The Ethics of Human Extinction Reading Group

This is an interdisciplinary reading group that focuses on ethical and evaluative questions relating to human extinction. It will be held on Zoom every ~5 weeks, with the first session having occurred on Friday, May 3, at 2pm Eastern Time. Meetings will last one hour, and begin with a short presentation on one paper that we will encourage participants to read beforehand. If you are interested in being added to the reading group's email list, please contact Dr. Émile P. Torres at philosophytorres@gmail.com.

 

Description: The aim of this reading group is to explore the topic of human extinction from a wide variety of different perspectives. This includes the perspectives of three broad classes of views within the field of human extinction ethics, which I have called (for lack of a better term) further-loss views, like longtermism and totalist utilitarianism, which see the badness or wrongness of human extinction as arising in part from the state of Being Extinct. Equivalence views, like contractualism and other person-affecting theories, which say that the badness or wrongness of human extinction comes down entirely to the details of Going Extinct. And pro-extinctionist views, which argue that the state of Being Extinct would in some way be better than the alternative of Being Extant, or continuing to exist.

 

Some have argued that the probability of human extinction this century, or in the coming centuries, is higher than it has ever been in human history. If correct, that makes this topic of great relevance and urgency. Yet, as I argue in my book Human Extinction, the ethics of human extinction (or "Existential Ethics") has received very little attention from philosophers within the Western tradition. Most discussion about our extinction these days occurs within the longtermist literature, but as noted above, this is just one of many different views that one can take on the topic—it’s not even the only type of further-loss view! The point of this reading group is to encourage more academics to examine the topic, and hopefully to help establish human extinction ethics as a cohesive field of intellectual inquiry.

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All views about the ethics of human extinction are very much welcome in this reading group.

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About the meetings: I will try to arrange for a speaker to present their work at each meeting. However, I very much welcome suggestions about who to ask: if you'd like a specific philosopher or scholar to present, please don't hesitate to let me know via email! I’m also entirely open to participants presenting their own research, including works in progress. If we’re unable to get a speaker, I’ll ask around for volunteers to present on a paper of interest. Once again, please do feel free to send me suggestions for papers to focus on!

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Group meetings:

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May 3: Dr. Roger Crisp, Professor of Moral Philosophy, Uehiro Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy, St Anne's College, University of Oxford.

          Readings: (1) "Would Extinction Be So Bad?" New Statesman. And (2) "Pessimism About the Future." Midwest Studies in Philosophy.

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June 7: Dr. David Thorstad, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University, Senior Research Affiliate at the Global Priorities Institute (Oxford), and Research Affiliate at the MINT Lab (Australian National University).

          Readings: "Existential Risk Pessimism and the Time of Perils," Global Priorities Institute Working Paper. You can find another version of the paper on the Effective Altruism Forum here.

 

July 12: TBA.

 

August 16: Dr. Todd May, Niesen Professor of the Humanities at Warren Wilson College and one of the original contributors to "The Stone," a New York Times philosophy blog.

          Readings: Dr. May will discuss his forthcoming book (out August 6), titled Should We Go Extinct?:  A Philosophical Dilemma for Our Unbearable Times, as well as his New York Times article "Would Human Extinction Be a Tragedy?"

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September 20: TBA.

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