Extreme Risks by Christian Tarsney
Should you be willing to forego any sure good for a tiny probability of a vastly greater good? Fa... more Should you be willing to forego any sure good for a tiny probability of a vastly greater good? Fanatics say you should, anti-fanatics say you should not. Anti-fanaticism has great intuitive appeal. But, I argue, these intuitions are untenable, because satisfying them in their full generality is incompatible with three very plausible principles: acyclicity, a minimal dominance principle, and the principle that any outcome can be made better or worse. This argument against anti-fanaticism can be turned into a positive argument for a weak version of fanaticism, but only from significantly more contentious premises. In combination, these facts suggest that those who find fanaticism counterintuitive should favor not anti-fanaticism, but an intermediate position that permits agents to have incomplete preferences that are neither fanatical nor anti-fanatical.
Should you be willing to forego any sure good for a tiny probability of a vastly greater good? Fa... more Should you be willing to forego any sure good for a tiny probability of a vastly greater good? Fanatics say you should, anti-fanatics say you should not. Anti-fanaticism has great intuitive appeal. But, I argue, these intuitions are untenable, because satisfying them in their full generality is incompatible with three very plausible principles: acyclicity, a minimal dominance principle, and the principle that any outcome can be made better or worse. This argument against anti-fanaticism can be turned into a positive argument for a weak version of fanaticism, but only from significantly more contentious premises. In combination, these facts suggest that those who find fanaticism counterintuitive should favor not anti-fanaticism, but an intermediate position that permits agents to have incomplete preferences that are neither fanatical nor anti-fanatical.
The principle that rational agents should maximize expected utility or choiceworthiness is intuit... more The principle that rational agents should maximize expected utility or choiceworthiness is intuitively plausible in many ordinary cases of decision-making under uncertainty. But it is less plausible in cases of extreme, low-probability risk (like Pascal's Mugging), and intolerably paradoxical in cases like the St. Petersburg and Pasadena games. In this paper I show that, under certain conditions, stochastic dominance reasoning can capture most of the plausible implications of expectational reasoning while avoiding most of its pitfalls. Specifically, given sufficient background uncertainty about the choiceworthiness of one's options, many expectation-maximizing gambles that do not stochastically dominate their alternatives "in a vacuum" become stochastically dominant in virtue of that background uncertainty. But, even under these conditions, stochastic dominance will generally not require agents to accept extreme gambles like Pascal's Mugging or the St. Petersburg game. The sort of background uncertainty on which these results depend looks unavoidable for any agent who measures the choiceworthiness of her options in part by the total amount of value in the resulting world. At least for such agents, then, stochastic dominance offers a plausible general principle of choice under uncertainty that can explain more of the apparent rational constraints on such choices than has previously been recognized.
arXiv: Theoretical Economics, 2018
The principle that rational agents should maximize expected utility or choiceworthiness is intuit... more The principle that rational agents should maximize expected utility or choiceworthiness is intuitively plausible in many ordinary cases of decision-making under uncertainty. But it is less plausible in cases of extreme, low-probability risk (like Pascal's Mugging), and intolerably paradoxical in cases like the St. Petersburg and Pasadena games. In this paper I show that, under certain conditions, stochastic dominance reasoning can capture most of the plausible implications of expectational reasoning while avoiding most of its pitfalls. Specifically, given sufficient background uncertainty about the choiceworthiness of one's options, many expectation-maximizing gambles that do not stochastically dominate their alternatives "in a vacuum" become stochastically dominant in virtue of that background uncertainty. But, even under these conditions, stochastic dominance will generally not require agents to accept extreme gambles like Pascal's Mugging or the St. Petersbu...
