During Michaelmas Term, OxTalks will be moving to a new platform (full details are available on the Staff Gateway).
For now, continue using the current page and event submission process (freeze period dates to be advised).
If you have any questions, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
Long-termism is currently described as a very important discovery of effective altruism. It is the driving idea behind what has been called the second wave of the EA movement. Long-termism is the idea that we should be concerned with effects of our actions on the very long-term future. This, in turn, is based on the assumptions that the welfare of every individual counts equally, no matter when the individual lives, and that a big part of the effects of our current actions may be effects on future individuals. The version of long-termism that leading effective altruists embrace is based on the impersonal total view in population ethics. Proponents of person-affecting views in population ethics are depicted as opponents of long-termism. Some rather implausible versions of person-affecting views do indeed reject long-termism altogether. However, other much more plausible versions are compatible with the main ideas behind longtermism. Person-affecting views, however, reject certain conclusions that leading effective altruists defend as implications of long-termism. These more controversial conclusions only follow from long-termism in conjunction with the impersonal total view. In this talk I aim at providing a better understanding of the two types of long-termism. These different types of long-termism do not only have different implications for cause prioritization. They are also based on fundamentally different axiological assumptions.