The Hinge of History Hypothesis: Reply to MacAskill
Andreas Mogensen (Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford)
GPI Working Paper No. 9 - 2022, published in Analysis
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.
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Our randomized controlled trial of Pakistan’s deputy ministers compares two schools of thought about how to cultivate prosociality. We find that training the utilitarian value of empathy results in a 0.4-0.6 standard deviation increase in altruism, cooperation, coordination, and teamwork. Field outcomes—orphanage visits, volunteering in impoverished schools, and blood donations—also roughly double. We find that treated ministers increased their mentalizing of others…
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