Maximize Expected Choiceworthiness (MEC) is a theory of decision-making under moral uncertainty. It says that we ought to handle moral uncertainty in the way that Expected Value Theory (EVT) handles descriptive uncertainty. MEC inherits from EVT the problem of fanaticism. Roughly, a decision theory is fanatical when it requires our decision-making to be dominated by low-probability, high-payoff options. Proponents of MEC have offered two main lines of response. The first is that MEC should simply import whatever are the best solutions (...) to fanaticism on offer in decision theory. The second is to propose statistical normalization as a novel solution on behalf of MEC. This paper argues that the first response is open to serious doubt and that the second response fails. As a result, MEC appears significantly less plausible when compared to competing accounts of decision-making under moral uncertainty, which are not fanatical. (shrink)

My dissertation is about Bayesian rationality for non-ideal agents. I show how to derive subjective probabilities from preferences using much weaker rationality assumptions than other standard representation theorems. I argue that non-ideal agents might be uncertain about how they will update on new information and consider two consequences of this uncertainty: such agents should sometimes reject free information and make choices which, taken together, yield sure loss. The upshot is that Bayesian rationality for non-ideal agents makes very different normative demands (...) than ideal Bayesian rationality. (shrink)

The prospect of human genetic enhancement requires an institutional response, and probably the creation of new institutions. The governance of genetic enhancement technologies, moreover, needs to be global in scope. In this article, I analyze the debate on the global governance of human genetic enhancement. I begin by offering a philosophical justification for the need to adopt a global framework for governance of technologies that would facilitate the improvement of non-pathological genetic traits. I then summarize the main concrete proposals that (...) have recently emerged to govern genome editing at the global level. Finally, I develop some impediments that limit the impetus for global governance of genetic enhancement. (shrink)

Non-Archimedean population axiologies – also known as lexical views – claim (i) that a sufficient number of lives at a very high positive welfare level would be better than any number of lives at a very low positive welfare level and/or (ii) that a sufficient number of lives at a very low negative welfare level would be worse than any number of lives at a very high negative welfare level. Such axiologies are popular because they can avoid the (Negative) Repugnant (...) Conclusion and satisfy the adequacy conditions given in the central impossibility result in population axiology due to Gustaf Arrhenius. I provide a novel argument against them which appeals to the way that good and bad lives can intuitively outweigh one another. (shrink)

This paper examines a recent argument in favour of strong precautionary action—possibly including working to hasten human extinction—on the basis of a decision-theoretic view that accommodates the risk-attitudes of all affected while giving more weight to the more risk-averse attitudes. First, we dispute the need to take into account other people’s attitudes towards risk at all. Second we argue that a version of the non-identity problem undermines the case for doing so in the context of future people. Lastly, we suggest (...) that we should not work to hasten human extinction, even if significant risk aversion is warranted. (shrink)

Recent progress in artificial intelligence (AI) has drawn attention to the technology’s transformative potential, including what some see as its prospects for causing large-scale harm. We review two influential arguments purporting to show how AI could pose catastrophic risks. The first argument — the Problem of Power-Seeking — claims that, under certain assumptions, advanced AI systems are likely to engage in dangerous power-seeking behavior in pursuit of their goals. We review reasons for thinking that AI systems might seek power, that (...) they might obtain it, that this could lead to catastrophe, and that we might build and deploy such systems anyway. The second argument claims that the development of human-level AI will unlock rapid further progress, culminating in AI systems far more capable than any human — this is the Singularity Hypothesis. Power-seeking behavior on the part of such systems might be particularly dangerous. We discuss a variety of objections to both arguments and conclude by assessing the state of the debate. (shrink)

To what extent do we value future generations? It may seem from our behavior that we don’t value future generations much at all, at least in relation to how much we value present generations. However, in his book _Death and the Afterlife_, Samuel Scheffler argues that we value the future even _more_ than we value the present, even though this is not immediately apparent to us. If Scheffler’s argument is sound, then it has important ramifications: It would give us a (...) strong motivation to put more energy into abating environmental crises like climate change, and it supports at least a limited form of ethical _longtermism_. However, in this paper, I show that Scheffler’s argument is fallacious. Scheffler claims that we do not regard the fact that we in the present generation will all die relatively soon as a catastrophe, but we do regard the non-existence of future generations as a catastrophe. But the particular scenario used by Scheffler to illustrate this point—the plot of the book _The Children of Men_—is one in which _both_ the present generation will perish _and_ there will be no future generations, and it is this _conjunction_ that is catastrophic, thus giving no information about which is worse. I suggest other ways to compare our valuations of present and future generations, and recommend that philosophers who are interested in the moral psychology of how we value future generations ought to engage with social science, as it is an empirical issue. (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)

