William MacAskill

{{short description|Scottish philosopher and ethicist (born 1987)}}

{{Infobox philosopher

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| name = William MacAskill

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| image = William MacAskill Portrait 2015 (cropped).jpg

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| caption = MacAskill in 2015

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| birth_name = William David Crouch

| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1987|03|24|df=y}}

| birth_place = Glasgow, Scotland

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| spouse = {{Marriage|Amanda Askell|end=div.}}

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| era = Contemporary philosophy

| region = Western philosophy

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| school_tradition = Analytic

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| thesis_title = Normative Uncertainty

| thesis_url = https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5506078de4b02d88372eee4e/t/5bc723b5104c7bf5cc8f3881/1539777748456/MacAskill-Normative-Uncertainty.pdf

| thesis_year = 2014

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| main_interests = {{Hlist|Ethics|political philosophy|decision theory|philosophy and economics{{Citation needed|date=April 2024}}|utilitarianism}}

| notable_ideas = {{Hlist|Effective altruism|longtermism}}

| website = {{URL|williammacaskill.com}}

}}

William David MacAskill ({{Ne}} Crouch; born 24 March 1987){{Cite web |title=Centre for Effective Altruism |url=https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07962181/filing-history?page=3 |website=Companies House |publisher=GOV.UK |at=Director's details changed for William David Crouch on 5 November 2013}} is a Scottish philosopher and author, as well as one of the originators of the effective altruism movement.{{Cite news|last=Thompson|first=Derek|date=2015-06-15|title=The Greatest Good|work=The Atlantic|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/06/what-is-the-greatest-good/395768/|access-date=2020-07-29|issn=1072-7825}}{{cite news|last1=Diver|first1=Tony|title=While the papers whine about Oxbridge debauchery, student altruism gets ignored|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2017/03/01/papers-whine-oxbridge-debauchery-student-altruism-gets-ignored/|access-date=15 August 2017|work=The Telegraph|date=1 March 2017}}{{Cite magazine |last=Lewis-Kraus |first=Gideon |date=2022-08-08 |title=The Reluctant Prophet of Effective Altruism |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/15/the-reluctant-prophet-of-effective-altruism |access-date=2022-08-10 |magazine=The New Yorker}} He was a Research Fellow at the Global Priorities Institute at the University of Oxford, co-founded Giving What We Can, the Centre for Effective Altruism and 80,000 Hours,{{Cite web|last=Quaade|first=Sebastian|date=2018-04-05|title=An Interview with William MacAskill, Founding Member of Effective Altruism|url=https://thepolitic.org/an-interview-with-william-macaskill-founding-member-of-effective-altruism/|access-date=2020-07-29|website=The Politic}} and is the author of Doing Good Better (2015){{Cite book|last=MacAskill|first=William|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TxFACgAAQBAJ|title=Doing Good Better: Effective Altruism and a Radical New Way to Make a Difference|publisher=Guardian Faber|year=2015|isbn=978-1-78335-049-0|location=London|oclc=920597471}} and What We Owe the Future (2022),{{Cite book |title=What We Owe the Future by William MacAskill |url=https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/william-macaskill/what-we-owe-the-future/9781541618633/ |access-date=2022-08-08 |date=6 December 2021 |isbn=9781541618633 |last1=MacAskill |first1=William |publisher=Basic Books }} and the co-author of Moral Uncertainty (2020).{{Cite book |last1=MacAskill |first1=William |url=https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/42728/9780198722274.pdf |title=Moral Uncertainty |last2=Bykvist |first2=Krister |last3=Ord |first3=Toby |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2020 |isbn=978-0-19-872227-4 |location=Oxford, New York}}

