Nonconsequentialism and Longtermism

The Global Priorities Institute at Oxford University will host a two-day workshop on the 4-5th of August on longtermism and non-consequentialist moral philosophy. 

Longtermism may be understood as a moral perspective that takes seriously the vast size of the potential future population and the potentially momentous effects of present actions on the value of the long-term development of human civilization. Some longtermists argue that differences in expected value between the acts available to us are almost entirely attributable to possible good and bad outcomes distributed across the very long run, with limited weight placed on outcomes within the next hundred or even thousand years. For consequentialists, the bearing of these claims on what we ought to do appears reasonably straightforward: we should assign overwhelming moral importance to attempts to beneficially influence the long-run future and deprioritize problems that do not bear significantly on the long-run trajectory. What are the implications of and for the longtermist viewpoint, given the rejection of consequentialism? The workshop will provide a venue to address topics relevant to this question, including the question of what non-consequentialist duties we have and do not have in preventing human extinction, how a duty not to harm affects the longtermist picture, what Scanlonian Contractualism implies for what we owe to the future, how longtermism interacts with intergenerational justice, and much more.

If you would like to attend, please submit an expression of interest via the linked form. There is no registration fee. It is possible to apply for funding to cover travel and accommodation, and there is also the option to join the workshop remotely.