Longtermism: Lecture Notes 9/30

On Monday September 30, Professor William MacAskill from Oxford University visited Princeton and delivered a lecture titled “The Ethics of the Next Billion Years.” Princeton Effective Altruism and the University Center for Human Values co-hosted the event. MacAskill co-founded the Global Priorities Institute and authored the book Doing Good Better: Effective Altruism and a Radical New Way to Make a Difference. His speaking tour in America this fall served as preparation for his upcoming book on longtermism, the idea that the moral priority of the world today is to ensure positive impacts on humanity’s long-run future.

MacAskill presented three arguments for the importance of longtermism. Firstly, future people matter morally. Future humans will not differ fundamentally from today’s humans and deserve the same human rights. Today’s people should strive to create a better world for people in the future, just as how society today wishes people in the past had left behind a better world. Moral progress in human history has featured a tremendous expansion of the moral sphere of concern. If this sphere has come to embrace different races, different genders, different sexual orientations, and different species, it may well begin to include people living in the future. Secondly, the human population yet unborn appears prodigious. An average mammalian species lasts for 1,000,000 years, so most of the human value worth saving lies in the future. Finally, future people currently have barely any voice in society, and not only politicians but also scholars have yet to fully appreciate the value that lies in the future

MacAskill argues that society today can make major impacts that last long into the furture, despite the popular conception that human legacies will prove ephemeral. Firstly, history is dotted with so called lock-in events, such as the creations of religions and the drafting of the US Constitution, in which values become fixed for the next few centuries or even millennia. Secondly, if today’s society causes human extinction, the negative impacts will be permanent. To cause a good life to not be born equals doing harm.

Finally, MacAskill presents a few issue areas where breakthroughs can be made to create positive impacts on our long-run future. Society can become more prepared for future pandemics, especially those that may soon be artificially made using advanced biotechnologies. Humans should also pay attention to AI safety to ensure that society will remain stable as AI-driven productivity skyrockets and as the distribution of AI-driven productive power may prove inegalitarian. Talents are needed to build powerful social movements towards these long-term goals, and more research is needed to better determine our priorities for the long run.