Early life and education

MacAskill was born William Crouch in 1987 and grew up in Glasgow.{{Cite magazine |last=Bajekal |first=Naina |date=2022-08-10 |title=Want to Do More Good? This Movement Might Have the Answer |url=https://time.com/6204627/effective-altruism-longtermism-william-macaskill-interview/ |access-date=2022-08-10 |magazine=Time}}{{cite news |url=https://www.ft.com/content/091862f9-985f-4769-aa37-1aed32636329 |title=Philosopher William MacAskill: 'The world is a darker place than it was just five years ago' |publisher=Financial Times |date=9 September 2022 |last=Tett |first=Gillian |accessdate=26 January 2023}} He was educated at Hutchesons' Grammar School in Glasgow.{{Cite news |last=Morrison |first=Hamish |date=2022-08-15 |title=William MacAskill: Effective altruism philosopher backs Scottish independence |work=The National |url=https://www.thenational.scot/news/20659546.william-macaskill-effective-altruism-philosopher-backs-scottish-independence/ |access-date=2022-08-28}} 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.{{Cite news |last=Anthony |first=Andrew |date=2022-08-21 |title=William MacAskill: 'There are 80 trillion people yet to come. They need us to start protecting them' |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/21/william-macaskill-what-we-owe-the-future-philosopher-interview |access-date=2022-08-28}} At the age of 18, MacAskill read Peter Singer's 1972 essay "Famine, Affluence, and Morality", which motivated his philosophical and charitable interests.

MacAskill earned his BA in philosophy at Jesus College, Cambridge in 2008 and BPhil at St Edmund Hall, Oxford in 2010. He went on to be awarded a DPhil at St Anne's College, Oxford in 2014 (spending a year as a visiting student at Princeton University), supervised by John Broome and {{ill|Krister Bykvist|sv}}.{{Citation needed|date=April 2024}} He then took up a junior research fellowship at Emmanuel College, Cambridge,{{Cite magazine |date=2015 |title=New People |url=http://media.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/magazine/Oxford%20Philosophy%207.pdf |magazine=Oxford Philosophy |page=7 |access-date=2020-07-29}} before being elected to an associate professorship at the University of Oxford in association with a Fellowship at Lincoln College, Oxford, which he left after one year.{{Cite magazine |date=2016 |title=Members: The Senior Common Room 2015–16 |url=https://www.lincoln.ox.ac.uk/uploads/files/Web%20version.pdf |magazine=Lincoln College Record 2015–16 |page=9 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200413144203/https://www.lincoln.ox.ac.uk/uploads/files/Web%20version.pdf |archive-date=2020-04-13 |access-date=2020-07-29}}

Career

= Effective altruism =

In 2009, MacAskill and fellow Oxford graduate student Toby Ord co-founded the organisation Giving What We Can to encourage people to pledge to donate 10% of their income to charities "that you sincerely believe to be among the most effective at improving the lives of others".{{Cite web |title=Our pledge |url=https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/pledge |access-date=2023-03-30 |website=Giving What We Can |language=en}} He co-founded the Centre for Effective Altruism in 2011 as an umbrella organisation of Giving What We Can and 80,000 Hours,{{Cite web |date=2017-09-20 |title=What's bad about being good? |url=https://news.st-andrews.ac.uk/long-reads/effective-altruism/ |access-date=2022-08-28 |website=News |publisher=University of St Andrews}} which he co-founded with Benjamin Todd, to provide advice on how to use one's career to do the most good in the world. In 2018, MacAskill gave a TED talk on effective altruism at the TED conference in Vancouver.{{Cite video|url=https://www.ted.com/talks/will_macaskill_what_are_the_most_important_moral_problems_of_our_time|title=What are the most important moral problems of our time?|date=April 2018|last=MacAskill|first=William|type=video|publisher=TED}}

MacAskill has worked as chair of the advisory board at the Global Priorities Institute at the University of Oxford{{Cite web |title=People |url=https://globalprioritiesinstitute.org/people/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220623073929/https://globalprioritiesinstitute.org/people/ |archive-date=2022-06-23 |access-date=2020-07-29 |website=Global Priorities Institute}} and Director of the Forethought Foundation for Global Priorities Research.{{Cite news |last= |first= |date=2022-08-09 |title=Three Sentences That Could Change the World — and Your Life |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/09/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-will-macaskill.html |access-date=2022-08-17 |issn=0362-4331}} He is an advisor to Longview Philanthropy.{{Cite web |title=People |url=https://www.longview.org/people |access-date=2022-08-28 |website=Longview Philanthropy}}

