Teaching resources on global priorities research
We think that Global Priorities Research is important, underexplored, and academically interesting. Our hope is that by having this material online, lecturers and graduate students will have the chance to engage with this area and consider working on it themselves. What works will vary from context to context, so please feel free to use this material however you think best. You are welcome to teach through the entire syllabus, incorporate individual topics into your own materials, or just use the reading lists for ideas and inspiration. It could also be used for self-guided study.
Since the target audience for the following material is graduate students (or students with an interest in research), we have erred on the side of including more optional readings rather than fewer. We hope that the following materials give students plenty of material to engage with, but of course you may wish to cut down on material.
All of the below syllabi are for courses for students studying philosophy. They covers global priorities research from a perspective of academic philosophy.
Syllabi
- Global Priorities Research: Ethics and the (Very Far) Future (October 2022 Version)
- This is a 12-week philosophy course on Global Priorities Research, which asks what we should do with a limited amount of resources if our goal is to do the most good.
- Foundational Issues in Effective Altruism (October 2022 Version)
- Effective altruism is a philosophy and social movement that uses evidence and reasoning to determine the most effective ways to benefit others. This course explores the philosophical foundations of this approach.
- Topics in Global Priorities Research (April 2019 Version)
- This course was offered to Oxford University graduate students who were studying philosophy. It covers global priorities research from a perspective of academic philosophy.
- Foundational Issues in Effective Altruism (October 2017 Version)
- Effective altruism is a philosophy and social movement that uses evidence and reasoning to determine the most effective ways to benefit others. This course explores the philosophical foundations of this approach.
Giving Feedback
We’d love to hear your feedback! This is a young research area, so we plan to revise this teaching material reasonably regularly (about once a year). We’d welcome all feedback on everything from the small (Did you spot a typo? Did we miss a key reading?) to the big (Did the topics work? Have we underrepresented a view?). You can submit feedback here.