Workshop on Longtermism and Non-Consequentialist Moral Philosophy

4-5 August 2022, Oxford University

Topic

The Global Priorities Institute will host a two-day workshop (4-5 August 2022) on longtermism and non-consequentialist moral philosophy.

Longtermism may be understood as a moral perspective that takes seriously the vast size of the potential future population and the potentially momentous effects of present actions on the value of the long-term development of human civilization. Some longtermists argue that differences in expected value between the acts available to us are almost entirely attributable to possible good and bad outcomes distributed across the very long run, with limited weight placed on outcomes within the next hundred or even thousand years.

For consequentialists, the bearing of these claims on what we ought to do appears reasonably straightforward: we should assign overwhelming moral importance to attempts to beneficially influence the long-run future and deprioritize problems that do not bear significantly on the long-run trajectory. What are the implications of and for the longtermist viewpoint if we do not accept consequentialism?