Toby Ord

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Toby Ord (2019)

Toby David Godfrey Ord (born July 18, 1979 in Melbourne ) is an Australian philosopher and ethicist . He is the founder of the international non-profit organization Giving What We Can , whose more than 4,700 members pledge to donate at least 10% of their income to charitable institutions. Ord is a well-known exponent of the effective altruism movement . He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford . The focus of his research and teaching is on existential risks , normative ethics and practical ethics , as well as formal logic , metaphysics and epistemology . In March 2020, Ord published a book on existential risk called The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity .

Education

Ord studied from 1997 to 2002 in Australia at the University of Melbourne . He completed his undergraduate studies with a BSc (Hons) in Computer Science and a BA in Philosophy .

He then studied philosophy at Balliol College, University of Oxford, where he obtained a BPhil in 2005 and a Ph.D. in 2009. acquired. The title of his dissertation is “Beyond Action: applying consequentialism to decision making and motivation”.

Professional background

Ord initially stayed as a Junior Research Fellow at Balliol College, Oxford.

He has been working at the Future of Humanity Institute in Oxford since 2014 , where he currently holds the position of Senior Research Fellow . He describes the focus of his interests as “the big picture questions facing humanity”.

As trustee (roughly: Trustees ) he sits in the Supervisory Board of the Center for Effective Altruism and its subsidiary organization, the nonprofit organization 80,000 hours.

research

ethics

The main focus of Ord's previous research has been in the field of moral philosophy . On questions of applied ethics , he has researched and published on topics such as bioethics , moral behavior , and global prioritization . He also contributes his expertise in global healthcare issues , for example as a consultant for the third edition of the international Disease Control Priorities Project (DCPP). In the field of normative ethics , his emphasis is on consequentialism and moral relativism .

Existential risks

At present, his main research interest is questions of existential risk . His book, The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity , was published in English in March 2020. The book contains chapters on hazards from natural disasters (such as comets or volcanoes), from human action (such as nuclear war or environmental destruction ), and from novel events (such as pandemics or uncontrolled artificial intelligence ) as well as an analytical treatise that quantifies risks and Includes opportunities for concerted action to avert future dangerous situations.

Giving What We Can

As a student at Oxford, he decided to donate a significant portion of his income to charities that he found most cost-effective. Due to the feedback from other like-minded people, he founded an organization to support the intentions of like-minded donors.

Together with the Oxford philosopher William MacAskill , Ord founded the international non-profit organization Giving What We Can in 2009 , whose members make a voluntary pledge to donate at least 10% of their income to charity. The organization is part of the social movement of effective altruism . Giving What We Can not only strives to encourage donors to donate more money, but also to make it clear that it is important to support cost-effective projects, as studies have revealed, in some cases, very large differences in efficiency. As of June 2020, the organization had over 4,700 members who have already donated over $ 126 million.

Ord initially made a decision to cap his personal income at £ 20,000 and donate any income in excess to charitable projects that are proven to be effective. He later lowered his personal limit to £ 18,000, a threshold that is adjusted annually for inflation. As of December 2019, he donated a total of £ 106,000, which is 28 percent of his income. Ord is calculated to donate a total of approximately one million pounds over the course of his working life.

Private life

Ord lives in Oxford with his wife, Bernadette Young, a doctor. She is also a member of Giving What We Can.

Publications (selection)

Books

items

  • (2020) Toby Ord: Years of good life based on consumption and health . In: Nir Eyal et.al. (Ed.): Measuring the Global Burden of Disease . OUP, 2020, ISBN 978-0-19-008255-0 .
  • (2020) Toby Ord: The moral imperative towards cost-effectiveness in global health . In: Hilary Greaves and Theron Pummer (Eds.): Effective Altruism: Philosophical Issues . OUP, 2019, ISBN 978-0-19-884136-4 , pp. 29-36 .
  • (2019) Toby Ord: An upper bound for the background rate of human extinction . In: Scientific Reports . tape 9 , no. 1 , 2019, p. 11054 , doi : 10.1038 / s41598-019-47540-7 .
  • (2018) Anders Sandberg, Eric Drexler , Toby Ord: Dissolving the Fermi Paradox . [physics.pop-ph] 2018-06-18 arxiv : 1806.02404v1
  • (2017) Dean Jamison, Toby Ord et al: Universal health coverage and intersectoral action for health: key messages from Disease Control Priorities, 3rd edition . In: The Lancet . November 24, 2017, p. 3–15 , doi : 10.1016 / S0140673617329069 ( amirrorclear.net [PDF]).
  • (2015) Toby Ord: Moral Trade . In: Ethics . tape 126 ( tobyord.com [PDF]).
  • (2014) Nick Beckstead and Toby Ord: Managing Existential Risk from Emerging Technologies . Government Office for Science ( amirrorclear.net [PDF]).
  • (2014) Toby Ord: Global poverty and the demands of morality . In: John Perry (Ed.): God, The Good, and Utilitarianism: Perspectives on Peter Singer . CUP, 2014, ISBN 978-1-107-05075-4 ( ox.ac.uk [PDF]).
  • (2014) Toby Ord: Overpopulation or underpopulation? In: Ian Goldin (Ed.): Is the planet full? OUP, Oxford 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-878487-6 , pp. 46-60 .
  • (2013) Toby Ord: The Moral Imperative toward Cost-Effectiveness in Global Health . ( amirrorclear.net [PDF]).
  • (2010) Toby Ord, Rafaela Hillerbrand and Anders Sandberg: Probing the improbable: methodological challenges for risks with low probabilities and high stakes . In: Journal of Risk Research . tape 13 , 2008, arxiv : 0810.5515 , bibcode : 2008arXiv0810.5515O ( tobyord.com [PDF]).
  • (2006) Nick Bostrom and Toby Ord: The reversal test: eliminating status quo bias in applied ethics . In: Ethics . tape 116 , no. 4 , 2006, p. 656-79 , doi : 10.1086 / 505233 , PMID 17039628 ( tobyord.com [PDF]).
  • (2005) Toby Ord: The many forms of hypercomputation . In: Journal of Applied Mathematics and Computation . tape 178 , 2006, p. 142-153 .

