at other times you seem to trade on the idea that there is something democratically tainted about political advocacy on behalf of the people of the future — this is something I strongly reject.
I reject that too. We don’t mean to suggest that there is anything democratically tainted about that kind of advocacy. Indeed, we say that longtermists should advocate on behalf of future generations, in order to increase the present generation’s altruistic willingness to pay for benefits to future generations.
What we think would be democratically unacceptable is governments implementing policies that go significantly beyond the present generation’s altruistic willingness to pay. Getting governments to adopt such policies is infeasible, but we chose ‘unacceptable’ because we also think there would be something normatively problematic about it.
So I think we are addressing your strawman here. Certainly, we don’t take ourselves to be arguing against anyone in particular in saying that there would be something wrong with governments placing heavy burdens on the present generation for the sake of small reductions in existential risk. But it seems worth saying in any case, because I think it helps ward off misunderstandings from people not so familiar with longtermism (and we’re hoping to reach such people—especially policymakers—with this paper). For suppose that someone knows only of the following argument for longtermism: the expected future population is enormous, the lives of future people are good in expectation, and it is better if the future contains more good lives. Then that person might mistakenly think that the goal of longtermists in the political sphere must be something like a strong longtermist policy.
we chose ‘unacceptable’ because we also think there would be something normatively problematic about it.
I’m not so sure about that. I agree with you that it would be normatively problematic in the paradigm case of a policy that imposed extreme costs on current society for very slight reduction in total existential risk — let’s say, reducing incomes by 50% in order to lower risk by 1 part in 1 million.
But I don’t know that it is true in general.
First, consider a policy that was inefficient but small — e.g. one that cost $10 million to the US govt, but reduced the number of statistical lives lost in the US by only 0.1, I don’t think I’d say that this was democratically unacceptable. Policies like this are enacted all the time in safety contexts and are often inefficient and ill-thought-out, and I’m not generally in favour of them, but I don’t find them to be undemocratic. I suppose one could argue that all US policy that doesn’t pass a CBA is undemocratic (or democratically unacceptable), but that seems a stretch to me. So I wonder whether it is correct to count our intuitions on the extreme example as counting against all policies that are inefficient in traditional CBA terms or just against those that impose severe costs.
I wouldn’t call a small policy like that ‘democratically unacceptable’ either. I guess the key thing is whether a policy goes significantly beyond citizens’ willingness to pay not only by a large factor but also by a large absolute value. It seems likely to be the latter kinds of policies that couldn’t be adopted and maintained by a democratic government, in which case it’s those policies that qualify as democratically unacceptable on our definition.
I reject that too. We don’t mean to suggest that there is anything democratically tainted about that kind of advocacy. Indeed, we say that longtermists should advocate on behalf of future generations, in order to increase the present generation’s altruistic willingness to pay for benefits to future generations.
What we think would be democratically unacceptable is governments implementing policies that go significantly beyond the present generation’s altruistic willingness to pay. Getting governments to adopt such policies is infeasible, but we chose ‘unacceptable’ because we also think there would be something normatively problematic about it.
So I think we are addressing your strawman here. Certainly, we don’t take ourselves to be arguing against anyone in particular in saying that there would be something wrong with governments placing heavy burdens on the present generation for the sake of small reductions in existential risk. But it seems worth saying in any case, because I think it helps ward off misunderstandings from people not so familiar with longtermism (and we’re hoping to reach such people—especially policymakers—with this paper). For suppose that someone knows only of the following argument for longtermism: the expected future population is enormous, the lives of future people are good in expectation, and it is better if the future contains more good lives. Then that person might mistakenly think that the goal of longtermists in the political sphere must be something like a strong longtermist policy.
I’m not so sure about that. I agree with you that it would be normatively problematic in the paradigm case of a policy that imposed extreme costs on current society for very slight reduction in total existential risk — let’s say, reducing incomes by 50% in order to lower risk by 1 part in 1 million.
But I don’t know that it is true in general.
First, consider a policy that was inefficient but small — e.g. one that cost $10 million to the US govt, but reduced the number of statistical lives lost in the US by only 0.1, I don’t think I’d say that this was democratically unacceptable. Policies like this are enacted all the time in safety contexts and are often inefficient and ill-thought-out, and I’m not generally in favour of them, but I don’t find them to be undemocratic. I suppose one could argue that all US policy that doesn’t pass a CBA is undemocratic (or democratically unacceptable), but that seems a stretch to me. So I wonder whether it is correct to count our intuitions on the extreme example as counting against all policies that are inefficient in traditional CBA terms or just against those that impose severe costs.
I wouldn’t call a small policy like that ‘democratically unacceptable’ either. I guess the key thing is whether a policy goes significantly beyond citizens’ willingness to pay not only by a large factor but also by a large absolute value. It seems likely to be the latter kinds of policies that couldn’t be adopted and maintained by a democratic government, in which case it’s those policies that qualify as democratically unacceptable on our definition.