Longtermist political philosophy: an agenda for future research
Jacob Barrett (Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford) and Andreas T. Schmidt (University of Groningen)
GPI Working Paper No. 15 - 2022, forthcoming in Essays on Longtermism
We set out longtermist political philosophy as a research field. First, we argue that the standard case for longtermism is more robust when applied to institutions than to individual action. This motivates “institutional longtermism”: when building or shaping institutions, positively affecting the value of the long-term future is a key moral priority. Second, we briefly distinguish approaches to pursuing longtermist institutional reform along two dimensions: such approaches may be more targeted or more broad, and more urgent or more patient. The bulk of the chapter then addresses points of contact between longtermism and some central values of mainstream political philosophy, focusing in particular on justice, equality, freedom, legitimacy, and democracy. While each value initially seems to conflict with longtermism, we find that these conflicts are less obvious upon closer inspection, and that some political values might even provide independent support for longtermism. Finally, we provide a grab bag of other questions within longtermist political philosophy that we lack space to explore here.
Other working papers
Against Anti-Fanaticism – Christian Tarsney (Population Wellbeing Initiative, University of Texas at Austin)
Should you be willing to forego any sure good for a tiny probability of a vastly greater good? Fanatics say you should, anti-fanatics say you should not. Anti-fanaticism has great intuitive appeal. But, I argue, these intuitions are untenable, because satisfying them in their full generality is incompatible with three very plausible principles: acyclicity, a minimal dominance principle, and the principle that any outcome can be made better or worse. This argument against anti-fanaticism can be…
Dispelling the Anthropic Shadow – Teruji Thomas (Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford)
There are some possible events that we could not possibly discover in our past. We could not discover an omnicidal catastrophe, an event so destructive that it permanently wiped out life on Earth. Had such a catastrophe occurred, we wouldn’t be here to find out. This space of unobservable histories has been called the anthropic shadow. Several authors claim that the anthropic shadow leads to an ‘observation selection bias’, analogous to survivorship bias, when we use the historical record to estimate catastrophic risks. …
AI takeover and human disempowerment – Adam Bales (Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford)
Some take seriously the possibility of AI takeover, where AI systems seize power in a way that leads to human disempowerment. Assessing the likelihood of takeover requires answering empirical questions about the future of AI technologies and the context in which AI will operate. In many cases, philosophers are poorly placed to answer these questions. However, some prior questions are more amenable to philosophical techniques. What does it mean to speak of AI empowerment and human disempowerment? …