William MacAskill
William MacAskill (né Crouch; born 24 March 1987) is a Scottish philosopher, ethicist, and one of the originators of the effective altruism movement. He is Associate Professor in Philosophy at the University of Oxford, a researcher at the Global Priorities Institute at Oxford, and Director of the Forethought Foundation for Global Priorities Research. MacAskill is also the co-founder and president of 80,000 Hours, the co-founder and vice-president of Giving What We Can, and the co-founder and president of the Centre for Effective Altruism. He is the author of the 2015 book "Doing Good Better : Effective Altruism and a Radical New Way to Make a Difference." Education and career. 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 . He then took up a junior research fellowship at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, before taking an associate professorship at Lincoln College, Oxford. 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, he has published on this issue in "Ethics", "Mind", and "The Journal of Philosophy". His popular writing has been published in "The New Yorker", "The Guardian", "The Independent", "Time", "The Atlantic", and "The Washington Post". MacAskill has been an advisor to former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Bill Gates describes him as "a data nerd after my own heart." Section::::"Doing Good Better". 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", "The Guardian", and "The New York Times". 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). 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". Talks and media appearances. In 2016, MacAskill appeared on "The Tim Ferriss Show" as well as repeatedly on the "Making Sense" podcast with Sam Harris. 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. MacAskill has a chapter giving advice in Tim Ferriss' book "Tools of Titans". Personal life. 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. MacAskill and his former wife, Amanda, have authored articles together on topics of ethical debate. MacAskill lives in Oxford.