Population Ethics by Christian Tarsney
We provide a general argument against value incomparability, based on a new style of impossibilit... more We provide a general argument against value incomparability, based on a new style of impossibility result. In particular, we show that, against plausible background assumptions, value incomparability creates an incompatibility between two very plausible principles for ranking lotteries: a weak "negative dominance" principle (to the effect that Lottery 1 can be better than Lottery 2 only if some possible outcome of Lottery 1 is better than some possible outcome of Lottery 2) and a weak form of ex ante Pareto (to the effect that, if Lottery 1 gives an unambiguously better prospect to some individuals than Lottery 2, and equally good prospects to everyone else, then Lottery 1 is better than Lottery 2). After spelling out our results, and the arguments based on them, we consider which principle the proponent of incomparability ought to reject.
Is the overall value of a world just the sum of values contributed by each value-bearing entity i... more Is the overall value of a world just the sum of values contributed by each value-bearing entity in that world? Additively separable axiologies (like total utilitarianism, prioritarianism, and critical level views) say 'yes', but non-additive axiologies (like average utilitarianism, rank-discounted utilitarianism, and variable value views) say 'no'. This distinction is practically important: additive axiologies support 'arguments from astronomical scale' which suggest (among other things) that it is overwhelmingly important for humanity to avoid premature extinction and ensure the existence of a large future population, while non-additive axiologies need not. We show, however, that when there is a large enough 'background population' unaffected by our choices, a wide range of non-additive axiologies converge in their implications with some additive axiology -- for instance, average utilitarianism converges to critical-level utilitarianism and various egalitarian theories converge to prioritiarianism. We further argue that real-world background populations may be large enough to make these limit results practically significant. This means that arguments from astronomical scale, and other arguments in practical ethics that seem to presuppose additive separability, may be truth-preserving in practice whether or not we accept additive separability as a basic axiological principle.
arXiv: Theoretical Economics, 2020
Is the overall value of a world just the sum of values contributed by each value-bearing entity i... more Is the overall value of a world just the sum of values contributed by each value-bearing entity in that world? Additively separable axiologies (like total utilitarianism, prioritarianism, and critical level views) say 'yes', but non-additive axiologies (like average utilitarianism, rank-discounted utilitarianism, and variable value views) say 'no'. This distinction is practically important: additive axiologies support 'arguments from astronomical scale' which suggest (among other things) that it is overwhelmingly important for humanity to avoid premature extinction and ensure the existence of a large future population, while non-additive axiologies need not. We show, however, that when there is a large enough 'background population' unaffected by our choices, a wide range of non-additive axiologies converge in their implications with some additive axiology -- for instance, average utilitarianism converges to critical-level utilitarianism and various e...
Average utilitarianism and several related axiologies, when paired with the standard expectationa... more Average utilitarianism and several related axiologies, when paired with the standard expectational theory of decision-making under risk and with reasonable empirical credences, can find their practical prescriptions overwhelmingly determined by the minuscule probability that the agent assigns to solipsism -- i.e., to the hypothesis that there is only one welfare subject in the world, viz., herself. This either (i) constitutes a reductio of these axiologies, (ii) suggests that they require bespoke decision theories, or (iii) furnishes a novel argument for ethical egoism.
Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 2021
Utilitas
The Repugnant Conclusion is an implication of some approaches to population ethics. It states, in... more The Repugnant Conclusion is an implication of some approaches to population ethics. It states, in Derek Parfit's original formulation, For any possible population of at least ten billion people, all with a very high quality of life, there must be some much larger imaginable population whose existence, if other things are equal, would be better, even though its members have lives that are barely worth living. (Parfit 1984: 388)
Utilitas, 2021
The Repugnant Conclusion is an implication of some approaches to population ethics. It states, in... more The Repugnant Conclusion is an implication of some approaches to population ethics. It states, in Derek Parfit's original formulation, For any possible population of at least ten billion people, all with a very high quality of life, there must be some much larger imaginable population whose existence, if other things are equal, would be better, even though its members have lives that are barely worth living.
