MTSU Students for Environmental Action

 

MTSU’s 14th biennnial Holocaust Studies Conference

Atina Grossman, a professor of history at The Cooper Union in New York City, will present the keynote address at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 22, in the Student Union Ballroom. The event is free and open to all MTSU students, faculty and staff.

In her lecture, titled “Remapping Holocaust Studies: Teaching and Research in Global Context,” Grossman will consider how to help students recognize connections between the Holocaust and racism, antisemitism and colonialism while continuing to acknowledge the Holocaust’s uniqueness in history.

Other issues Grossman will consider include the challenges of achieving a deeper understanding of the Holocaust and the non-Western world and teaching Holocaust studies as the liberal arts come under question in some arenas of the academic community... (continues)

Maria Montessori

I think Maria must have studied Aristotle.

It’s the birthday of Maria Montessori, born on this day in Chiaravalle, Italy (1870). She was a bright student, studied engineering when she was 13, and — against her father’s wishes — she entered a technical school, where all her classmates were boys. After a few years, she decided to pursue medicine, and she became the first woman in Italy to earn a medical degree. It was so unheard of for a woman to go to medical school that she had to get the approval of the pope in order to study there.

As a doctor, she worked with children with special needs, and through her work with them she became increasingly interested in education. She believed that children were not blank slates, but that they each had inherent, individual gifts. It was a teacher’s job to help children find these gifts, rather than dictating what a child should know. She emphasized independence, self-directed learning, and learning from peers. Children were encouraged to make decisions. She was the first educator to use child-sized tables and chairs in the classroom.

During World War II, Montessori was exiled from Italy because she was opposed to Mussolini’s fascism and his desire to make her a figurehead for the Italian government. She lived and worked in India for many years, and then in Holland. She died in 1952 at the age of 81.

She wrote many books about her philosophy of education, including The Montessori Method (1912), and is considered a major innovator in education theory and practice.

WA 

Questions Sep 1

Skepticism-LH 3. FL 5-6, HWT 4-5. Post your thoughts, responses, questions (etc.) in the comments space below.

LH

1. How did the most extreme skeptics (or sceptics, if you prefer the British spelling) differ from Plato and Aristotle? What was their main teaching? Do you think they were "Socratic" in this regard?

2. Why did Pyrrho decide never to trust his senses? Is such a decision prudent or even possible?

3. What country did Pyrrho visit as a young man, and how might it have influenced his philosophy?

4. How did Pyrrho think his extreme skepticism led to happiness? Do you think there are other ways of achieving freedom from worry (ataraxia)?

5. In contrast to Pyrrho, most philosophers have favored a more moderate skepticism. Why?

FL

1. What did Anne Hutchinson feel "in her gut"? What makes her "so American"?

2. What did Hutchinson and Roger Williams help invent?

3. How was freedom of thought in 17th century America expressed differently than in Europe at the time?

4. Who, according to some early Puritans, were "Satan's soldiers"? DId you know the Puritans villified the native Americans in this way? Why do you think that wasn't emphasized in your early education?

5. What extraordinary form of evidence was allowed at the Salen witch trials? What does Andersen think Arthur Miller's The Crucible got wrong about Salem?

HWT

1. Logic is simply what? Do you consider yourself logical (rational)?

2. What "law" of thinking is important in all philosophies, including those in non-western cultures that find it less compelling? Do you think it important to follow rules of thought? What do you think of the advice "Don't believe everything you think?"

3. For Aristotle, the distinctive thing about humanity is what? How does Indian philosophy differ on this point? What do you think is most distinctive about humanity?

4. According to secular reason, the mind works without what? Are you a secularist? Why or why not?

5. What debate reveals a tension in secular reason? How would you propose to resolve the tension?

Propaganda

	Art of Manliness ⁦‪@artofmanliness‬⁩ I Want You . . . To Put Away Your Smartphone: Propaganda Posters for the Modern Age buff.ly/3Axfkdn pic.twitter.com/nFPR7cDTWz   8/30/22, 11:57 AM

Aristotle & Wendell

 LISTEN. Today in Environmental Ethics we're receiving more Wendell Berry. 

