What We Owe the Future

A Million Year View

Dados Bibliográficos

ID10690627
AutoresPeter West (0000-0003-3862-142X, Northeastern University London, autor correspondente)
Ano2023
Data de publicação2023-03-14
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe Philosophical Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0031-8094 • E-ISSN: 1467-9213
EditoraOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/pq/pqad027
OpenAlexW4324104114
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas10

In Utilitarianism, first published in 1861, John Stuart Mill explains that ‘utilitarianism requires [one] to be as strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator’. The impartiality requirement has been a central tenet of most iterations of utilitarianism since then and is one of the more contentious issues when it comes to evaluating its plausibility as an ethical theory. Can we, really, take an impartial approach to ethical decision-making? And, what's more, should we? In What We Owe the Future, MacAskill does not explicitly identify himself as a utilitarian [and indeed suggests that one need not even be a consequentialist to accept the position he defends (p. 241)], but one can nonetheless read the text as a radical interpretation of the idea that our ethical decision-making should be impartial (e.g. p. 5). MacAskill argues for a position that he calls ‘longtermism’, which involves a commitment to at least two propositions. First, that we have a moral responsibility to act in such a way as to improve the lives of future generations. Secondly, that doing so should be a priority for us now.

Economic Justice · Economics · Epistemology · Impartiality · Interpretation (philosophy) · Law and economics · Mill · Original position · Political science · Position (finance) · Sociology · Utilitarianism · Law · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Theology and Philosophy of Evil