Toby David Godfrey Ord (born July 1979) is an Australian philosopher. He founded Giving What We Can in 2009, an international society whose members pledge to donate at least 10% of their income to effective charities, and is a key figure in the effective altruism movement, which promotes using reason and evidence to help the lives of others as much as possible. He is a senior research fellow at the University of Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute, where his work is focused on existential risk. His book on the subject The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity was published in March 2020. Early life and education Ord was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1979. He later attended the University of Melbourne, where he initially studied computer science. On completing his first degree, he switched to studying philosophy to pursue his interest in ethics, later stating: "At this stage I knew that I wanted to make a large positive difference in the world and it seemed that studying ethics would help." For his graduate studies, Ord moved to the University of Oxford, where he obtained a B.Phil., and a D.Phil. in philosophy. Having submitted his doctoral thesis, Beyond Action: Applying Consequentialism to Decision Making and Motivation, Ord was retained as a junior research fellow by Balliol College, Oxford. Career Since 2014, Ord has been at Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute, where he holds the position of a senior research fellow. Ord describes his focus as "the big picture questions facing humanity." He is a trustee of the Centre for Effective Altruism and of the non-profit organization 80,000 Hours, researching careers that have the largest positive social impact and providing career advice based on that research. Research Ethics Ord's work has been primarily in moral philosophy. In applied ethics, he has worked on bioethics, the demands of morality, and global priority setting. He has also made contributions in global health, as an advisor to the third edition of Disease Control Priorities Project. In normative ethics, his research has focused on consequentialism, and on moral uncertainty. Existential risk Ord's current main research interest is existential risk. His book on the topic The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity was published in March 2020. The New Yorker characterizes Ord's research motivation as follows:A concern for existential risk seemed, to Ord, to be the next logical expansion of a broadening moral