I choose that word deliberately. Wendell's wisdom is a gift, a receipt to treasure. The astute hypothetical aliens who might ask for more Chuck would do well to ask for another Berry too.

In CoPhi it's time for Aristotle. That serendipitously coincides with the lead-off slot I've been graciously asked to fill in the Honors Fall Lecture Series. 

My CoPhi Section #12 will thus crash their party on the other side of campus at 2:40 this afternoon, where we'll consider Aristotle on friendship and happiness. I'm likely to bring Wendell into that conversation as well. I've already noticed some affinity between he and Socrates, now I think I also detect an Aristotelian strain in the farmer-poet from Port Royal. That does leave Plato the odd man out... (continues)

The Acropolis

	Angela O'Brien ⁦‪@GrecianGirly‬⁩ 🏛 The Athenian Acropolis. 📷 danis_p_gr / Instagram pic.twitter.com/9pvsU5q4WU   8/28/22, 2:31 AM

The art of active listening

"…listening well – which necessarily involves conversing well and questioning well – is one of the most accessible and most powerful forms of connection we have..." aeon

Hegel

When I was an undergrad we had a club called The Hegel Society that met in a campus pub every Friday. We didn't have a clue what he was really about. I now think he was overrated.

It’s the birthday of philosopher Georg Hegel, born in Stuttgart (1770). He started out as a theologian, particularly interested in how Christianity is a religion based on opposites: sin and salvation, earth and heaven, finite and infinite...

— Phil Oliver (@OSOPHER) August 27, 2022

In Finland, a Partying Prime Minister Draws Tuts, and Cheers

Prime Ministers are people too. Especially young ones.

…Ms. Marin briefly became tearful when she addressed the fallout from the dispute.
"I'm a human being and sometimes I, too, need joy and fun in the middle of dark clouds," she said. "I haven't missed a single day of work and haven't left a single task undone, and I won't even in the middle of all this, because all of this will pass and together we must make this country stronger." nyt

“Love Languages”

It's really just about trying to see things from another point of view.

"…the love languages are a MacGuffin: a vessel, usually an unimportant or seemingly random object, used in fiction to move the plot forward. The five categories themselves are not as important as what the overall theory signals to people — that "their own frame of mind is not the way their partner is processing things."

(continues)

Questions Aug 30

Aristotle-LH 2; FL 3-4; HWT Sections 1-3. Remember, Section #12 is meeting in Honors 106 (across from the Student Center, adjacent to the Rec Center) at 2:40 Tuesday. Try to arrive early if you can, seating may be limited.

LH

1. What point was Aristotle making when he wrote of swallows and summer? Do you agree?

2. What philosophical difference between Plato and Aristotle is implied by The School of Athens? Whose side are you on, Plato's or Aristotle's?

3. What is eudaimonia, and how can we increase our chances of achieving it, and in relation only to what? Do you think you've achieved it?

4. What reliance is completely against the spirit of Aristotle's research? Are there any authorities you always defer to? Why or why not?

FL

5. What did Sir Walter Raleigh help invent (other than cigarettes) that contributed to "Fantasyland" as we know it today? Was he a "stupid git," as the Beatles song says?

6. What was western civilization's first great ad campaign? Does advertising and the constant attempt to sell things to people have a negative impact on life in the USA?

7. What did Sir Francis Bacon say about human opinion and superstition? Do you ever attempt to overcome your own confirmation bias?

8. Which early settlers are typically ignored in the mythic American origin story? Also: what about the early "settlers" who were brought here against their wills and enslaved?

9. What had mostly ended in Europe, but not America, by the 1620s, and what did the Puritans think would happen "any minute now"? Why do you think people keep making this mistake?

HWT

10. What is pratyaksa in classic Indian philosophy, and how does the Upanishads say to seek it? 

11. There is widespread belief in India that the practice of yoga can lead to what? Do you think it can?

12. What is metanoetics, in Japanese philosophy?

13. What does ineffable mean?  Is it possible, though paradoxical, to use words to indicate something you can't put into words?

14. Unlike the west, religion in Japan is typically not about what? And what is it about to you?

Lyceum!