Philosophy of AI by Christian Tarsney
Large language models now possess human-level linguistic abilities in many contexts. This raises ... more Large language models now possess human-level linguistic abilities in many contexts. This raises the concern that they can be used to deceive and manipulate on a large scale, for instance spreading political misinformation on social media. In future, agentic AI systems might also deceive and manipulate humans for their own ends. In this paper, first, I argue that given its risks, AI-generated content should be held to stricter standards against deception and manipulation than we ordinarily apply to humans. Second, I offer characterizations of AI deception and manipulation meant to support such standards, while avoiding reference to the putative beliefs or intentions of AIs or to third-party judgments about what human users rationally ought to believe or do. Third, I propose two measures to guard against AI deception and manipulation, inspired by this characterization: "extreme transparency" requirements for AI-generated content and defensive systems that annotate AI-generated statements with contextualizing information. Finally, I consider to what extent these methods can protect against deceptive behavior in future, agentic AIs.
Ethics of the Long-Term Future by Christian Tarsney
Economics and Philosophy, 2017
Longtermism holds that what we ought to do is mainly determined by e↵ects on the far future. A na... more Longtermism holds that what we ought to do is mainly determined by e↵ects on the far future. A natural objection is that these e↵ects may be nearly impossible to predict—perhaps so close to impossible that, despite the astronomical importance of the far future, the expected value of our present options is mainly determined by short-term considerations. This paper aims to precisify and evaluate (a version of) this epistemic objection. To that end, I develop two simple models for comparing “longtermist” and “short-termist” interventions, incorporating the idea that, as we look further into the future, the e↵ects of any present intervention become progressively harder to predict. These models yield mixed conclusions: If we simply aim to maximize expected value, and don’t mind premising our choices on minuscule probabilities of astronomical payo↵s, the case for longtermism looks robust. But on some prima facie plausible empirical worldviews, the expectational superiority of longtermist ...
Longtermism holds that what we ought to do is mainly determined by effects on the far future. A n... more Longtermism holds that what we ought to do is mainly determined by effects on the far future. A natural objection is that these effects may be nearly impossible to predict -- perhaps so close to impossible that, despite the astronomical importance of the far future, the expected value of our present options is mainly determined by short-term considerations. This paper aims to precisify and evaluate (a version of) this epistemic objection. To that end, I develop two simple models for comparing "longtermist" and "short-termist" interventions, incorporating the idea that, as we look further into the future, the effects of any present intervention become progressively harder to predict. These models yield mixed conclusions: If we simply aim to maximize expected value, and don't mind premising our choices on minuscule probabilities of astronomical payoffs, the case for longtermism looks robust. But on some prima facie plausible empirical worldviews, the expectational superiority of longtermist interventions depends heavily on these "Pascalian" probabilities. So the case for longtermism may depend either on plausible but non-obvious empirical claims or on a tolerance for Pascalian fanaticism.
I argue that the use of a social discount rate to assess the costs and benefits of policy respons... more I argue that the use of a social discount rate to assess the costs and benefits of policy responses to climate change is unhelpful and misleading. I consider two lines of justification for discounting, one ethical and the other economic, connected to the two terms of the standard formula for the discount rate. Concerning the former, I examine some arguments recently put forward by Joseph Heath and others for a "pure rate of time preference " and conclude that they fail to overcome standard ethical arguments for temporal neutrality. Concerning the latter, I consider whether the standard economic rationale for discounting, based on the diminishing marginal utility of consumption, is relevant to the specific costs and benefits at stake in climate policy. I argue that it is not, since the unusually long time horizons and nature of the costs and benefits in the climate context mean that a great many of the idealizing assumptions required by this economic rationale do not adequately approximate the underlying reality. The unifying theme of my objections is that all extant rationales for time discounting, both ethical and economic, justify it only as a proxy for normative concerns that have no intrinsic connection to the passage of time, and that in consequence, for any proposed application of a discount rate to ethical or public policy questions, it must be asked whether that approximation is useful to the case at hand. Where it is not, other means must be found to represent the concerns that motivate discounting, and in the concluding section I sketch such an alternative for the case of climate change.
