The scope of longtermism

By Global Priorities Institute @ 2021-05-31T13:25 (+4)

This is a linkpost to https://globalprioritiesinstitute.org/the-scope-of-longtermism-david-thorstad-global-priorities-institute-university-of-oxford/

Abstract

Longtermism holds roughly that in many decision situations, the best thing we can do is what is best for the long-term future. The scope question for longtermism asks: how large is the class of decision situations for which longtermism holds? Although longtermism was initially developed to describe the situation of cause-neutral philanthropic decisionmaking, it is increasingly suggested that longtermism holds in many or most decision problems that humans face. By contrast, I suggest that the scope of longtermism may be more restricted than commonly supposed. After specifying my target, swamping axiological strong longtermism (swamping ASL), I give two arguments for the rarity thesis that the options needed to vindicate swamping ASL in a given decision problem are rare. I use the rarity thesis to pose two challenges to the scope of longtermism: the area challenge that swamping ASL often fails when we restrict our attention to specific cause areas, and the challenge from option unawareness that swamping ASL may fail when decision problems are modified to incorporate agents’ limited awareness of the options available to them.

Introduction

If we play our cards right, the future of humanity will be vast and flourishing. The earth will be habitable for at least another billion years. During that time, we may travel well beyond the earth to settle distant planets. And increases in technology may allow us to live richer, longer and fuller lives than many of us enjoy today.

If we play our cards wrong, the future may be short or brutal. Already as a species we have acquired the capacity to make ourselves extinct, and many experts put forward alarmingly high estimates of our probability of doing so (Bostrom 2002; Leslie 1996; Ord 2020). Even if we survive long into the future, technological advances may be used to breed suffering and oppression on an unimaginable scale (Sotala and Gloor 2017; Torres 2018).

Many have taken these considerations to motivate longtermism: roughly, the thesis that in a large class of decision situations, the best thing we can do is what is best for the long-term future (Beckstead 2013; Greaves and MacAskill 2019; Mogensen forthcoming; Ord 2020; MacAskill 2022). The scope question for longtermism asks: how large is the class of decision situations for which longtermism holds?

Longtermism was originally developed to describe the decisions facing present-day, cause-neutral philanthropists. Longtermists suggest that the best thing philanthropists can do today is to safeguard the long-term future, for example by mitigating risks of human extinction. But many have held that the scope of longtermism extends considerably beyond cause-neutral philanthropic decisionmaking. Hilary Greaves and Will MacAskill (Greaves and MacAskill 2019) suggest that the cause-specific choice between two antimalaria programs should be governed, not by their direct effects of preventing present-day malaria deaths, but by the potential far-future impact of each intervention.^[1] And Owen Cotton-Barratt suggests that even most mundane decisions, such as selecting topics for dinner-table conversation, should be made to promote proxy goals which track far-future value (Cotton-Barratt 2021).

In this paper, I argue that the scope of longtermism may be narrower than often supposed. Section 2 clarifies my target: swamping axiological strong longtermism (swamping ASL). Section 3 argues that swamping ASL may be true in the case of present-day, causeneutral philanthropy. However, Sections 4-5 give two arguments for the rarity thesis that longtermist options of the type needed to vindicate swamping ASL are rare. Section 6 argues that the rarity thesis poses no challenge to swamping ASL in the special case of present-day, cause-neutral philanthropy. However, Sections 7-8 use the rarity thesis to put two limits on the scope of swamping ASL. Section 7 poses the area challenge: swamping ASL fails in many specific cause areas, such as choosing between anti-malaria programs. Section 8 poses the challenge from option unawareness: swamping ASL often fails when decision problems are modified to incorporate our limited ex ante awareness of the options available to us. Section 9 concludes.

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