Minimal and Expansive Longtermism — Hilary Greaves and Christian Tarsney, Oxford University Press (2025)

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A 2025 academic monograph from Oxford's Global Priorities Institute providing philosophical foundations for longtermism, directly relevant to understanding why AI existential risk reduction is prioritized in the effective altruism and AI safety communities.

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Importance: 62/100bookprimary source

Summary

This Oxford University Press volume by Hilary Greaves and Christian Tarsney systematically examines longtermism, distinguishing between minimal versions (giving significant weight to future generations) and expansive versions (prioritizing the long-run future above all else). The work provides philosophical foundations for evaluating how much moral weight should be assigned to future people and the implications for policy and action. It is a key academic treatment of longtermism as it relates to existential risk reduction and AI safety priorities.

Key Points

•Distinguishes 'minimal longtermism' (future matters significantly) from 'expansive longtermism' (future dominates all moral considerations).
•Provides rigorous philosophical grounding for why reducing existential and catastrophic risks may be among the most important moral priorities.
•Engages with population ethics, uncertainty, and the tractability of improving long-run outcomes.
•Authored by leading academic philosophers at Oxford's Global Priorities Institute, making it a high-credibility academic reference.
•Relevant to AI safety insofar as AI-related existential risks are a primary motivation for longtermist prioritization.

Cited by 1 page

Page	Type	Quality
Longtermism's Philosophical Credibility After FTX	--	50.0

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 Applied Ethics > Environmental Ethics > Topics in Environmental Ethics > Future Generations > Longtermism 
 Longtermism 
 

 
 
 Edited by Hayden Wilkinson ( University of Western Australi

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