Effective Altruism: An Introduction – 80,000 Hours (April 2021) Eight: Prof Hilary Greaves on moral cluelessness, population ethics, & harnessing the brainpower of academia to tackle the most important research questions
02:48:33
Person-Affecting Views Run Structural Risks
- Person-affecting views try to deny that bringing people into existence benefits them, but they struggle with consistency and comparability.
- Rigorous person-affecting implementations often produce incomparability or contradictions.
Choose Options Robust Across Theories
- Under moral uncertainty, favor options where many theories agree or where disagreement is decisive in one direction.
- Prioritize actions that look best across plausible moral frameworks rather than relying on a single theory.
Cluelessness: Long-Term Effects Dominate
- 'Cluelessness' arises when long-run effects dominate but credences about those effects are highly unclear.
- Short-term measured impact may mislead because unforeseeable long-term effects usually dominate totals.
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Introduction
00:00 • 2min
How to Advance Your Career in Global Parities Research
01:40 • 2min
Why Did You Get Sucked Into Philosophy of Physics?
03:45 • 3min
How to Rescue Probability in Quanto Mechanics?
06:45 • 3min
Is Probability a Problem in the Multivers Theory?
09:44 • 3min
Do You Think You'll Learn Anything From Your Other Areas of Research?
12:56 • 3min
Is Conditionalization the Right Way to Update Your Degrees of Belief?
16:01 • 2min
What Are the Principles of Epistemic Rationality?
17:59 • 4min
Decision Theory - The Newcom Problem
21:32 • 4min
Why You Shouldn't Precommit to a Decision Theory
25:25 • 2min
The Newcan Problem - Is There Any Backward Causation?
27:10 • 3min
Psychopath Button
30:10 • 2min
Decision Theory and the Psychopath Button
32:06 • 2min
Decision Theory vs Epistemic Decision Theory
34:18 • 2min
Is There a Causal Epistemic Decision Theory?
35:57 • 3min
What Is Your Degree of Belief Now?
39:24 • 2min
Is the Effect of Altruism Doing More Basic Research?
41:30 • 2min
The Long Term Ism Paradime
43:07 • 2min
Do You Think You'll Change Your Mind on Long Termism?
45:20 • 4min
Is It Worth Preserving the Future?
49:30 • 5min
I've Never Found These Arguments From Demanding Thus Terribly Persuasive Philosophical
54:30 • 2min
Population Ethics - What's the Right Ordering of Worlds?
56:03 • 3min
What Is the Truth About Total Utilitarianism?
59:27 • 4min
Is There a Difference Between Total and Average Utilitarianism?
01:03:07 • 2min
Person Affecting Theory
01:05:19 • 3min
Is B One Better Than B Two?
01:07:57 • 2min
Is There a Moral Weight to the Person Affecting You?
01:09:39 • 3min
Is There a Restrictions to a Set of Possible Worlds?
01:12:36 • 2min
Is There a Better Theory of Person Affecting?
01:14:15 • 2min
Is There a Trick That's Going On?
01:16:22 • 3min
Is There a Moral Uncertainty Between Theories?
01:19:15 • 3min
The Long Term Is Better to Work on Than Global Poverty
01:22:11 • 2min
The Problem of Moral 'Clearlessness'
01:23:53 • 2min
Is There a Problem or Is It Just a Question of Credence?
01:25:43 • 3min
Is There Really a Problem With Expected Value Calculations?
01:29:10 • 3min
Is There a Difference Between Good and Bad in the Long Term?
01:31:45 • 5min
Is There a Difference Between the Long and Short Tim Effects?
01:36:22 • 3min
Cross Cause Comparisons
01:39:37 • 2min
Is It a Good Idea to Focus on the Long Tamed Fuature?
01:41:38 • 3min
Ynit, Is Premature Extinction the Worst of the Two?
01:44:58 • 2min
The Long Term Effects Aren't Going to Cancel Out
01:47:04 • 2min
What's the Standard Approach to Moral Uncertainty?
01:48:55 • 5min
Parito Dominance Principle
01:54:14 • 2min
Messiness and Hackiness in Practical Application
01:55:59 • 2min
I've Changed My Mind About GPI Research
01:57:32 • 2min
Effective Altruism and Utilitarianism
01:59:43 • 3min
Is There Really a Moral Obligation to Do Effective Altruism?
02:02:29 • 2min
The Value of Effective Altruism
02:04:13 • 3min
Is Academics Influential in Government Decision Making?
02:07:00 • 2min
Are We Doing Things a Little Bit Differently?
02:09:14 • 3min
Interdisciplinary Work
02:11:45 • 3min
Global Paradization or Effective Atherism?
02:15:02 • 1min
What Sort of Person Would Be Suitable to Do That?
02:16:31 • 4min
The Challenges for Academic Research Institutes
02:20:50 • 3min
Scholarships and Prizes for Defail Students
02:23:38 • 2min
How to Get the Most Bank for Obugi
02:25:08 • 2min
What Sub Fields Are Most Promising for Phds?
02:27:13 • 2min
Are There Any Other Approaches for Graduate School in Philosophy or Economics?
02:28:58 • 2min
How Do You Decide to Work in Academi?
02:30:59 • 2min
How Important Is It That People Are Integratively Motivated to Answer These Questions?
02:32:44 • 5min
The Challenges in Hiring Economics
02:37:49 • 4min
Are There Enough People Doing Related Research at Other Universities?
02:42:00 • 2min
How to Advertise an Academic Job?
02:43:31 • 2min
What Do You Find Most Frustrating About Working an Academic Job?
02:45:03 • 4min
The barista gives you your coffee and change, and you walk away from the busy line. But you suddenly realise she gave you $1 less than she should have. Do you brush your way past the people now waiting, or just accept this as a dollar you’re never getting back?
According to philosophy Professor Hilary Greaves - Director of Oxford University's Global Priorities Institute, this simple decision will completely change the long-term future by altering the identities of almost all future generations.
This conversation from 2018 blends philosophy with an exploration of the mission and research agenda of the Global Priorities Institute: to develop the effective altruism movement within academia.
Full transcript, related links, and summary of this interviewThis episode first broadcast on the regular 80,000 Hours Podcast feed on October 23, 2018. Some related episodes include:
• #16 – Dr Hutchinson on global priorities research & shaping the ideas of intellectuals
• #42 – Amanda Askell on moral empathy, the value of information & the ethics of infinity
• #67 – Dave Chalmers on the nature and ethics of consciousness
• #68 – Will MacAskill on the paralysis argument, whether we're at the hinge of history, & his new priorities
• #72 – Toby Ord on the precipice and humanity's potential futures
• #86 – Hilary Greaves on Pascal's mugging, strong longtermism, and whether existing can be good for us
Series produced by Keiran Harris.