I cannot really speak to how good or honest Will’s public-facing stuff about practical charity evaluation is, and I find WWOTF a bit shallow outside of the really good chapter on population ethics where Will actually has domain expertise. But the claim that Will is hilariously incompetent as a philosopher is, frankly, garbage. As is the argument for it that Will once defined altruism in a non-standard way. Will regularly publishes in leading academic philosophy journals. He became the UK equivalent of a tenured prof super young at one of the world’s best universities. Also, frankly, many years ago I actually discussed technical philosophy with Will once or twice, and, like most Oxford graduate students in philosophy, he knows what he’s doing.
I am still somewhat worried that Wenar has genuinely good criticism of GiveWell, but that part of the article was somewhat of a mark against it’s credibility to me even if all the other bad things it says about Will are true. (Note: I’m not conceding they are true.)
I cannot really speak to how good or honest Will’s public-facing stuff about practical charity evaluation is, and I find WWOTF a bit shallow outside of the really good chapter on population ethics where Will actually has domain expertise. But the claim that Will is hilariously incompetent as a philosopher is, frankly, garbage. As is the argument for it that Will once defined altruism in a non-standard way. Will regularly publishes in leading academic philosophy journals. He became the UK equivalent of a tenured prof super young at one of the world’s best universities. Also, frankly, many years ago I actually discussed technical philosophy with Will once or twice, and, like most Oxford graduate students in philosophy, he knows what he’s doing.
I am still somewhat worried that Wenar has genuinely good criticism of GiveWell, but that part of the article was somewhat of a mark against it’s credibility to me even if all the other bad things it says about Will are true. (Note: I’m not conceding they are true.)