Ambitious value learning proposals to solve the AI alignment problem and avoid catastrophic outcomes from a possible future misaligned artificial superintelligence (such as Coherent Extrapolated Volition [CEV]) have focused on ensuring that an artificial superintelligence (ASI) would try to do what humans would want it to do. However, present and future sentient non-humans, such as non-human animals and possible future digital minds could also be affected by the ASI’s behaviour in morally relevant ways. This paper puts forward Sentientist Coherent Extrapolated (...) Volition, an alternative to CEV, that directly takes into account the interests of all sentient beings. This ambitious value learning proposal would significantly reduce the likelihood of risks of astronomical suffering from the ASI’s behaviour, and thus we have very strong pro-tanto moral reasons in favour of implementing it instead of CEV. This fact is crucial in conducting an adequate cost-benefit analysis between different ambitious value learning proposals. (shrink)

The standard argument for longtermism assumes that we should care as much about far future people as about our contemporaries. I challenge this assumption. I first consider existing interpretations of ‘temporal discounting’, and argue that such discounting seems either unwarranted or insufficient to block the argument. I then offer two alternative reasons to care less about far future people: caring as much about them as about our contemporaries would make our lives less authentic and less meaningful. If I’m right, this (...) undermines at least the strongest versions of longtermism. Plausibly, we should do much more for the far future than we’re currently doing. Still, we often ought to act for contemporaries’ sakes, even if longtermist actions would expectably do more good. (shrink)

Faced with political opponents, proponents of climate justice should consider how politically feasible different principles of climate justice are. I focus in this chapter on the political feasibility of an “ability to pay principle” as a proposal for dividing the burdens of past emissions and emissions from the global poor. I argue that a formulation of an ability to pay principle with a voluntarist scope, restricted only to agreed upon collective goals, is significantly more politically feasible than one with a (...) preventative scope, which focuses on preventing a very bad outcome. A voluntarist ability to pay principle can much more clearly be justified to both constrained policy makers and reactionary citizens as a solution to a collective action problem among states that have already bound themselves to collectively solving the problem. A voluntarist principle also has a stronger precedent as a principle of international law. Thus, those philosophers concerned with the political feasibility of an ability-to-pay principle should carefully consider using a voluntarist rather than a preventative formulation. The chapter proceeds as follows. First, I outline what I mean by “political feasibility” and distinguish it from other conceptions of feasibility. Second, I explore the different rationales for a preventative ability to pay principle. Third, I introduce my voluntarist formulation of the ability to pay principle. I then reply to objections to that formulation, arguing that the drawbacks of a voluntarist formulation are not as dire as they might appear. (shrink)

In the final pages of On What Matters, Volume II, Derek Parfit comments: ‘We live during the hinge of history... If we act wisely in the next few centuries, humanity will survive its most dangerous and decisive period... What now matters most is that we avoid ending human history.’ This passage echoes Parfit's comment, in Reasons and Persons, that ‘the next few centuries will be the most important in human history’. -/- But is the claim that we live at the (...) hinge of history true? The argument of this paper is that it is not. The paper first suggests a way of making the hinge of history claim precise and action-relevant in the context of the question of whether altruists should try to do good now, or invest their resources in order to have more of an impact later on. Given this understanding, there are two worldviews - the Time of Perils and Value Lock-in views - on which we are indeed living during, or about to enter, the hinge of history. -/- This paper then presents two arguments against the hinge of history claim: first, that it is a priori extremely unlikely to be true, and that the evidence in its favour is not strong enough to overcome this a priori unlikelihood; second, an inductive argument that our ability to influence events has been increasing over time, and we should expect that trend to continue into the future. The paper concludes by considering two additional arguments in favour of the claim, and suggests that though they have some merit, they are not sufficient for us to think that the present time is the most important time in the history of civilisation. GPI Working Paper No. 12-2020. (shrink)

In this chapter, I argue that the field of cultural evolution can usefully inform attempts to understand and influence the long-term future. First, I provide an overview of cultural evolution, covering what it means for culture to evolve, the mechanisms by which it happens, the crucial importance of cumulative cultural evolution for hunan history, and how cultural evolution (and in particular intergroup competition) has driven the rise of large-scale cooperation. Second, I draw out some possible lessons from cultural evolution for (...) thinking about the long-term future. In particular, I suggest we should be careful not to prematurely ”lock in” certain values or other cultural features, and instead aim for a society open to variation and competition. I also consider whether the future will bring greater selection pressure for particular kinds of values, such as patience. (shrink)

