Visionaries and Crackpots, Maniacs and Saints: Existential Risk and the Politics of Longtermism

ABSTRACT Despite advancing strong claims about our collective priorities, longtermism has received little attention in debates in political philosophy. I first provide an account of longtermism that highlights the way it departs from established work on intergenerational justice. The view offers a novel account of the value of the future and is concerned about existential risks that might curtail that value. I then argue that longtermism's focus on existential risk is implausible, leading proponents to adopt unattractive political positions. In particular, I show that Toby Ord’ “grand strategy” for humanity is antidemocratic and elitist, and that William MacAskill's “political experimentalism” implies a crude libertarianism. Longtermists are uninterested in political thought and often seem unaware of the strength of the positions they adopt, or indeed of how those positions depart from those of fellow advocates.