High risk, low reward: A challenge to the astronomical value of existential risk mitigation
David Thorstad (Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford)
GPI Working Paper No. 6-2023, published in Philosophy and Public Affairs
Many philosophers defend two claims: the astronomical value thesis that it is astronomically important to mitigate existential risks to humanity, and existential risk pessimism, the claim that humanity faces high levels of existential risk. It is natural to think that existential risk pessimism supports the astronomical value thesis. In this paper, I argue that precisely the opposite is true. Across a range of assumptions, existential risk pessimism significantly reduces the value of existential risk mitigation, so much so that pessimism threatens to falsify the astronomical value thesis. I argue that the best way to reconcile existential risk pessimism with the astronomical value thesis relies on a questionable empirical assumption. I conclude by drawing out philosophical implications of this discussion, including a transformed understanding of the demandingness objection to consequentialism, reduced prospects for ethical longtermism, and a diminished moral importance of existential risk mitigation.
Other working papers
A Fission Problem for Person-Affecting Views – Elliott Thornley (Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford)
On person-affecting views in population ethics, the moral import of a person’s welfare depends on that person’s temporal or modal status. These views typically imply that – all else equal – we’re never required to create extra people, or to act in ways that increase the probability of extra people coming into existence. In this paper, I use Parfit-style fission cases to construct a dilemma for person-affecting views: either they forfeit their seeming-advantages and face fission analogues…
‘The only ethical argument for positive 𝛿’? – Andreas Mogensen (Global Priorities Institute, Oxford University)
I consider whether a positive rate of pure intergenerational time preference is justifiable in terms of agent-relative moral reasons relating to partiality between generations, an idea I call discounting for kinship. I respond to Parfit’s objections to discounting for kinship, but then highlight a number of apparent limitations of this…
On two arguments for Fanaticism – Jeffrey Sanford Russell (University of Southern California)
Should we make significant sacrifices to ever-so-slightly lower the chance of extremely bad outcomes, or to ever-so-slightly raise the chance of extremely good outcomes? Fanaticism says yes: for every bad outcome, there is a tiny chance of of extreme disaster that is even worse, and for every good outcome, there is a tiny chance of an enormous good that is even better.