William MacAskill: Effective Altruism

Forthcoming in The Norton Introduction to Ethics

PDF Download

Other papers

How cost-effective are efforts to detect near-Earth-objects? – Toby Newberry (Future of Humanity Institute, University of Oxford)

Near-Earth-objects (NEOs) include asteroids and comets with orbits that bring them into close proximity with Earth. NEOs are well-known to have impacted Earth in the past, sometimes to catastrophic effect…

How to neglect the long term – Hayden Wilkinson (Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford)

Consider longtermism: the view that, at least in some of the most important decisions facing agents today, which options are morally best is determined by which are best for the long-term future. Various critics have argued that longtermism is false—indeed, that it is obviously false, and that we can reject it on normative grounds without close consideration of certain descriptive facts. In effect, it is argued, longtermism would be false even if real-world agents had promising means…

Moral uncertainty and public justification – Jacob Barrett (Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford) and Andreas T Schmidt (University of Groningen)

Moral uncertainty and disagreement pervade our lives. Yet we still need to make decisions and act, both in individual and political contexts. So, what should we do? The moral uncertainty approach provides a theory of what individuals morally ought to do when they are uncertain about morality…