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Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg

Beyond saving lives: happiness and doing good (with Michael Plant)

Sep 17, 2025 · 1 hr 12 min · 69.2 MBExplicit
0:00-1:12:05

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Are we trying to maximize moment-to-moment happiness or life satisfaction? Can self-reports really guide policy and giving? What happens to quality of life metrics when we judge impact by wellbeing instead of health or income? How should we compare treating depression to providing clean water when their benefits feel incomparable? Do cultural norms and scale-use quirks impact the accuracy of global happiness scores? How much do biases warp both our forecasts and our data? Is it ethical to chase the biggest happiness returns at the expense of other meaningful interventions? Where do autonomy, agency, and justice fit if philanthropy aims to reduce suffering or maximize aggregate happiness? Can we balance scientific rigor with the irreducibly subjective nature of joy, misery, and meaning? What should donors actually do with wellbeing-based cost-effectiveness numbers in the face of uncertainty and long-run effects? And could a wellbeing lens realistically reshape which charities, and which policies, the world funds next?

Dr. Michael Plant is the Founder and Director of the Happier Lives Institute, a non-profit that researches the most cost-effective ways to increase global well-being and provides charity recommendations. Michael is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Wellbeing Research Centre, Oxford and his PhD in Philosophy from Oxford was supervised by Peter Singer. He is a co-author of the 2025 World Happiness Report. He lives in Bristol, England, with his wife.

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