I just want to highlight your second pointâ resource allocation within the movement away from the global poor and towards longtermsismâ seems to be a big part of what is concretely criticized in the Current Affairs piece. Quoting:
This means that if you want to do the most good, you should focus on these far-future people rather than on helping those in extreme poverty today. As [Hilary Greaves and Will MacAskill] write, âfor the purposes of evaluating actions, we can in the first instance often simply ignore all the effects contained in the first 100 (or even 1,000) years, focusing primarily on the further-future effects. Short-run effects act as little more than tie-breakers.â
...
Since our resources for reducing existential risk are finite, Bostrom argues that we must not âfritter [them] awayâ on what he describes as âfeel-good projects of suboptimal efficacy.â Such projects would include, on this account, not just saving people in the Global Southâthose most vulnerable, especially womenâfrom the calamities of climate change, but all other non-existential philanthropic causes, too.
This doesnât seem to me like a purely hypothetical harm. If you value existing people much more than potential future people (not an uncommon moral intuition) then this is concretely bad, especially since the EA community is able to move around a lot of philanthropic capital.
Yes but the counter-argument is that longtermists donât accept the antecedentâthey donât value current people more than future people. And if you donât accept the antecedent then it could equally be said that near-termist people are inflicting harm on non-white people. So, the argument doesnât take us anywhere
Fair enough; itâs unsurprising that a major critique of longtermism is âactually, present people matter more than future peopleâ. To me, a more productive framing of this criticism than racist/ânon-racist is about longtermist indifference to redistribution. Iâve seen various recent critiques quoting the following paragraph of Nick Becksteadâs thesis:
Saving lives in poor countries may have significantly smaller ripple effects than saving and improving lives in rich countries. Why? Richer countries have substantially more innovation, and their workers are much more economically productive. By ordinary standardsâat least by ordinary enlightened humanitarian standardsâsaving and improving lives in rich countries is about equally as important as saving and improving lives in poor countries, provided lives are improved by roughly comparable amounts. But it now seems more plausible to me that saving a life in a rich country is substantially more important than saving a life in a poor country, other things being equal.
The standard neartermist response is âall other things are definitely not equal, itâs much easier to save a life in a poor country than a rich countryâ, while the standard longtermist response is (I think) âthis is the wrong comparison to pay attention to, we should focus on protecting humanityâs potentialâ. Given this difference, I disagree a little with this bit of the OP:
the motivations for the part of the community which embraces longtermism still includes Peter Singerâs embrace of practical ethics and effective altruist ideas like the Giving Pledge
in that some of the foundational values embedded in Peter Singerâs writings (e.g. The Life You Can Save) strike me as redistributive commitments. This is very much reflected in the quote from Sanjay included in the OP. As far as I can tell (reading the EA Forum, The Precipice, and various Bostrom papers) longtermist philosophy typically does not emphasize redistribution or fairness as core values, but instead focuses on the overwhelming value of the far future.
(That said, I have seen some fairness-based arguments that future people are a constituency whose interests are underweighted politically, for example in response to the proposed UN Special Envoy for Future Generations.)
in that some of the foundational values embedded in Peter Singerâs writings (e.g. The Life You Can Save) strike me as redistributive commitments.
One thing to note is that redistributive commitments flow from impartial utilitarianism as well as the weaker normative commitments that Singer espouses as a largely empirical claim about a) human psychology and b) the world we live in.
Singerâs strong principle: âIf it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it.â
Singerâs weak principle: âIf it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without sacrificing anything morally significant, we ought, morally, to do it.â
I understood the outer framing of the drowning child etc as making not only normative claims about whatâs right to do in the abstract but also empirical claims about the best way to apply those normative principles in the world we live in. I think the idea that existential risk is very bad and that we are morally compelled to stop it if we arenât sacrificing things of comparable moral significance[1] is fully consistent with Singerian notions.
[1] or that both existential risk and present suffering is morally significant, so choosing one over the other is superergoatory under Singerâs principles, but not necessarily under classical utilitarianism.
