It is my pleasure to introduce William MacAskill for an AMA at 1pm PST. William is an Associate Professor in Philosophy at Oxford University, and author of Doing Good Better. He is the cofounder of the non-profits Giving What We Can and 80,000 Hours, which have raised over $400 million in lifetime pledged donations to charity and helped to spark the effective altruism movement. Ask questions in advance... :)!
@jacqvon In a few ways. Historically he's been sympathetic to the view that wellbeing consists in preference-satisfaction, whereas I've been more sympathetic to the view that wellbeing consists in positive experiences; he's been sympathetic to the view that moral statements are more like expressions of desires, whereas I've been more sympathetic to the view that moral statements are attempts to describe facts just like scientific statements. However, I've heard that recently he's been coming round to my perspective!
The biggest difference is our relationship to utilitarianism. Peter is a die-hard utilitarian. I'm sympathetic to utilitarianism, and think there are very strong arguments for that view, but it's not how I guide my choices. Instead, as I argue in my PhD, I think you should give weight to a variety of different moral views in which you have some degree of confidence, and then choose actions that represent the best compromise between those views. That means I think we do have strong obligations to help others; but also that I think you shouldn't e.g. kill one person to save the greater number.
@jeffumbro That's hard to say. I think the biggest idea contained in it (which I also talk about) is that of cause-neutrality. Normally when people talk about effectiveness they talk about how to be as effective as possible within a cause (like US education, or animal welfare, or extreme poverty), but choose a cause based on personal passion. Cause-neutrality (or 'strategic cause selection') is about being open to the idea of pursuing programs within any cause, and being willing to change your mind about which cause to focus on. I think that's very important. Even the very most effective programs that are tackling US poverty just aren't, in my view, going to compare to the most effective programs tackling extreme poverty. So if you chose the wrong cause, you could lose most of your impact.
The evolution of mission-driven organizations is fascinating. You've got companies like Catchafire revolutionizing the way we volunteer. Then, there are younger non-profits such as Pencils of Promise and charity:water that are changing how people think about philanthropy through exceptional marketing and impact transparency. Finally, we're seeing waves of for-profit companies, such as TOMS and Sevenly, who's business models revolve around conscious consumerism and giving.
The work they all do is meaningful and so inspiring. But, on a macro level, how effective do you think these organizations are at fostering change? If there a better/faster/more scalable way?
@melissajoykong I think it's great that there are so many people wanting to create big organisations for social change. But I think what's lacking is a better understanding of which programs are most effective. charity:water builds wells, which is easy for the general public to understand but isn't the most effective water-related program; Pencils of Promise build schools, which is similarly easy to understand but isn't the most effective educational program; kids do wear TOMS shoes, but they don't seem to have an impact on school attendence or self-esteem.
So I think it's cool that business-savvy folks are entering this space, and I'd like to see it happen more. But people should bear in mind that it's very hard to do good effectively, that there's a massive body of scientific evidence that can help us do good effectively, and if you don't pay attention to that and instead just do something that's sexy or sellable, you'll probably squander most of your impact.
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