He was associated with Sam Bankman-Fried for a number of years and reportedly dismissed claims that Bankman-Fried was engaging in inappropriate conduct as a "he said-she said" during an effort in 2018 to oust Bankman-Fried from control of the now-failed trading firm Alameda Research. He was a member of the FTX Future Fund, which granted $160 million to effective altruism causes in 2022, including $33 million to organizations directly connected to MacAskill. Following the bankruptcy of FTX, MacAskill and the rest of the team resigned from the fund.{{Cite web |date=2022-11-11 |title=Sam Bankman-Fried's 'Effective Altruism' Team Resigns Amid FTX Meltdown |url=https://gizmodo.com/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-effective-altruism-crypto-1849773116 |access-date=2022-11-11 |website=Gizmodo}}

In 2022, as tech magnate Elon Musk sought funding for his purchase of Twitter, MacAskill liaised between Musk and Bankman-Fried. Musk and MacAskill were previously acquainted; Musk described What We Owe the Future as "a close match for my philosophy".{{Cite news |last=Kulish |first=Nicholas |date=2022-10-08 |title=How a Scottish Moral Philosopher Got Elon Musk's Number |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/08/business/effective-altruism-elon-musk.html |access-date=2024-05-12 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}} MacAskill contacted Musk to arrange a conversation with Bankman-Fried, describing him as "my collaborator".{{cite magazine |last1=Alter |first1=Charlotte |date=15 March 2023 |title=Exclusive: Effective Altruist Leaders Were Warned About Sam Bankman-Fried Years Before FTX Collapsed |language=en |magazine=Time |url=https://time.com/6262810/sam-bankman-fried-effective-altruism-alameda-ftx/ |access-date=15 March 2023}} Ultimately, Bankman-Fried, whose corporate ventures were facing a case, United States v. Bankman-Fried, did not participate in the acquisition.{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/08/business/effective-altruism-elon-musk.html |title=How a Scottish Moral Philosopher Got Elon Musk's Number | work=New York Times |date=2022-10-08 |access-date=2023-03-15}}

= Analytic philosophy =

One of the main focuses of MacAskill's research has been how one ought to make decisions under normative uncertainty; this was the topic of his DPhil thesis,{{Cite thesis |last=MacAskill |first=William |title=Normative Uncertainty |date=2014 |degree=DPhil |publisher=University of Oxford |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/MACNU}} as well as articles in Ethics,{{Cite journal |last=MacAskill |first=William |date=2013-04-01 |title=The Infectiousness of Nihilism |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/669564 |journal=Ethics |volume=123 |issue=3 |pages=508–520 |doi=10.1086/669564|s2cid=143796585 |issn=0014-1704}} Mind{{Cite journal |last=MacAskill |first=William |date=October 2016 |title=Normative Uncertainty as a Voting Problem |url=https://academic.oup.com/mind/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/mind/fzv169 |journal=Mind |volume=125 |issue=500 |pages=967–1004 |doi=10.1093/mind/fzv169 |issn=0026-4423}} and The Journal of Philosophy.{{Cite journal |last=MacAskill |first=William |date=2016 |title=Smokers, Psychos, and Decision-Theoretic Uncertainty |url=http://www.pdcnet.org/oom/service?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=&rft.imuse_id=jphil_2016_0113_0009_0425_0445&svc_id=info:www.pdcnet.org/collection |journal=The Journal of Philosophy |volume=113 |issue=9 |pages=425–445 |doi=10.5840/jphil2016113929 |issn=0022-362X}}

