We are pleased to share a new joint working paper between HLI and the Wellbeing Research Centre, Oxford University. In it, Dr Michael Plant explores the challenges of the nature and plausibility of the life satisfaction theory (LST) of wellbeing.
9 June 2023 | Deworming, Global Priorities, Measurement, Moral Uncertainty, Philosophy, Psychology, Psychotherapy, Theoretical Research, Michael Plant, Donors, Policymakers, Researchers On the 2nd of June 2023, Elie Hassenfeld was interviewed on the 80'000 hours podcast. Here, we present our responses.
On the 22nd of March 2023, GiveWell posted an “Assessment of Happier Lives Institute’s Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of StrongMinds”. Here, we present our responses. First, a general response from Michael. Second, a technical response from Joel.
17 March 2023 | Measurement, Philosophy, Psychology, Theoretical Research, Caspar Kaiser, Conrad Samuelsson, Michael Plant, Samuel Dupret, Donors, Policymakers, Researchers We present a pilot of 50 survey questions we intend to use to assess questions of comparability, linearity, and neutrality in subjective wellbeing measurements.
18 November 2022 | Anti-malarial Nets, Cash Transfers, Interventions, Moral Uncertainty, Philosophy, Psychotherapy, Theoretical Research, Joel McGuire, Michael Plant, Samuel Dupret, Donors, Policymakers, Researchers How should we compare the value of extending lives to improving lives? Doing so requires us to make various philosophical assumptions, either implicitly or explicitly. But these choices are rarely acknowledged or discussed by decision-makers, all of them are controversial, and they have significant implications for how resources should be distributed.
Given the current state of our moral knowledge, it is entirely reasonable to be uncertain about a wide range of moral issues. This paper considers the suggestion that appropriateness under moral uncertainty is a matter of dividing one’s resources between the moral theories in which one has credence, allowing each theory to use its resources as it sees fit.
This post is a philosophical review of Open Philanthropy’s Global Health and Wellbeing Cause Prioritisation Framework, the method they use to compare the value of different outcomes. In practice, the framework focuses on the relative value of just two outcomes, increasing income and adding years of life.
This post explores and evaluates an internal bargaining approach to moral uncertainty. On this account, the appropriate decision under moral uncertainty is the one that would be reached as the result of negotiations between agents representing the interests of each moral theory, who are awarded resources in proportion to your credence in that theory.
There are long-standing doubts about whether data from subjective scales are cardinally comparable—should we, for instance, believe that if two people self-report their happiness as '7/10' then they are as happy as each other? It is unclear how to assess whether these doubts are justified without first addressing two unresolved theoretical questions: how do people interpret subjective scales, and which assumptions are required for cardinal comparability? This working paper offers answers to both.
This short article summarises what philosophers do (and don't) mean by the term "wellbeing". It introduces the three main rival accounts of what wellbeing is and considers their theoretical strengths and weaknesses.
We show how Wellbeing-Adjusted Life Years (WELLBYs) can be used to estimate the value of different outcomes. We then estimate the values of two key inputs in GiveWell’s analysis: doubling consumption for one person for one year and averting the death of a child under 5 years old.
This working paper makes three main claims: 1) life satisfaction theories are indistinguishable from global desire theories; 2) these theories are the only subjectivist accounts of wellbeing; and 3) subjectivism is implausible, although for different reasons from those that are usually given.
In his DPhil thesis, Michael Plant critiques and develops claims about how individuals can do the most good including discussion of the value of saving lives, how best to improve lives, and cause prioritisation methodology.
