William MacAskill – författare

The challenges we face are enormous. But we can still secure a positive future for our planet, and for everyone on it.In What We Owe The Future, philosopher William MacAskill persuasively argues for longtermism, the idea that positively influencing the distant future is a moral priority of our time. It isn’t enough to mitigate climate change or avert the next pandemic. We can ensure that civilization would rebound if it collapsed; cultivate value pluralism; and prepare for a planet where the most sophisticated beings are digital and not human.'Unapologetically optimistic and bracingly realistic, this is the most inspiring book on ‘ethical living’ I’ve ever read.' Oliver Burkeman, Guardian‘A monumental event.' Rutger Bregman, author of Humankind‘A book of great daring, clarity, insight and imagination. To be simultaneously so realistic and so optimistic, and always so damn readable… well that is a miracle for which he should be greatly applauded.’ Stephen Fry

From the Sunday Times bestselling author, the 10th anniversary edition of Doing Good Better: a radical, reassuring reassessment of how we can most effectively help others in an era of global instability.FEATURING A NEW FOREWORD'A surprising and often counterintuitive look at the best ways to make a difference. [MacAskill] is that rarest of beasts: a do-gooder who uses his head more than his heart.' Sunday Times'MacAskill is a data nerd after my own heart.' Bill GatesWe might donate to charity, buy ethically-sourced products, and try to cut down on our carbon emissions, but how do we know if we're really helping? In a world beset by crisis after crisis, it's easy to feel cynical and powerless to change anything.Confronting this problem, William MacAskill helped develop a concept which went on to become a global movement: effective altruism, a practical, data-driven approach which shows that each of us has the power to do an astonishing amount of good, given the right information. Doing Good Better is an essential guide which shows how, through simple actions, you can improve thousands of lives - including your own.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.Very often we're uncertain about what we ought, morally, to do. We don't know how to weigh the interests of animals against humans, how strong our duties are to improve the lives of distant strangers, or how to think about the ethics of bringing new people into existence. But we still need to act. So how should we make decisions in the face of such uncertainty? Though economists and philosophers have extensively studied the issue of decision-making in the face of uncertainty about matters of fact, the question of decision-making given fundamental moral uncertainty has been neglected. Philosophers William MacAskill, Krister Bykvist, and Toby Ord try to fill this gap. Moral Uncertainty argues that there are distinctive norms that govern how one ought to make decisions. It defends an information-sensitive account of how to make such decisions by developing an analogy between moral uncertainty and social choice, arguing that the correct way to act in the face of moral uncertainty depends on whether the moral theories in which one has credence are merely ordinal, cardinal, or both cardinal and intertheoretically comparable. It tackles the problem of how to make intertheoretical comparisons, discussing potential solutions and the implications of their view for metaethics and practical ethics.

The challenges we face are enormous. But we can still secure a positive future for our planet, and for everyone on it.In What We Owe The Future, philosopher William MacAskill persuasively argues for longtermism, the idea that positively influencing the distant future is a moral priority of our time. It isn’t enough to mitigate climate change or avert the next pandemic. We can ensure that civilization would rebound if it collapsed; cultivate value pluralism; and prepare for a planet where the most sophisticated beings are digital and not human.'Unapologetically optimistic and bracingly realistic, this is the most inspiring book on ‘ethical living’ I’ve ever read.' Oliver Burkeman, Guardian‘A monumental event.' Rutger Bregman, author of Humankind‘A book of great daring, clarity, insight and imagination. To be simultaneously so realistic and so optimistic, and always so damn readable… well that is a miracle for which he should be greatly applauded.’ Stephen Fry

An Introduction to Utilitarianism: From Theory to Practice is a state-of-the-art text, simultaneously accessible to introductory students and informative for more advanced readers. Two key features set it apart. First, its comprehensive coverage of the arguments for and against utilitarianism is unparalleled. Second, it takes seriously the practical implications of utilitarianism for how we should live, with a particular emphasis on utilitarianism's impartial beneficence and its focus on effectiveness. Guided by the conviction that practical ethics is more about how best to use our limited time and resources than which victims to hit with trolleys in thought experiments, its practical upshots should prove amenable to utilitarians and non-utilitarians alike.

A radical reassessment of how we can most effectively help others by a rising star of philosophy and leading social entrepreneur.'A surprising and often counterintuitive look at the best ways to make a difference . . . MacAskill is that rarest of beasts: a do-gooder who uses his head more than his heart.'SUNDAY TIMESMost of us want to make a difference. We donate to charity, buy Fairtrade coffee, or try to cut down on our carbon emissions. Rarely do we know if we're really helping, and despite our best intentions, our actions can have ineffective - and sometimes downright harmful - outcomes. Confronting this problem, William MacAskill developed the concept of effective altruism, a practical, data-driven approach which shows that each of us has the power to do an astonishing amount of good, given the right information. His conclusions are often surprising; by examining the charities we give to, the goods we buy and the careers we pursue, Doing Good Better is a fascinating and original guide which shows how, through simple actions, you can improve thousands of lives - including your own.'A data nerd after my own heart.'BILL GATES'Required reading for anyone interested in making the world better.'STEVEN LEVITT, co-author of Freakonomics'Effective altruism - efforts that actually help people rather than making you feel good or helping you show off - is one of the great new ideas of the 21st century. Doing Good Better is the definitive guide to this exciting new movement.'STEVEN PINKER, author of The Better Angels of Our Nature