A de minimis risk is defined as a risk that is so small that it may be legitimately ignored when making a decision. While ignoring small risks is common in our day-to-day decision making, attempts to introduce the notion of a de minimis risk into the framework of decision theory have run up against a series of well-known difficulties. In this paper, I will develop an enriched decision theoretic framework that is capable of overcoming two major obstacles to the modelling (...) of de minimis risk. The key move is to introduce, into decision theory, a non-probabilistic conception of risk known as normic risk. (shrink)

Pascal’s Wager involves expected utilities. In this chapter, we examine the Wager in light of two main features of expected utility theory: utilities and probabilities. We discuss infinite and finite utilities, and zero, infinitesimal, extremely low, imprecise, and undefined probabilities. These have all come up in recent literature regarding Pascal’s Wager. We consider the problems each creates and suggest prospects for the Wager in light of these problems.

In this article, we re-examine Pascal’s Mugging, and argue that it is a deeper problem than the St. Petersburg paradox. We offer a way out that is consistent with classical decision theory. Specifically, we propose a “many muggers” response analogous to the “many gods” objection to Pascal’s Wager. When a very tiny probability of a great reward becomes a salient outcome of a choice, such as in the offer of the mugger, it can be discounted on the condition that there (...) are other symmetric, non-salient rewards that one may receive if one chooses otherwise. (shrink)

A number of philosophers have argued that if you care about how much goodness your actions generate, or how good the state-of-affairs you actions bring about are, then your attention should be directed towards the very far future. But many don’t care about how much goodness their actions generate, nor do they care about things like “states-of-affairs”. Amongst a multitude of things, many people care about how their actions impact individuals. And they also care about the sorts of justifications they (...) are able to offer for those actions. One moral theory which captures this moral viewpoint is contractualism. In this chapter, I argue that contractualism is, in large part, incompatible with longtermism – the view that, in many contexts, we ought to do that which will most improve the prospects of future people. I then discuss what advice, if any at all, contractualism can offer to the longtermist. (shrink)

Should you be willing to forego any sure good for a tiny probability of a vastly greater good? Fanatics say you should, anti‐fanatics say you should not. Anti‐fanaticism has great intuitive appeal. But, I argue, these intuitions are untenable, because satisfying them in their full generality is incompatible with three very plausible principles: acyclicity, a minimal dominance principle, and the principle that any outcome can be made better or worse. This argument against anti‐fanaticism can be turned into a positive argument (...) for a weak version of fanaticism, but only from significantly more contentious premises. In combination, these facts suggest that those who find fanaticism counterintuitive should favor not anti‐fanaticism, but an intermediate position that permits agents to have incomplete preferences that are neither fanatical nor anti‐fanatical. (shrink)

Advocates of longtermism point out that interventions which focus on improving the prospects of people in the very far future will, in expectation, bring about an astronomical amount of good (or agent-neutral value). As such, longtermists claim we have compelling moral reason to engage in long-term interventions. In this paper, I show that longtermism is in conflict with plausible deontic scepticism about aggregation. I do so by demonstrating that, from both the ex-ante and ex-post perspectives, longtermist interventions generate extremely weak (...) claims of assistance from future people. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Björn Lundgren and H. Orri Stefánsson (forthcoming) present three objections to normic de minimis expected utility theory (NDEUT) – a decision theoretic framework defended in Smith (2024). In this paper, I respond to these objections and outline some possible ways in which NDEUT might be modified or further developed. Like any de minimis framework, NDEUT employs a risk threshold to sort possibilities into those that must be considered when making a decision, and those that can be (...) legitimately ignored – the so-called ‘de minimis risks’. While this threshold would usually take the form of a probability value, in NDEUT the de minimis risks are identified instead on the basis of their abnormality. In the first section I will set up some of the formalism used in NDEUT and consider Lundgren and Stefánsson’s first objection – which is essentially formal in nature. In the second section I will delve further into the interpretation of NDEUT and consider the second and third objections, which turn on particular examples. (shrink)

