David Moss and I recently conducted a study with about 500 participants looking at the extent to which people place moral weight on the far future.
The study found that older people give much less moral weight to the future.
The study included the following questions:
Is it better to save (A) 1 person now or (B) 1/2/1,000/1,000,000 people 500 years from now? (This is 4 different questions, one after the other, with differing numbers of people stated in option (B))
How far do you disagree or agree (on a 7-point scale) that:
“Future generations of people, who have not been born yet, are equal in moral importance to people who are already alive”
“We should morally prioritise helping people who are in need now, relative to those who have yet to be born”
I’m not sure how much you thought about this aspect, but I’ve recently become extra wary of surveys on this topic (beyond the ordinary skepticism I’d have for questions which are mostly about expressive preferences and not revealed preferences). Time Discounting and Time Preference: A Critical Review has a table listing studies that find discount rates ranging from −6% to ∞% . Even if that doesn’t influence you as much as it did me, the paper has some good discussion of different methods of elicitation (which are especially likely to influence results given the difficulty of the domain).
Thanks for the nudge Aaron. I’m still working on it. Have had a bit more higher-quality data added in, so incorporating that. I’ll add it to the EA Forum when I get round to it.
David Moss and I recently conducted a study with about 500 participants looking at the extent to which people place moral weight on the far future.
The study found that older people give much less moral weight to the future.
The study included the following questions:
Is it better to save (A) 1 person now or (B) 1/2/1,000/1,000,000 people 500 years from now? (This is 4 different questions, one after the other, with differing numbers of people stated in option (B))
How far do you disagree or agree (on a 7-point scale) that:
“Future generations of people, who have not been born yet, are equal in moral importance to people who are already alive”
“We should morally prioritise helping people who are in need now, relative to those who have yet to be born”
I’m not sure how much you thought about this aspect, but I’ve recently become extra wary of surveys on this topic (beyond the ordinary skepticism I’d have for questions which are mostly about expressive preferences and not revealed preferences). Time Discounting and Time Preference: A Critical Review has a table listing studies that find discount rates ranging from −6% to ∞% . Even if that doesn’t influence you as much as it did me, the paper has some good discussion of different methods of elicitation (which are especially likely to influence results given the difficulty of the domain).
Cool! Could you send me a link to the study?
Was this study ever published anywhere? I’d love to put it up on the Forum (or see it posted with a summary from the authors, if you’d be up for it!).
Thanks for the nudge Aaron. I’m still working on it. Have had a bit more higher-quality data added in, so incorporating that. I’ll add it to the EA Forum when I get round to it.