I argue that moral philosophers have either misunderstood the problem of moral demandingness or at least failed to recognize important dimensions of the problem that undermine many standard assumptions. It has been assumed that utilitarianism concretely directs us to maximize welfare within a generation by transferring resources to people currently living in extreme poverty. In fact, utilitarianism seems to imply that any obligation to help people who are currently badly off is trumped by obligations to undertake actions targeted at improving (...) the value of the long-term future. Reflecting on the demands of beneficence in respect of the value of the far future forces us to view key aspects of the problem of moral demandingness in a very different light. GPI Working Paper No. 1-2020. (shrink)

This paper aims to open a dialogue between philosophers working in decision theory and operations researchers and engineers whose research addresses the topic of decision making under deep uncertainty. Specifically, we assess the recommendation to follow a norm of robust satisficing when making decisions under deep uncertainty in the context of decision analyses that rely on the tools of Robust Decision Making developed by Robert Lempert and colleagues at RAND. We discuss decision-theoretic and voting-theoretic motivations for robust satisficing, then use (...) these motivations to select among candidate formulations of the robust satisficing norm. We also discuss two challenges for robust satisficing: whether the norm might in fact derive its plausibility from an implicit appeal to probabilistic representations of uncertainty of the kind that deep uncertainty is supposed to preclude; and whether there is adequate justification for adopting a satisficing norm, as opposed to an optimizing norm that is sensitive to considerations of robustness. GPI Working Paper No. 15-2020. (shrink)

Some believe that the current era is uniquely important with respect to how well the rest of human history goes. Following Parfit, call this the Hinge of History Hypothesis. Recently, MacAskill has argued that our era is actually very unlikely to be especially influential in the way asserted by the Hinge of History Hypothesis. I respond to MacAskill, pointing to important unresolved ambiguities in his proposed definition of what it means for a time to be influential and criticizing the two (...) arguments used to cast doubt on the claim that the current era is a uniquely important moment in human history. GPI Working Paper No. 9 - 2022. (shrink)

The singularity hypothesis is a radical hypothesis about the future of artificial intelligence on which self-improving artificial agents will quickly become orders of magnitude more intelligent than the average human. Despite the ambitiousness of its claims, the singularity hypothesis has been defended at length by leading philosophers and artificial intelligence researchers. In this paper, I argue that the singularity hypothesis rests on scientifically implausible growth assumptions. I show how leading philosophical defenses of the singularity hypothesis (Chalmers 2010, Bostrom 2014) fail (...) to overcome the case for skepticism. I conclude by drawing out philosophical implications of this discussion for our understanding of consciousness, personal identity, digital minds, existential risk, and ethical longtermism. GPI Working Paper No . 19-2022. (shrink)

When our choice affects some other person and the outcome is unknown, it has been argued that we should defer to their risk attitude, if known, or else default to use of a risk avoidant risk function. This, in turn, has been claimed to require the use of a risk avoidant risk function when making decisions that primarily affect future people, and to decrease the desirability of efforts to prevent human extinction, owing to the significant risks associated with continued human (...) survival. I raise objections to the claim that respect for others’ risk attitudes requires risk avoidance when choosing for future generations. In particular, I argue that there is no known principle of interpersonal aggregation that yields acceptable results in variable population contexts and is consistent with a plausible ideal of respect for others’ risk attitudes in fixed population cases. GPI Working Paper No . 20-2022. (shrink)

Longtermism is the thesis that in a large class of decision situations, the best thing we can do is what is best for the long-term future. The scope question for longtermism asks: how large is the class of decision situations for which this is true? In this paper, I suggest that the scope of longtermism may be narrower than many longtermists suppose. I identify a restricted version of longtermism: swamping axiological strong longtermism (swamping ASL). I identify three scope-limiting factors - (...) probabilistic and decision-theoretic phenomena which, when present, tend to reduce the prospects for swamping ASL. I argue that these scope-limiting factors are often present in human decision problems, then use two case studies from recent discussions of longtermism to show how the scope-limiting factors lead to a restricted, if perhaps nonempty, scope for swamping ASL. (shrink)

Longtermists have recently argued that it is overwhelmingly important to do what we can to mitigate existential risks to humanity. I consider three mistakes that are often made in calculating the value of existential risk mitigation. I show how correcting these mistakes pushes the value of existential risk mitigation substantially below leading estimates, potentially low enough to threaten the normative case for existential risk mitigation. I use this discussion to draw four positive lessons for the study of existential risk. -/- (...) . (shrink)