Expected value maximization gives plausible guidance for moral decision‐making under uncertainty in many situations. But it has unappetizing implications in ‘Pascalian’ situations involving tiny probabilities of extreme outcomes. This paper shows, first, that under realistic levels of ‘background uncertainty’ about sources of value independent of one's present choice, a widely accepted and apparently innocuous principle—stochastic dominance—requires that prospects be ranked by the expected value of their consequences in most ordinary choice situations. But second, this implication does not hold when differences (...) in expected value are driven by tiny probabilities of extreme outcomes. Stochastic dominance therefore lets us draw a surprisingly principled line between ‘ordinary’ and ‘Pascalian’ situations, providing a powerful justification for de facto expected value maximization in the former context while permitting deviations in the latter. Drawing this distinction is incompatible with an in‐principle commitment to maximizing expected value, but does not require too much departure from decision‐theoretic orthodoxy: it is compatible, for instance, with the view that moral agents must maximize the expectation of a utility function that is an increasing function of moral value. (shrink)

In our deliberations about what to do, ought we take for granted the propositions that we know? According to one prominent view, which I'll call the Fallibilist View, it is rational to be very confident in such propositions when deliberating about what to do, but almost never maximally confident in them. The primary appeal of the Fallibilist View is that it appears to address serious shortcomings of the natural alternative, which I'll call the Certainty View, according to which it is (...) practically rational to be maximally confident in all known propositions. In this paper, I aim to accomplish two tasks. First, I'll demonstrate some unappealing features of the Fallibilist View. To follow, I'll present a third view, which I call the Split View. According to the Split View, there are distinct notions of primary and dispositional rationality, and while it is not dispositionally rational to take known propositions for granted in our practical deliberations, it is primarily rational to do so. (shrink)

This thesis is about the moral reasons we have to do less than best. It consists of six chapters. Part I of the thesis proposes, extends, and defends reasons to do less than best. In Chapter One (“The Conditional Obligation”) I outline and reject two recent arguments from Joe Horton and Theron Pummer for the claim that we have a conditional obligation to bring about the most good. In Chapter Two (“Agglomeration and Agent-Relative Costs”) I argue that agent-relative costs can (...) justify permissions to less than best in a far greater range of decisions contexts than we currently believe. In Chapter Three (“Risk and Aggregation”) I discuss how anti-aggregative moral theories deal with risk, whilst proposing an argument in favour of ex-post moral theories. -/- In Part II of the thesis, I discuss longtermism, presenting a series of reasons to believe we have both significant permissions and obligations to prioritise those in the short-term. In Chapter Four (“Listening to Future People”) I criticise a recent argument presented by Andreas Mogensen for the claim we cannot have obligations grounded in the wellbeing of future people. I then show that, even permitting the existence of obligations to future people, we still have significant reasons to resist longtermism on the grounds of partiality. In Chapter Five (“The Complaints of Future People”) I argue that scepticism about aggregation is inconsistent with an obligation, or indeed even a permission, to help far future people. In Chapter Six (“Leaving the Present Behind”) I explore the moral significance of “dooming”, whilst arguing that we have a pro tanto reason of fairness to prioritise aiding those currently in existence. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose a refined version of Seana Shiffrin’s consent argument for anti-natalism and argue that longtermism is best justified not through the traditional consequentialist approach, but from an anti-natalist perspective. I first reformulate Shiffrin’s consent argument, which claims that having children is pro tanto morally problematic because the unconsented harm the child will suffer could not be justified by the benefits they will enjoy, by including what I call the trivializing requirement to better accommodate various criticisms. Based (...) on this iteration of anti-natalism, I argue that future generations should not be seen as far away strangers who are merely anonymous bearers of well-being, but rather as collective victims of the wrongful acts of procreation. As a result, anti-natalism provides us with a rational ground to put a key moral priority on improving the future, not only as restitution to future generations for the unconsented harm imposed on them, but also as part of a long-term effort to nullify the anti-natalist criticism, since the consent argument would no longer apply if our society eventually becomes so utopian that the positive aspects of the average person’s life vastly outweigh its negative aspects. (shrink)