Why “Longtermism” Needs Anti-Aging Science to Succeed

“Assuming anti-aging science shows results, then all of those hypothetical people living way off in the distant future may include some of us. And if that is the case, then people alive today have a practical, personal reason to care how our current actions impact the future.”

In his 2022 book What We Owe the Future, philosopher William MacAskill contends that we live in a uniquely consequential era. He writes: “Few people who ever live will have as much power to positively influence the future as we do. Such rapid technological, social, and environmental change means that we have more opportunity to affect when and how the most important of these changes occur.”

MacAskill is best known as an advocate for “longtermism,” which posits that we have a moral duty to consider how our actions affect people living in the future. This perspective has many implications for our present-day activities. Most obviously, it means that we should stop polluting the environment because it would be wrong to leave our descendants with a toxic, burning, filth pit of a planet.

Taking the longtermist view seriously, it is impossible to overstate the scope of our moral obligation to future generations. If we do not prematurely ruin our planet or destroy our species, then the number of people who will eventually come to exist will vastly outnumber those who have already been alive.