Human enhancement is one of the leading research topics in contemporary applied ethics. Interestingly, the widespread attention to the ethical aspects of future enhancement applications has generated misgivings. Are researchers who spend their time investigating the ethics of futuristic human enhancement scenarios acting in an ethically suboptimal manner? Are the methods they use to analyze future technological developments appropriate? Are institutions wasting resources by funding such research? In this article, I address the ethics of doing human enhancement ethics focusing on (...) two main concerns. The Methodological Problem refers to the question of how we should methodologically address the moral aspects of future enhancement applications. The Normative Problem refers to what is the normative justification for investigating and funding the research on the ethical aspects of future human enhancement. This article aims to give a satisfactory response to both meta-questions in order to ethically justify the inquiry into the ethical aspects of emerging enhancement technologies. (shrink)

An evolutionary future is a future where, due to competition between actors, the world develops in a direction that almost no one would have chosen. This paper explores the possibility of an evolutionary future. Some of the most important changes in history, such as the rise of agriculture, were not chosen by anyone. They happened because of competitive pressures. I introduce a three stage model of the conditions that could prevent an evolutionary future. A world government, strong multilateral coordination, and (...) strong defensive advantage each, in principle, could stop competitive pressures. It is difficult to see how an evolutionary future could be prevented in the absence of any of these three conditions; this suggests that one would need to be very confident that one or more of them will exist to be very confident that humanity will choose its future. (shrink)

Longtermists claim that what we ought to do is mainly determined by how our actions might affect the very long-run future. A natural objection to longtermism is that these effects may be nearly impossible to predict — perhaps so close to impossible that, despite the astronomical importance of the far future, the expected value of our present actions is mainly determined by near-term considerations. This paper aims to precisify and evaluate one version of this epistemic objection to longtermism. To that (...) end, I develop two simple models for comparing ‘longtermist’ and ‘neartermist’ interventions, incorporating the idea that it is harder to make a predictable difference to the further future. These models yield mixed conclusions: if we simply aim to maximize expected value, and don’t mind premising our choices on minuscule probabilities of astronomical payoffs, the case for longtermism looks robust. But on some prima facie plausible empirical worldviews, the expectational superiority of longtermist interventions depends heavily on these ‘Pascalian’ probabilities. So the case for longtermism may depend either on plausible but non-obvious empirical claims or on a tolerance for Pascalian fanaticism. (shrink)

The transformative power of artificial intelligence (AI) is coming to philosophy—the only question is the degree to which philosophers will harness it. In this paper, we argue that the application of AI tools to philosophy could have an impact on the field comparable to the advent of writing, and that it is likely that philosophical progress will significantly increase as a consequence of AI. The role of philosophers in this story is not merely to use AI but also to help (...) develop it and theorize about it. In fact, we argue that philosophers have a prima facie obligation to spend significant effort in doing so, at least insofar as they should spend effort philosophizing. (shrink)

We set out longtermist political philosophy as a research field by exploring the case for, and the implications of, ‘institutional longtermism’: the view that, when evaluating institutions, we should give significant weight to their very long-term effects. We begin by arguing that the standard case for longtermism may be more robust when applied to institutions than to individual actions or policies, both because institutions have large, broad, and long-term effects, and because institutional longtermism can plausibly sidestep various objections to individual (...) longtermism. We then address points of contact between longtermism and some central values of mainstream political philosophy, focusing on justice, equality, freedom, legitimacy, and democracy. While each value initially seems to conflict with institutional longtermism, we find that these conflicts are less clear-cut upon closer inspection, and that some political values might even provide independent support for institutional longtermism. We end with a grab bag of related questions that we lack space to explore here. (shrink)

Philosophy &Public Affairs, Volume 51, Issue 4, Page 373-412, Fall 2023.

