darius Meissner and Richard Yetter Chappell. Utilitarianism.net — an introductory online textbook on utilitarianism.

• Official website
• TED talk: What are the most important problems of our time? (April, 2018)