in order to assess the value (or normative status) of a particular action we can in the first instance just look at the long-run effects of that action (that is, those after 1000 years), and then look at the short-run effects just to decide among those actions whose long-run effects are among the very best.
Is this not laughable? How could anyone think that “looking at the 1000+ year effects of an action” is workable?
If humanity goes extinct this century, that drastically reduces the likelihood that there are humans in our solar system 1000 years from now. So at least in some cases, looking at the effects 1000+ years in the future is pretty straightforward (conditional on the effects over the coming decades).
In order to act for the benefit of the far future (1000+ years away), you don’t need to be able to track the far future effects of every possible action. You just need to find at least one course of action whose far future effects are sufficiently predictable to guide you (and good in expectation).
The initial claim is that for any action, we can assess its normative status by looking at its long-run effects. This is a much stronger claim than yours.
I don’t think Will or any other serious scholar believes that it is “workable”. It reads to me like a theoretical assumption that defines a particular abstract philosophy.
“Looking at every possible action, calculating the expected outcome, and then choosing the best one” is also a laughable proposition in the real world, but the notion of “utilitarianism” still makes intuitive sense and can help us weigh how we make decisions (at least, some people think so). Likewise, the notion of “longtermism” can do the same, even if looking 1000 years into the future is impossible.
I also find utilitarian thinking to be more useful/practical than “longtermist thinking”. That said, I haven’t seen much advocacy for longtermism as a guide to personal action, rather than as a guide to research that much more intensively attempts to map out long-term consequences.
Maybe an apt comparison would be “utilitarianism is to decisions I make in my daily life as longtermism is to the decisions I’d make if I were in an influential position with access to many person-years of planning”. But this is me trying to guess what another author was thinking; you could consider writing to them directly, too.
(I assume you’ve heard/considered points of this type before; I’m writing them out here mostly for my own benefit, as a way of thinking through the question.)
It’s often laughable. I would think of it like this. Each action can be represented as a polynomial that calculates the value at a time based on time:
v(t) = c1*t^n + c2*t^(n-1 )+...+c3*t+c4
I would think of the value function of the decisions in my life to be the sum of the individual value functions. With every decision I’m presented with multiple functions, and I get to pick one and the coefficients will basically be added into my life’s total value function.
Consider foresight to be the ability to predict the end behavior of v for large t. If t=1000 means nothing to you, then c1 is far less important to you than if t=1000 means a lot to you.
Some people probably consciously ignore large t, for example educated people and politicians sometimes make the argument (and many of them certainly believe) that t greater than their life expectancy doesn’t matter. This is why the climate crisis has been so difficult to prioritize, especially for people in power who might not have ten years left to live.
But also foresight is an ability. A toddler has trouble consider the importance of t=0.003 (the next day), and because of that no coefficients except for c4 matter. Resisting the entire tub of ice cream is impossible if you can’t imagine a stomach ache.
It is unusual, probably even unnatural, to consider t=1000, but it is of course important. The largest t values we can imagine tell us the most about the coefficients for the high degree terms in the polynomial. It is unusual that most of our choices have effects for these coefficients, but some will, or some might, and those should be noticed, highlighted, etc. Until I learned the benefits of veganism, I had almost no consideration for high t values, and I was electrified by the short-term, medium-term, and especially long-term benefits such as avoiding a tipping point for the climate crisis. That was seven years ago and it’s faded a little as I’m just passively supporting plant-based meats (consequences are sometimes easier to change than hearts).
Will says:
Is this not laughable? How could anyone think that “looking at the 1000+ year effects of an action” is workable?
If humanity goes extinct this century, that drastically reduces the likelihood that there are humans in our solar system 1000 years from now. So at least in some cases, looking at the effects 1000+ years in the future is pretty straightforward (conditional on the effects over the coming decades).
In order to act for the benefit of the far future (1000+ years away), you don’t need to be able to track the far future effects of every possible action. You just need to find at least one course of action whose far future effects are sufficiently predictable to guide you (and good in expectation).
The initial claim is that for any action, we can assess its normative status by looking at its long-run effects. This is a much stronger claim than yours.
I don’t think Will or any other serious scholar believes that it is “workable”. It reads to me like a theoretical assumption that defines a particular abstract philosophy.
“Looking at every possible action, calculating the expected outcome, and then choosing the best one” is also a laughable proposition in the real world, but the notion of “utilitarianism” still makes intuitive sense and can help us weigh how we make decisions (at least, some people think so). Likewise, the notion of “longtermism” can do the same, even if looking 1000 years into the future is impossible.
Sure, but not even close to the same extent.
I also find utilitarian thinking to be more useful/practical than “longtermist thinking”. That said, I haven’t seen much advocacy for longtermism as a guide to personal action, rather than as a guide to research that much more intensively attempts to map out long-term consequences.
Maybe an apt comparison would be “utilitarianism is to decisions I make in my daily life as longtermism is to the decisions I’d make if I were in an influential position with access to many person-years of planning”. But this is me trying to guess what another author was thinking; you could consider writing to them directly, too.
(I assume you’ve heard/considered points of this type before; I’m writing them out here mostly for my own benefit, as a way of thinking through the question.)
It’s often laughable. I would think of it like this. Each action can be represented as a polynomial that calculates the value at a time based on time:
v(t) = c1*t^n + c2*t^(n-1 )+...+c3*t+c4
I would think of the value function of the decisions in my life to be the sum of the individual value functions. With every decision I’m presented with multiple functions, and I get to pick one and the coefficients will basically be added into my life’s total value function.
Consider foresight to be the ability to predict the end behavior of v for large t. If t=1000 means nothing to you, then c1 is far less important to you than if t=1000 means a lot to you.
Some people probably consciously ignore large t, for example educated people and politicians sometimes make the argument (and many of them certainly believe) that t greater than their life expectancy doesn’t matter. This is why the climate crisis has been so difficult to prioritize, especially for people in power who might not have ten years left to live.
But also foresight is an ability. A toddler has trouble consider the importance of t=0.003 (the next day), and because of that no coefficients except for c4 matter. Resisting the entire tub of ice cream is impossible if you can’t imagine a stomach ache.
It is unusual, probably even unnatural, to consider t=1000, but it is of course important. The largest t values we can imagine tell us the most about the coefficients for the high degree terms in the polynomial. It is unusual that most of our choices have effects for these coefficients, but some will, or some might, and those should be noticed, highlighted, etc. Until I learned the benefits of veganism, I had almost no consideration for high t values, and I was electrified by the short-term, medium-term, and especially long-term benefits such as avoiding a tipping point for the climate crisis. That was seven years ago and it’s faded a little as I’m just passively supporting plant-based meats (consequences are sometimes easier to change than hearts).
What is n? It seems all the work is being done by having n in the exponent.