Climate change and the destruction of the earth is the most urgent issue of our time. We are hurtling towards the end of civilisation as we know it. With an unflinching honest approach, Rupert Read asks us to face up to the fate of the planet. This is a book for anyone who wants their philosophy to deal with reality and their climate concern to be more than a displacement activity. -/- As people come together to mourn the loss of (...) the planet, we have the opportunity to create a grounded, hopeful response. This meaningful hopefulness looks to the new communities created around climate activism. Together, our collective mourning enables us to become human in ways previously unknown. -/- Why Climate Breakdown Matters is a practical guide on how to be a radical, responsible climate activist. (shrink)

According to Longtermism, our acts’ expected influence on the expected value of the world is mainly determined by their effects in the far future. There is, given total utilitarianism, a straightforward argument for Longtermism due to the enormous number of people that might exist in the future, but this argument does not work on person-affecting views. In this paper, we will argue that these views might also lead to Longtermism if Prudential Longtermism is true. Prudential Longtermism holds for a person (...) if and only if our acts’ overall influence on that person’s expected well-being is mainly determined by the acts’ effects in the far future. We argue that (due to a small chance of anti-ageing and uploading) there could be an enormous amount of prudential value for some contemporary person in the far future and that value may be so large that it dominates their overall expectation of lifetime well-being. (shrink)

This thesis consists of a series of papers in population ethics: a subfield of normative ethics concerned with the distinctive issues that arise in cases where our actions can affect the identities or number of people of who ever exist. Each paper can be read independently of the others. In Chapter 1, I present a dilemma for Archimedean views in population axiology: roughly, those views on which adding enough good lives to a population can make that population better than any (...) other. In Chapter 2, I extend Gustaf Arrhenius’s famous impossibility theorems in population axiology into the domain of choices under risk. My risky impossibility theorems dispense with the assumption that welfare levels are finitely fine-grained, and so tell against lexical views in population axiology. In Chapter 3, I present objections to critical-level and critical-range views in population axiology. I then sketch out what I call the ‘Imprecise Exchange Rates View’ and argue that it is an attractive alternative. In Chapter 4, I address critical-level and critical-range views again. This time, I note that they are vulnerable to objections from biographical identity: identity between lives. I suggest that these objections give us reason to reject critical-level and critical-range views and embrace the Total View. In Chapter 5, I argue that objections of the same form – objections from personal identity – tell against person-affecting views in population ethics. In Chapter 6, I draw out some counterintuitive implications of two recent complaints-based theories of the procreation asymmetry. (shrink)

That technologies may raise ethical issues is now widely recognised. The ‘responsible innovation’ literature – as well as, to a lesser extent, the applied ethics and bioethics literature – has responded to the need for ethical reflection on technologies by developing a number of tools and approaches to facilitate such reflection. Some of these instruments consist of lists of questions that people are encouraged to ask about technologies – a methodology known as the ‘Socratic approach’. However, to date, these instruments (...) have often not adequately acknowledged various political impacts of technologies, which are, I suggest, essential to a proper account of the ethical issues they raise. New technologies can make some people richer and some people poorer, empower some and disempower others, have dramatic implications for relationships between different social groups and impact on social understandings and experiences that are central to the lives, and narratives, of denizens of technological societies. The distinctive contribution of this paper, then, is to offer a revised and updated version of the Socratic approach that highlights the political, as well as the more traditionally ethical, issues raised by the development of new technologies. (shrink)

Longtermists have argued that humanity should significantly increase its efforts to prevent catastrophes like nuclear wars, pandemics, and AI disasters. But one prominent longtermist argument overshoots this conclusion: the argument also implies that humanity should reduce the risk of existential catastrophe even at extreme cost to the present generation. This overshoot means that democratic governments cannot use the longtermist argument to guide their catastrophe policy. In this paper, we show that the case for preventing catastrophe does not depend on longtermism. (...) Standard cost-benefit analysis implies that governments should spend much more on reducing catastrophic risk. We argue that a government catastrophe policy guided by cost-benefit analysis should be the goal of longtermists in the political sphere. This policy would be democratically acceptable, and it would reduce existential risk by almost as much as a strong longtermist policy. (shrink)

Democracy in its currently dominant liberal form has proven supportive of unprecedented human flourishing. However, it also appears increasingly plagued by political polarization, strained to cope with the digitalization of the political discourse, and threatened by authoritarian backlash. A growing sense of the anthropic risks—with runaway climate change as the leading example—thus often elicits concern regarding democracy’s capability of mitigating them. Apparently, lacking a sufficient degree of the citizens’ consensus on the priority issues of the day, it can find itself (...) unable to muster the resolve and resources necessary to alter its “business as usual” path even where disasters loom ever larger in its track. Against these concerns, I argue that democracy’s potential remains far from depleted. While political irrationality needs to be considered a major obstacle to successfully managing the anthropic risks, many existing reform proposals appear capable of reining it in. My main suggestion is to seek ways to facilitate a speedier and more effective exploration of the landscape of the possible democratic mechanisms of collective choice. A virtual platform to support such an exploration—which I call ‘democracy’s digital playground’—may allow us to find innovative ways of managing anthropic risks without compromising our commitment to democratic values. (shrink)