 Our long-postponed Lyceum speaker (originally scheduled for March 2020), Professor Tadd Ruetenik of St. Ambrose University in Iowa, will deliver "Sports: The Flywheel of the Military Industrial Complex" on Friday September 16 in COE 164, at 5 pm (reception following). Professor Ruetenik, author of The Demons of William James: Religious Pragmatism Explores Unusual Mental States, has subsequently published another book, Bodies and Battlefields: Abortion, War, and the Moral Sentiments of Sacrifice.

How we'll begin class each day

 We didn't do it on Opening Day, too much else was going on.

But on most days I like to begin class with a glance at history (especially literary history, the history of the best that's been thought and written) and maybe a poem; and then at the front page of our national "paper of record"-the New York Times. (As an MTSU student you are eligible for a free digital subscription to the Times. You should activate it. And read it.)

That's because philosophy, like everything else, has a context and a history. We need to be aware of where we've been and what's happening now, if we want to get something useful out of the old dead philosophers who only live on through our dialogue with them.

For the history, a good source is On This Day. For the literary history and poetry, I like The Writers Almanac.

So please remind me, if I forget.

Also don't let me forget to put that recording microphone around my neck.

Bluegrass Socrates

  LISTEN. Are Socrates and Plato really Wendell Berry's spiritual ancestors? 

That may be a little glib. But Socrates the gadfly definitely modeled an aggressive and alienating version of Wendell's more reserved and honeyed way of persisting in the face of scorn and opposition to uphold what's right, and to insist on honesty in our mutual relations with people and places. He modeled strong loyalty to one's native grounds (see Plato's account of Socrates' rationale for accepting the state's ultimate injustice in Crito). Port Royal KY is Wendell's Athens. Fortunately no one will make the Mad Farmer drink hemlock... (continues)

All we can be

It was a good Opening Day. Not many wanted to introduce themselves in class, it always becomes clear who the extroverts are. But their posted intros speak well (or at least interestingly) of them. A sample... (continues)

==

Post your introduction, if you've not already done so.

“WALK: Slow Down, Wake Up”-another peripatetic travelogue

A new book in the spirit of "Walking to Listen"—

A transformative collection of essays on the power of walking to connect with ourselves, each other, and nature itself.

In 2010, Jonathon Stalls and his blue-heeler husky mix began their 242-day walk across the United States, depending upon each other and the kindness of strangers along the way. In this collection of essays, Stalls explores walking as waking up: how a cross-country journey through the family farms of West Virginia, the deep freedom of Nevada's High desert, and everywhere in between unlocked connections to his deepest aches and dreams--and opened new avenues for renewal, connection, and change…

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60124521-walk

Questions Aug 25

Respond to any of these you'd care to, in the comments space below... or to questions posed by your classmates or yourself. Claim a base on the scorecard for each separate comment. 

Socrates and Plato-LH1; FL 1-2; HWT Intro & prologue...

LH
1. What kind of conversation was a success, for Socrates, and what did he mean by wisdom?

2. What theory is Plato's story of the cave connected with? Do you think some or all humans are naturally, in some allegorical sense, stuck in a cave?

3. What did Socrates say his inner voice told him? Do you think "inner voice" is literal?

FL

1. What statement by Karl Rove began to "crystallize" Fantasyland, in Kurt Andersen's mind?

2. What are half of Americans "absolutely certain" about? What do a quarter believe about vaccines?

3. What is Andersen trying to do with this book?

HWT

1. What's one of the great unexplained wonders of human history?
2. Do you agree that we cannot understand ourselves if we do not understand others?
3. What was Descartes's "still pertinent" conclusion?
4. Why did the Buddha think speculation about ultimate reality was fruitless? 
5. What aspects of western thought have most influenced global philosophy?
6. What do Africans not have, according to Kwame Appiah?

Opening Day!

 LISTEN. A new dawn is breaking on us CoPhilosophers, and I've finally arranged a Fall schedule stacked entirely on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

"Believing in philosophy myself devoutly, and believing also that a kind of new dawn is breaking upon us philosophers, I feel impelled, per fas aut nefas, to try to impart to you some news of the situation." Pragmatism 1 (Students who've looked at the syllabus know that this is one of our recommended texts, today and forever.)

