Collection Set: What We Owe the Future / Doing Good Better

by William MacAskill

Collection Set: What We Owe the Future / Doing Good Better

624 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2022

About the author

I'm Will MacAskill, an Associate Professor in Philosophy at Lincoln College, Oxford, and author of Doing Good Better (Gotham Books, 2015). I've also cofounded two non-profits: 80,000 Hours, which provides research and advice on how you can best make a difference through your career, and Giving What We Can, which encourages people to commit to give at least 10% of their income to the most effective charities. These organisations helped to spark the effective altruism movement.

Reviews

[Anders Lisdorf · Rating 4 out of 5]

I must admit I came to this book following the controversy after the fall of Sam Bankman-Fried(SBF). He was a vocal proponent of effective altruism, and his companies, FTX and Alameda Research, were built according to this philosophy. The movement developed after 2000, and the name was only coined in 2011, so it is one of the newest philosophical directions. MacAskill is one of the central influencers of this movement. The core of MacAskil’s book is to provide a long-term view of ethical action and evaluate the effect of actions far into the future rather than the immediate term, which has been common. He advocates an evidence-based view of ethical action that maximizes the impact. As an example, it is rumored that MacAskil convinced SBF to build a company and earn money that he could later donate rather than focus on volunteering since this was more likely to have a greater impact. The views are thus grounded in a consequentialist ethical framework where the impact of the action is what is important. The obvious problem, of course, is that it is very hard to know the future and the effect your actions will have. I myself am not convinced that he nailed it when it comes to AI or climate change. Even if the intention is commendable the execution can quickly be cast in doubt and be shaped by subjectivism. For example, as a vegan MacAskill discusses at length how farming animals is bad and gives many examples of the alleged abuse of farmed animals by farmers. As someone who grew up on a farm I can recognize these views (as indeed do many farmers not proficient in philosophical debate and therefore silent) as uninformed due to a detachment from the way food is produced. This is typical for modern “city dwellers” with only a limited and selective experience of animals, particularly farm animals.Given that MacAskill argues for an evidence-based approach to ethical action, why not take all evidence into account? Why only the bad evidence? Farm animals, as opposed to wild animals living a free life in nature, have access to excellent healthcare, more than adequate food, water, and shelter. Wild animals are subject to disease, predators, and high infant mortality, which do not seem to be good effects. Possibly, farmed animals live longer lives with a higher quality of life even if they are not free. Still, the book is definitely a refreshing new perspective compared to the default Christian deontological ethics, which is much more short-sighted and self-centered.

[Simon Crawford · Rating 3 out of 5]

Effective altruism has great ideas, but the movement is full of crazy campus dwellers more interested in controversial moral theories than pragmatic solutions. I like Will MacAskill's work a lot, but I think he has to do some serious housecleaning within his movement, especially after the SBF implosion.