As ever more advanced digital systems are created, it becomes increasingly likely that some of these systems will be digital minds, i.e. digital subjects of experience. With digital minds comes the risk of digital suffering. The problem of digital suffering is that of mitigating this risk. We argue that the problem of digital suffering is a high stakes moral problem and that formidable epistemic obstacles stand in the way of solving it. We then propose a strategy for solving it: Access (...) Monitor Prevent (AMP). AMP uses a ‘dancing qualia’ argument to link the functional states of certain digital systems to their experiences—this yields epistemic access to digital minds. With that access, we can prevent digital suffering by only creating advanced digital systems that we have such access to, monitoring their functional profiles, and preventing them from entering states with functional markers of suffering. After introducing and motivating AMP, we confront limitations it faces and identify some options for overcoming them. We argue that AMP fits especially well with—and so provides a moral reason to prioritize—one approach to creating such systems: whole brain emulation. We also contend that taking other paths to digital minds would be morally risky. (shrink)

La pandemia de la COVID-19 ha recordado la importancia de prevenir y planificarse ante eventos altamente desastrosos para la salud comunitaria. Varios fenómenos emergentes suponen amenazas prospectivas para la Salud Pública. Sin embargo, el carácter mayormente futuro de problemas como la resistencia antibiótica, el impacto del cambio climático en la salud o la bioingeniería de patógenos genera dificultades de análisis. ¿Cuáles son los desafíos éticos y epistemológicos que suscitan los problemas futuros para la Salud Pública? ¿Cómo deben abordarse los problemas (...) morales de escenarios futuros, potencialmente catastróficos? En este artículo se defiende la necesidad de adoptar enfoques éticos anticipativos desde la ética de la Salud Pública. En primer lugar, se argumentará que el abordaje de estos problemas futuros requiere reflexionar sobre el futuro como problema ético y epistémico. En segundo lugar, se analizarán las características de la incipiente ética anticipatoria en los ámbitos de la ética de la tecnología y la bioética. En tercer lugar, se defenderá la aplicación de metodologías de previsión y anticipación en debates sobre la ética de la Salud Pública. Finalmente, se ofrecerán algunas reflexiones para fortalecer los análisis normativos anticipativos a fin de prevenir y atajar de antemano los efectos adversos de las futuras crisis sanitarias. (shrink)

Like asteroids, hundred-year floods and pandemic disease, thermonuclear war is a low-frequency, high-impact threat. In the long run, catastrophe is inevitable if nothing is done − yet each successive government and generation may fail to address it. Drawing on risk perception research, this paper argues that psychological biases cause the threat of nuclear war to receive less attention than it deserves. Nuclear deterrence is, moreover, a ‘front-loaded good’: its benefits accrue disproportionately to proximate generations, whereas much of the expected cost (...) will be borne in the distant future. Recent surveys indicate that the US and Russian publics assign a surprisingly high likelihood to nuclear war. Nevertheless, earlier research suggests that it is probably not believed to be just around the corner. This, along with the absence of easy solutions, encourages governments and publics to give priority to more pressing concerns. The danger is that the pattern will continue clear up to the point that nuclear war arrives. (shrink)

Plausibly, one important part of a good life is doing work that makes a contribution, or a positive difference to the world. In this paper, however, I explore contribution pessimism, the view that people will not always have adequate opportunities for making contributions. I distinguish between three interestingly different and at least initially plausible reasons why this view might be true: in slogan form, things might become too easy, they might become too good, or we might be too late. Now, (...) one response to these problems might be to deliberately attempt to undo them. However, I claim that this solution is intuitively misguided, and argue that explaining this supports a holistic approach to the value of contributions. Finally, I argue that if contribution pessimism is correct, it could provide an explanation of some widely held intuitions about issues in population ethics, with implications about the practical issue of how much priority we should give to addressing risks of human extinction. (shrink)

In this review study, I reflect on Richard Horton’s book and his thesis that Western countries failed in their response to the current epidemic in the first half of 2020, with a few exceptions. In the five sections of the paper, after an initial modification of Horton’s thesis (A), I discuss briefly: the suppression approach in China (B), the mitigation approach in the West (C), the SARS epidemic as the key global public health event (D), the causes of Western failure (...) (epistemic, political, ethical, cultural, etc.) (E), and final envoi (F). (shrink)