Three CoPhi classes beginning early, interrupted by a Farmer's Market lunchtime break (and Office Hours) at noon, capped late in the afternoon with Environmental Ethics. An intense teaching schedule is worth half as many I-24 commutes, for reasons ecological as well as emotional. Happiness studies do consistently report a strong correlation between life satisfaction and (less) time behind the wheel. Plus, I can defer that gas money to fluids more gratifying and less guilt-inducing than fossil fuels... (continues)

Introductions

Looking forward to seeing you all on August 23. I'll tell you then why I prefer to call this course CoPhilosophy, why I call myself (and encourage you all to become) Peripatetic, and why I sometimes introduce this course on Opening Day with references to Monty Python's Argument Clinic, Brian Cohen, and Douglas Adams's whale, POV gun, and answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. Extra (moral) credit to anyone who can translate and explain the philosophical significance of the Latin phrases Solvitur Ambulando and Sapere Aude, and who can find first base on a baseball scorecard (or diamond).

And since I'm also teaching Environmental Ethics this semester, I'll probably say a bit about the quotes in the sidebar under "A proper education" and "The college project"...

We mostly will NOT use D2L for online discussion and course support. We WILL use this site... where you'll find the syllabus, texts (required and recommended), and other information and resources. 

Before first coming to class (if you happen to have read your email and found this page before Tuesday) click on "Introductions" below and share your own. Click on "comments" below, tell us who you are, why you're here (in class, at school, on planet earth...), what you understand by "philosophy," if you have a favorite philosopher or a concise personal philosophy, and anything else by way of introduction. (Include your section #: #7-9:40; #11-1 pm; #12-2:40 pm.)

That'll get us started, before we dive into Little History of Philosophy, How the World Thinks, and our other texts. 

Enjoy the remainder of your summer, and get ready for some important and exciting conversations.

jpo 

(Dr. Oliver)

phil.oliver@mtsu.edu

Aristotle on friendship & happiness

ATTN: Section 12: we'll meet here on Aug. 30.

Happy to lead off the Fall Honors lecture series. https://t.co/lfjWkc4lmx

— Phil Oliver (@OSOPHER) August 22, 2022

Why Learn

LISTEN. Mark Edmundson, author of Why Teach, Why Read, and Why Write, answers his own questions:

"By coming up with fresh and arresting words to describe the world accurately, the writer expands the boundaries of her world, and possibly her readers’ world, too. Real writing can do what R. P. Blackmur said it could: add to the stock of available reality." 

And by natural extension, teachers attempt to expand their students' stock of reality.

At convocation yesterday, Andrew Forsthoefel told our new students that he'd expanded his own stock of reality when he set out on his trans-American walk and listened to the stories of scores of Americans. In the process he learned a great deal about who he was. He grew up... (continues)

 

 

(Andrew begins speaking at about 38")

Walking, listening, talking, reflecting... repeat

Looking forward to #MTSU Convocation, “Walking to Listen” was a great choice for the summer read. https://t.co/QRj6r5TVsg

— Phil Oliver (@OSOPHER) August 21, 2022

Walking, listening, evolving (publ 6-30-22)

Walking to Listen is good, titularly combining two of my favorite things--the peripatetic and the auditory.

Subtitled 4,000 Miles Across America, One Story at a Time, Andrew Forsthoefel's account of his post-graduate transcontinental "slog" after finishing at Middlebury in 2011 is our freshman read. Most of our incoming class probably won't pick it up because it's, you know, a book. That's a shame. It's an education in itself and a good preamble to philosophy, in whose standard discourse so much is so often said and so little really heard. It is, as the Washington Post reviewer said, an "ideal antidote for even the strongest bout of national doubt." And that's what a lot of us have got right now, on this 4th of July holiday weekend eve, isn't it? National doubt? Global doubt? Maybe even a bit of species self-loathing? (continues)

==

Thank you so much for sharing this with me, Phil. I'm honored you spent this time considering my work and sharing about it. I'm very much looking forward to visiting your community soon. Hope you're enjoying the summer.

