William MacAskill

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.

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

He has been an advisor to former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Bill Gates described him as ‘a data nerd after my own heart.’

In 2018, MacAskill gave a TED talk on effective altruism at the TED conference in Vancouver, which was released on the 12 September 2018.

In 2016, MacAskill appeared on the podcast “Making Sense” with Sam Harris, as well as the “Tim Ferriss Show” with Tim Ferriss.

He is the author of the 2015 book Doing Good Better: Effective Altruism and a Radical New Way to Make a Difference.

MacAskill earned his BA in philosophy at Jesus College, Cambridge, his BPhil at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, 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. He then took up a junior research fellowship at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, before taking an associate professorship at Lincoln College, Oxford.

William MacAskill (born William Crouch, 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.