What is techno-optimism and how can it be defended? Although techno-optimist views are widely espoused and critiqued, there have been few attempts to systematically analyse what it means to be a techno-optimist and how one might defend this view. This paper attempts to address this oversight by providing a comprehensive analysis and evaluation of techno-optimism. It is argued that techno-optimism is a pluralistic stance that comes in weak and strong forms. These vary along a number of key dimensions but each (...) shares the view that technology plays a key role in ensuring that the good prevails over the bad. Whatever its strength, to defend this stance, one must flesh out an argument with four key premises. Each of these premises is highly controversial and can be subjected to a number of critiques. The paper discusses five such critiques in detail. The paper also considers possible responses from the techno-optimist. Finally, it is concluded that although strong forms of techno-optimism are not intellectually defensible, a modest, agency-based version of techno-optimism may be defensible. (shrink)

The possibility of seeding other planets with life poses a tricky dilemma. On the one hand, directed panspermia might be extremely good, while, on the other, it might be extremely bad depending on what factors are taken into consideration. Therefore, we need to understand better what is ethically at stake with planetary seeding. I map out possible conditions under which humanity should spread life to other solar systems. I identify two key variables that affect the desirability of propagating life throughout (...) the galaxy. The first is axiological and depends on which value theory in environmental ethics is correct. The second is empirical and depends on whether life is common or not in our region of the universe. I also consider two ethical objections to an interplanetary life-seeding mission: the risk of interfering with indigenous life and the risk of increasing suffering in our galaxy. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been an intense public debate about whether and, if so, to what extent investments in nuclear energy should be part of strategies to mitigate climate change. Here, we address this question from an ethical perspective, evaluating different strategies of energy system development in terms of three ethical criteria, which will differentially appeal to proponents of different normative ethical frameworks. Starting from a standard analysis of climate change as arising from an intergenerational collective action problem, we (...) evaluate whether contributions from nuclear energy will, on expectation, increase the likelihood of successfully phasing out fossil fuels in time to avert dangerous global warming. For many socio-economic and geographic contexts, our review of the energy system modeling literature suggests the answer to this question is “yes.” We conclude that, from the point of view of climate change mitigation, investments in nuclear energy as part of a broader energy portfolio will be ethically required to minimize the risks of decarbonization failure, and thus the tail risks of catastrophic global warming. Finally, using a sensitivity analysis, we consider which other aspects of nuclear energy deployment, apart from climate change, have the potential to overturn the ultimate ethical verdict on investments in nuclear energy. Out of several potential considerations, we suggest that its potential interplay — whether beneficial or adverse — with the proliferation of nuclear weapons is the most plausible candidate. (shrink)

There is a concern that the widespread deployment of autonomous machines will open up a number of ‘responsibility gaps’ throughout society. Various articulations of such techno-responsibility gaps have been proposed over the years, along with several potential solutions. Most of these solutions focus on ‘plugging’ or ‘dissolving’ the gaps. This paper offers an alternative perspective. It argues that techno-responsibility gaps are, sometimes, to be welcomed and that one of the advantages of autonomous machines is that they enable us to embrace (...) certain kinds of responsibility gap. The argument is based on the idea that human morality is often tragic. We frequently confront situations in which competing moral considerations pull in different directions and it is impossible to perfectly balance these considerations. This heightens the burden of responsibility associated with our choices. We cope with the tragedy of moral choice in different ways. Sometimes we delude ourselves into thinking the choices we make were not tragic ; sometimes we delegate the tragic choice to others ; sometimes we make the choice ourselves and bear the psychological consequences. Each of these strategies has its benefits and costs. One potential advantage of autonomous machines is that they enable a reduced cost form of delegation. However, we only gain the advantage of this reduced cost if we accept that some techno-responsibility gaps are virtuous. (shrink)

This paper aims to open a dialogue between philosophers working in decision theory and operations researchers and engineers working on decision-making under deep uncertainty. Specifically, we assess the recommendation to follow a norm of robust satisficing when making decisions under deep uncertainty in the context of decision analyses that rely on the tools of Robust Decision-Making developed by Robert Lempert and colleagues at RAND. We discuss two challenges for robust satisficing: whether the norm might derive its plausibility from an implicit (...) appeal to probabilistic representations of uncertainty of the kind that deep uncertainty is supposed to preclude; and whether there is adequate justification for adopting a satisficing norm, as opposed to an optimizing norm that is sensitive to considerations of robustness. We discuss decision-theoretic and voting-theoretic motivations for robust satisficing, and use these motivations to select among candidate formulations of the robust satisficing norm. (shrink)