Warmly,

Andrew

7-18

I so appreciate your support and glad to know how the work continues with your students. 

Warmly,

Andrew

8-21

No gurus

I always tell students on Opening Day to resist the Guru model of wisdom. Philosophy is collaborative. Authority figures do not appeal. "...there is no teacher, no pupil; there is no leader; there is no guru...
https://t.co/n5ari6R61q

— Phil Oliver (@OSOPHER) August 21, 2022

Tweet by ᗪᗴᒪᑌᗴᔕ ᑕᒪᑌᗴᔕ on Twitter

	ᗪᗴᒪᑌᗴᔕ ᑕᒪᑌᗴᔕ ⁦‪@vernon_w_cisney‬⁩ Reconstruction of Greek philosopher Aristotle based on his bust. pic.twitter.com/5PoqlAZkRf   8/20/22, 11:18 PM

Doubtful 🤨 ...

Slightly less doubtful...

Survivor of White House Lightning Strike Embraces Third Chance at Life

…She said she learned years ago to focus on gratitude from the examples of her Aunt Melinda, who had recurring bouts of cancer for 12 years, and her Uncle Les, who had cancer for nine years. They both died from their illnesses, but during treatment they would always talk about how grateful they were to still be alive.

"I've always had that from them, but since this has happened to me, the part that I've learned is to just take on life without fear of failure," she said... nyt

American Studies

The students are coming. Maybe one or two will glance at my American Studies sign, somebody’s got to figure this country out. pic.twitter.com/SGUyJvJvS2

— Phil Oliver (@OSOPHER) August 19, 2022

Consider a minor... 

Another peripatetic prof

The recipient of the Career Achievement Award at #MTSU spoke of walking around our campus and experiencing it as our students do. Good advice. Scholars sit too much. https://t.co/CszhWhzQjn

— Phil Oliver (@OSOPHER) August 19, 2022

Either/Or

LISTEN. Kierkegaard's disjunctive title, and his existential pessimism, have new life in Elif Batuman's novel of academia from the perspective of a Harvard co-ed for whom every new experience and encounter is an occasion for extended ruminative puzzlement. 

I like to read something just before a new semester to displace my usual ways of thinking about Higher  Education. Batuman's narrator/protagonist Selin, a first-generation student of Turkish heritage, definitely sees school and life from an unfamiliar perspective... (continues)

==

Thinking today of a beloved former "non-traditional" student, the late suffrage scholar Don Enss. https://t.co/z2nBpvGd0Z

— Phil Oliver (@OSOPHER) August 18, 2022

University Writing Center

 §  The Margaret H. Ordoubadian University Writing Center is located in LIB 362 and online at www.mtsu.edu/writing-center. Here, students can receive valuable (and FREE!) one-to-one assistance in person or online on writing projects for any course. Please make your appointment by stopping by LIB 362, calling 615-904-8237, or visiting the UWC website.  Visit early and often!

§  UWC is a place for ALL writers, regardless of level or writing experience.  

§  Come early and often! We help at all stages of the writing process. We recommend that students come to the UWC for at least two visits for each writing assignment. Multiple visits allow students to address a variety of concerns, such as content, organization, and grammar.

§  Being prepared for your session. Students with assignment sheets in hand are more likely to have productive sessions that help them to meet their needs as writers. UWC provides a peer-audience for writers. Rather than being seen as a "fix-it shop," the UWC prides itself on training consultants to give thoughtful, knowledgeable feedback throughout the writing process in order to help students grow skills and become more confident, independent writers.

§  Online and nontraditional students are encouraged to attend online sessions if they cannot come to campus. 

§  Students who are working on long-term projects or specific writing goals are encouraged to set up a Writing Partnership. Writing Partnerships allow students to work once a week at the same day and time with the same writing consultant. Find more information about Writing Partnerships here.

§  Request a UWC class visit early in the semester or at the beginning of a major writing assignment. Sometimes seeing a friendly face makes the difference in getting students to seek help. Request a class visit here.

§  Join a UWC Writing Group. See our Writing Groups page for more information!

How else can the UWC support your student writers this semester? 

