Insites
Doing Good Better
What is Effective Altruism?
In this talk, Dr William MacAskill will give an introduction to the ideas and arguments behind effective altruism: the use of evidence and careful reasoning to do as much good as possible. He’ll explain what that means in practice, why so many people are changing their careers on the basis of effective altruist principles, and, finally, why these arguments have led him to the view that protecting future generations should be a key moral priority of our time.
Dr William MacAskill (University of Oxford)
Dr William MacAskill is a Scottish philosopher and author, 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, and Director of the Forethought Foundation for Global Priorities Research. Will 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.