Longtermism is the view that the most urgent global priorities, and those to which we should devote the largest portion of our resources, are those that focus on (i) ensuring a long future for humanity, and perhaps sentient or intelligent life more generally, and (ii) improving the quality of the lives that inhabit that long future. While it is by no means the only one, the argument most commonly given for this conclusion is that these interventions have greater expected goodness (...) per unit of resource devoted to them than each of the other available interventions, including those that focus on the health and well-being of the current population. In this paper, I argue that, even if we grant the consequentialist ethics upon which this argument depends, and even if we grant one of the axiologies that are typically paired with that ethics to give the argument, we are not morally required to choose an option that maximises expected utility; indeed, we might not even be permitted to do so. Instead, I will argue, if the argument's consequentialism is correct, we should choose using a decision theory that is sensitive to risk, and allows us to give greater weight to worse-case outcomes than expected utility theory does. And, I will show, such decision theories do not always recommend longtermist interventions. Indeed, sometimes, they recommend exactly the opposite: sometimes, they recommend hastening human extinction. Many, though not all, will take this as a reductio of the consequentialism or the axiology of the argument. I remain agnostic on the conclusion we should draw. (shrink)

This chapter makes the case for strong longtermism: the claim that, in many situations, impact on the long-run future is the most important feature of our actions. Our case begins with the observation that an astronomical number of people could exist in the aeons to come. Even on conservative estimates, the expected future population is enormous. We then add a moral claim: all the consequences of our actions matter. In particular, the moral importance of what happens does not depend on (...) when it happens. That pushes us toward strong longtermism. We then address a few potential concerns, the first of which is that it is impossible to have any sufficiently predictable influence on the course of the long-run future. We argue that this is not true. Some actions can reasonably be expected to improve humanity’s long-term prospects. These include reducing the risk of human extinction, preventing climate change, guiding the development of artificial intelligence, and investing funds for later use. We end by arguing that these actions are more than just extremely effective ways to do good. Since the benefits of longtermist efforts are large and the personal costs are comparatively small, we are morally required to take up these efforts. (shrink)

While the foundations of climate science and ethics are well established, fine-grained climate predictions, as well as policy-decisions, are beset with uncertainties. This chapter maps climate uncertainties and classifies them as to their ground, extent and location. A typology of uncertainty is presented, centered along the axes of scientific and moral uncertainty. This typology is illustrated with paradigmatic examples of uncertainty in climate science, climate ethics and climate economics. Subsequently, the chapter discusses the IPCC’s preferred way of representing uncertainties and (...) evaluates its strengths and weaknesses from a risk management perspective. Three general strategies for decision-makers to cope with climate uncertainty are outlined, the usefulness of which largely depends on whether or not decision-makers find themselves in a context of deep uncertainty. The chapter concludes by offering two recommendations to ease the work of policymakers, faced with the various uncertainties engrained in climate discourse. (shrink)

This paper defends the claim that mere temporal proximity always and without exception strengthens certain moral duties, including the duty to save – call this view Robust Temporalism. Although almost all other moral philosophers dismiss Robust Temporalism out of hand, I argue that it is prima facie intuitively plausible, and that it is analogous to a view about special obligations that many philosophers already accept. I also defend Robust Temporalism against several common objections, and I highlight its relevance to a (...) number of practical policy debates, including longtermism. My conclusion is that Robust Temporalism is a moral live option, that deserves to be taken much more seriously in the future. (shrink)

When faced with an urgent and credible threat of grave harm, we should take proportionate precautions. But what is it for a precaution to be “proportionate”? I construct a pragmatic analysis of consisting of four tests—permissibility-in-principle, adequacy, reasonable necessity and consistency—that could realistically be applied by a citizens’ assembly meeting online or in person. I apply these tests retrospectively to two examples from the COVID-19 pandemic—border closures and school closures—arguing that my account captures the key questions on which it is (...) both feasible and important to integrate expert input with democratic input. I then consider how we might try to manage the risk of future pandemics in a proportionate way. (shrink)

This chapter starts from the claim that the state is plagued with problems of political short-termism: excessive priority given to near-term benefits at the expense of benefits further in thefuture. One possible mechanism to reduce short-termism involves apportioning greater relative political influence to the young, since younger citizens generally have greater additional life expectancy than older citizens and thus it looks reasonable to expect that they have preferences that are extended further into the future. But the chapter shows that this (...) is unlikely to make states significantly less short-termist: no empirical relationship has been found between age and willingness to support long-termist policies. Instead, the chapter proposes a more promising age-based mechanism. States should develop youth citizens’ assemblies that ensure accountability to future generations through a scheme of retrospective accountability. (shrink)