Books

= ''Doing Good Better'' =

MacAskill's first book, Doing Good Better, was published in 2015.{{Cite news |url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n18/amia-srinivasan/stop-the-robot-apocalypse |title=Stop the Robot Apocalypse |last=Srinivasan |first=Amia |date=2015-09-24 |work=London Review of Books |access-date=2018-09-09 |pages=3–6 |issn=0260-9592}}{{Cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/20/doing-good-better-william-macaskill-review |title=Doing Good Better by William MacAskill review – if you read this book, you'll change the charities you donate to |last=Shariatmadari |first=David |date=2015-08-20 |work=The Guardian |access-date=2018-09-09}}{{Cite news |last=Cowen |first=Tyler |date=2015-08-14 |title=Effective Altruism: Where Charity and Rationality Meet |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/upshot/effective-altruism-where-charity-and-rationality-meet.html|access-date=2020-07-29 |issn=0362-4331}}{{Cite web |date=2015-12-04 |title=Effective Altruism: A Better Way to Lead an Ethical Life |url=https://www.intelligencesquared.com/events/effective-altruism-a-better-way-to-lead-an-ethical-life/ |access-date=2019-12-08 |website=Intelligence Squared }} MacAskill argues that many of the ways people think about doing good achieve very little, but that by applying data and scientific reasoning to doing good, people can have a much larger positive impact. For example, the book proposes that fair trade does very little to help the poorest farmers, that boycotting sweatshops is bad for the global poor, and that 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. However, 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".{{Cite web|date=2015-07-06|title=80,000 Hours thinks that only a small proportion of people should earn to give long term|url=https://80000hours.org/2015/07/80000-hours-thinks-that-only-a-small-proportion-of-people-should-earn-to-give-long-term/|access-date=2022-01-08|website=80,000 Hours}}

= ''What We Owe the Future'' =

MacAskill's second book, What We Owe the Future, makes the case for longtermism.{{Cite news |last=Burkeman |first=Oliver |date=2022-08-25 |title=What We Owe the Future by William MacAskill review – a thrilling prescription for humanity |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/aug/25/what-we-owe-the-future-by-william-macaskill-review-a-thrilling-prescription-for-humanity |access-date=2024-05-12 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}{{Cite web |title=What We Owe the Future by William MacAskill — our obligation to the unborn billions |url=https://www.ft.com/content/bd9e8141-b97e-4e7a-8038-8d1dbe99d54d |access-date=2024-05-12 |website=Financial Times|date=20 September 2022 |last1=Harford |first1=Tim }}{{Cite book |last=MacAskill |first=William |title=What We Owe the Future |title-link=What We Owe the Future |publisher=Basic Books |year=2022 |isbn=978-1-5416-1862-6 |location=New York |author-link=William MacAskill}}{{Rp|pages=35–36}} His argument has three parts: first, future people count morally as much as the people alive today; second, the future is immense because humanity may survive for a very long time; and third, the future could be very good or very bad, and our actions could make the difference. 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 if humanity survives.

Personal life

MacAskill (born Crouch) argued that men should consider changing their last names when they get married. He and his now ex-wife, Amanda Askell, changed their last name to "MacAskill", her maternal grandmother's maiden name.{{Cite web|last=MacAskill|first=William|date=2013-03-05|title=Men Should Consider Changing Their Last Names When They Get Married|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/03/men-should-consider-changing-their-last-names-when-they-get-married/273718/|access-date=2020-07-29|website=The Atlantic}} MacAskill and his former wife authored articles together on topics of ethical debate{{Cite web |last1=MacAskill |first1=Amanda| last2=MacAskill |first2=William |date=2015-09-09 |title=To truly end animal suffering, the most ethical choice is to kill wild predators (especially Cecil the lion) |url=https://qz.com/497675/to-truly-end-animal-suffering-the-most-ethical-choice-is-to-kill-all-predators-especially-cecil-the-lion/ |access-date=2020-07-29 |website=Quartz }}{{Cite news |last1=MacAskill |first1=William |last2=MacAskill |first2=Amanda |date=2015-11-19 |title=The truth about animal charities, cats and dogs |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/19/charity-animals-cats-dog |access-date=2020-07-29 |issn=0261-3077}} before their separation in 2015 and later divorce.

MacAskill has experienced both anxiety and depression. As of 2022, he lives in Oxford. Out of concern for animal welfare, he is vegetarian.{{Cite book |last=MacAskill |first=William |title=What we owe the future |date=2022 |publisher=Basic Books |isbn=978-1-5416-1863-3 |publication-date=2022 |page=309 |chapter=How to Act}}