I argue that the use of a social discount rate to assess the costs and benefits of policy respons... more I argue that the use of a social discount rate to assess the costs and benefits of policy responses to climate change is unhelpful and misleading. I consider two lines of justification for discounting, one ethical and the other economic, connected to the two terms of the standard formula for the discount rate. Concerning the former, I examine some arguments recently put forward by Joseph Heath and others for a " pure rate of time preference " and conclude that they fail to overcome standard ethical arguments for temporal neutrality. Concerning the latter, I consider whether the standard economic rationale for discounting, based on the diminishing marginal utility of consumption, is relevant to the specific costs and benefits at stake in climate policy. I argue that it is not, since the unusually long time horizons and nature of the costs and benefits in the climate context mean that a great many of the idealizing assumptions required by this economic rationale do not adequately approximate the underlying reality. The unifying theme of my objections is that all extant rationales for time discounting, both ethical and economic, justify it only as a proxy for normative concerns that have no intrinsic connection to the passage of time, and that in consequence, for any proposed application of a discount rate to ethical or public policy questions, it must be asked whether that approximation is useful to the case at hand. Where it is not, other means must be found to represent the concerns that motivate discounting, and in the concluding section I sketch such an alternative for the case of climate change.
Philosophy of Time by Christian Tarsney
I describe a thought experiment in which an agent must choose between suffering a greater pain in... more I describe a thought experiment in which an agent must choose between suffering a greater pain in the past or a lesser pain in the future. This case demonstrates that the "temporal value asymmetry" — our disposition to attribute greater significance to future pleasures and pains than to past — can have consequences for the rationality of actions as well as attitudes. This fact, I argue, blocks attempts to vindicate the temporal value asymmetry as a useful heuristic tied to the asymmetry of causation. Since the two standard arguments for the rationality of the temporal value asymmetry appeal to causal asymmetry and the passage of time respectively, the failure of the causal asymmetry explanation suggests that the B-theory, which rejects temporal passage, has substantial revisionary implications concerning our attitudes toward past and future experience.
Analysis, 2017
I describe a thought experiment in which an agent must choose between suffering a greater pain in... more I describe a thought experiment in which an agent must choose between suffering a greater pain in the past or a lesser pain in the future. This case demonstrates that the "temporal value asymmetry" — our disposition to attribute greater significance to future pleasures and pains than to past — can have consequences for the rationality of actions as well as attitudes. This fact, I argue, blocks attempts to vindicate the temporal value asymmetry as a useful heuristic tied to the asymmetry of causation. Since the two standard arguments for the rationality of the temporal value asymmetry appeal to causal asymmetry and the passage of time respectively, the failure of the causal asymmetry explanation suggests that the B-theory, which rejects temporal passage, has substantial revisionary implications concerning our attitudes toward past and future experience.
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Extreme Risks by Christian Tarsney
Population Ethics by Christian Tarsney
Philosophy of AI by Christian Tarsney
Ethics of the Long-Term Future by Christian Tarsney
Philosophy of Time by Christian Tarsney
This dissertation has two principal objectives: First, I argue that, contra these recent objections, an agent's moral beliefs and uncertainties are relevant to what she rationally ought to do, and more particularly, that agents are at least sometimes rationally required to hedge for their moral uncertainties. My principal argument for these claims appeals to the enkratic conception of rationality, according to which the requirements of practical rationality derive from an agent's beliefs about the objective, desire-independent value or choiceworthiness of her options. Second, I outline a new general theory of rational choice under moral uncertainty. Central to this theory is the idea of content-based aggregation, that the principles according to which an agent should compare and aggregate rival moral theories are grounded in the content of those theories themselves, including not only their value assignments but also the metaethical and other non-surface-level propositions that underlie, justify, or explain those value assignments.