I would note that Toby and others in the long-termist camp do, in fact, very clearly embrace âthe foundational values embedded in Peter Singerâs writings.â I agree that some people who embrace long-termism could decide to do so on other bases than impartial utilitarianism or similar arguments which agree with both redistribution and some importance of the long term, but I donât hear them involved in the discussions, and so I donât think it works as a criticism when the actual people do also advocate for near-term redistributive causes.
I donât think I quite understand this reply. Are you saying that (check all that apply):
In your experience, the people involved in discussions do embrace redistribution and fairness as core values, they are just placing more value on future people.
Actual longtermists also advocate for near-term redistributive causes, so criticism about resource allocation within the movement away from the global poor and towards longtermism doesnât make sense (i.e. itâs not zero-sum).
Redistributive commitments are only one part of the âfoundational valuesâ, and Toby and others in the longtermist camp are still motivated by the same underlying impartial utilitarianism, so pointing at less emphasis on redistribution is an unfair nitpick.
I just want to highlight your second pointâ resource allocation within the movement away from the global poor and towards longtermsismâ seems to be a big part of what is concretely criticized in the Current Affairs piece. Quoting:
This doesnât seem to me like a purely hypothetical harm. If you value existing people much more than potential future people (not an uncommon moral intuition) then this is concretely bad, especially since the EA community is able to move around a lot of philanthropic capital.
Yes but the counter-argument is that longtermists donât accept the antecedentâthey donât value current people more than future people. And if you donât accept the antecedent then it could equally be said that near-termist people are inflicting harm on non-white people. So, the argument doesnât take us anywhere
Fair enough; itâs unsurprising that a major critique of longtermism is âactually, present people matter more than future peopleâ. To me, a more productive framing of this criticism than racist/ânon-racist is about longtermist indifference to redistribution. Iâve seen various recent critiques quoting the following paragraph of Nick Becksteadâs thesis:
The standard neartermist response is âall other things are definitely not equal, itâs much easier to save a life in a poor country than a rich countryâ, while the standard longtermist response is (I think) âthis is the wrong comparison to pay attention to, we should focus on protecting humanityâs potentialâ. Given this difference, I disagree a little with this bit of the OP:
in that some of the foundational values embedded in Peter Singerâs writings (e.g. The Life You Can Save) strike me as redistributive commitments. This is very much reflected in the quote from Sanjay included in the OP. As far as I can tell (reading the EA Forum, The Precipice, and various Bostrom papers) longtermist philosophy typically does not emphasize redistribution or fairness as core values, but instead focuses on the overwhelming value of the far future.
(That said, I have seen some fairness-based arguments that future people are a constituency whose interests are underweighted politically, for example in response to the proposed UN Special Envoy for Future Generations.)
One thing to note is that redistributive commitments flow from impartial utilitarianism as well as the weaker normative commitments that Singer espouses as a largely empirical claim about a) human psychology and b) the world we live in.
I understood the outer framing of the drowning child etc as making not only normative claims about whatâs right to do in the abstract but also empirical claims about the best way to apply those normative principles in the world we live in. I think the idea that existential risk is very bad and that we are morally compelled to stop it if we arenât sacrificing things of comparable moral significance[1] is fully consistent with Singerian notions.
[1] or that both existential risk and present suffering is morally significant, so choosing one over the other is superergoatory under Singerâs principles, but not necessarily under classical utilitarianism.
I would note that Toby and others in the long-termist camp do, in fact, very clearly embrace âthe foundational values embedded in Peter Singerâs writings.â I agree that some people who embrace long-termism could decide to do so on other bases than impartial utilitarianism or similar arguments which agree with both redistribution and some importance of the long term, but I donât hear them involved in the discussions, and so I donât think it works as a criticism when the actual people do also advocate for near-term redistributive causes.
I donât think I quite understand this reply. Are you saying that (check all that apply):
In your experience, the people involved in discussions do embrace redistribution and fairness as core values, they are just placing more value on future people.
Actual longtermists also advocate for near-term redistributive causes, so criticism about resource allocation within the movement away from the global poor and towards longtermism doesnât make sense (i.e. itâs not zero-sum).
Redistributive commitments are only one part of the âfoundational valuesâ, and Toby and others in the longtermist camp are still motivated by the same underlying impartial utilitarianism, so pointing at less emphasis on redistribution is an unfair nitpick.
I think all of these are true, but I was pointing to #2 specifically.