literature

  • Luisa Jacobs: The Better Helpers: Cooking porridge in the orphanage? Not worth it, say effective altruists. Better to earn a lot of money and donate. That's why Sara studies math instead of literature . In: The time . May 11, 2016 ( zeit.de [accessed May 31, 2020]).
  • Larissa MacFarquhar: When enough is never enough. Altruism: Some people align their lives completely with doing as much good as possible. But is such hypermorality really viable? In: Friday . No. 12/2016 ( freitag.de [accessed on May 31, 2020]).
  • Elisabeth von Thadden: Altruism: Better that way? They call themselves effective altruists and want to change the world with calculated empathy. The head of the movement is the 28-year-old philosopher William MacAskill with his book "Doing good better". A visit to Oxford . In: The time . March 17, 2016 ( zeit.de [accessed on May 31, 2020]).
  • Tobias Hürter: How to do good better with calculations / Part 5: Our own life is the starting point for all ethics . In: Manager Magazin . February 24, 2017 ( [1] [accessed May 31, 2020]).
  • “Can“ effective altruism ”maximize the bank for each charitable buck? A growing social movement is trying to bring scientific rigor to philanthropy ” . In: The Economist . June 2, 2018 ( economist.com [accessed May 31, 2020]).
  • Tom Chivers: The AI ​​Does Not Hate You. Superintelligence, Rationality and the Race to Save the World . Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 2019, ISBN 978-1-4746-0877-0 (Ideas from Ord mentioned on pages 50-55, 106-107, 228, 257).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hachette Book Group, Toby Ord.Hachette Book Group, July 9, 2019, accessed May 31, 2020 .
  2. ↑ a b c Toby Ord.Retrieved May 26, 2020 .
  3. ^ A b Future of Humanity Institute, Team. In: Future of Humanity Institute. Retrieved February 7, 2020 .
  4. ^ Giving What We Can, Our Members. Giving What We Can, accessed May 31, 2020 .
  5. ^ Toby Ord - Beyond Action. Retrieved June 23, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Toby Ord.Retrieved May 31, 2020 .
  7. ^ Center for Effective Altruism, Team. Center for Effective Altruism, accessed May 31, 2020 .
  8. ↑ 80,000 Hours, Meet The Team. 80,000 Hours, accessed May 31, 2020 .
  9. ↑ Michelle Hutchinson: Toby Ord and DCP3. Giving What We Can, May 13, 2014, accessed May 31, 2020 .
  10. ^ Tina Rosenberg: Putting Charities to the Test. In: The New York Times . December 5, 2012, accessed May 31, 2020 .
  11. ^ Giving What We Can. In: Giving What We Can. Accessed May 31, 2020 .
  12. ^ Javier Espinoza: Small sacrifice, big return. In: The Wall Street Journal . November 28, 2011, accessed May 31, 2020 .
  13. ↑ Vanessa Allen: I'll give £ 1m to charity, says don on £ 33,000. In: This is Money. Accessed May 31, 2020 .
  14. ↑ This man has donated at least 10% of his salary to charity for 10 years running. In: Vox (website) . December 2, 2019, accessed May 31, 2020 .
  15. ↑ a b Tom Geoghegan: Toby Ord: Why I'm giving £ 1m to charity. In: BBC . December 13, 2010, accessed May 31, 2020 .
  16. ^ Susanna Rustin: The Saturday interview: Toby Ord and Bernadette Young on the joy of giving. In: The Guardian . December 24, 2011, accessed May 31, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Ord, Toby
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ord, Toby David Godfrey (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Australian philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH July 18, 1979
PLACE OF BIRTH Melbourne