 

We also support writers through course-specific or assignment-specific 45-minute writing workshops. The UWC administrative team has worked closely with faculty from diverse programs and departments, such as Biology, Music Publicity, and Professional Studies, to create workshops and writing support specific for students in those courses. Please head to our workshop request page to find out what type of workshops we offer, schedule a writing workshop, and steps to co-create a specialized writing workshop. 

We look forward to working with you! 

Thank you for your time,

 

Erica Cirillo-McCarthy, PhD

Director, The Margaret H. Ordoubadian University Writing Center

Assistant Professor, Department of English

Middle Tennessee State University

615.898.2921

mtsu.edu/writing-center

Building Artificial Intelligence We Can Trust

Gary Marcus — Rebooting AI: Building Artificial Intelligence We Can Trust

Despite the hype surrounding AI, creating an intelligence that rivals or exceeds human levels is far more complicated than we have been led to believe. The achievements in the field thus far have occurred in closed systems with fixed sets of rules, and these approaches are too narrow to achieve genuine intelligence. The real world, in contrast, is wildly complex and open-ended. How can we bridge this gap? What will the consequences be when we do?

Shermer and Marcus discuss: why AI chatbot LaMDA is not sentient • "mind", "thinking", and "consciousness", and how do molecules and matter give rise to such nonmaterial processes • the hard problem of consciousness • the self and other minds • How would we know if an AI system was sentient? • Can AI systems be conscious? • free will, determinism, compatibilism, and panpsychism • language • Can we have an inner life without language? • How rational or irrational an animal are we?

Gary Marcus is a scientist, best-selling author, and entrepreneur. He is Founder and CEO of Robust.AI, and was Founder and CEO of Geometric Intelligence, a machine learning company acquired by Uber in 2016. He is the author of five books, including The Algebraic Mind, Kluge, The Birth of the Mind, and the New York Times best seller Guitar Zero, as well as editor of The Future of the Brain and The Norton Psychology Reader. He has published extensively in fields ranging from human and animal behavior to neuroscience, genetics, linguistics, evolutionary psychology and artificial intelligence, often in leading journals such as Science and Nature, and is perhaps the youngest Professor Emeritus at NYU. His newest book, co-authored with Ernest Davis, Rebooting AI: Building Machines We Can Trust aims to shake up the field of artificial intelligence.

LISTEN NOW

https://mailchi.mp/skeptic/building-artificial-intelligence-we-can-trust?mc_cid=974e926e8f&mc_eid=1c54cb292b

VOTE!

 Register to Vote here

Important Election Dates for Fall 2022:

Constitution Week at MTSU this fall is Sept. 12-16, 2022. Since Sept. 17, actual Constitution Day, falls on a Saturday this year, MTSU is hosting its Constitution Week activities the days prior. Details to follow.

 

To boost and encourage student voter registration and active voter participation, MTSU is again competing in the all-Tennessee-university State Voting Challenge (which we have won every year) and the Conference USA Voting Challenge (which we have yet to win), in direct competition with WKU. National Study of Learning Voting and Engagement data inform us that 64% of MTSU students voted in 2020, below the national university-student participation average. Growth is our objective. Please help our students understand the importance and urgency of the interim election cycle, help them get registered, and incentivize them to get to the polls during Early Voting.

 

Every student needs to develop a personal Voting Plan, of where to vote, thus where to register, and calendaring when to vote. So please Ask Every Student their plan. Remember that in Tennessee students must vote in the county in which they are registered. And students actually vote in the county where they sleep at night M-F. With a Tennessee Driver’s License, it’s easy for non-commuting students to re-register online in Rutherford County where they can vote in person if they live here. Out-of-state students with a passport who live here can also vote here, registering on a paper form. American Democracy Project is ready to assist every student in every way possible.

 

Thank you for taking seriously your responsibilities as citizens in our participatory democracy. The pattern set in college lasts a lifetime.

American Democracy Project for Civic Learning

University Honors College, Box 267

#MTSUVotes

amerdem@mtsu.edu

mtsu.edu/vote

 

 

 

 

characteristic delight

"Unsurprisingly, the back of Either/Or didn’t say which kind of life was better. All it said was: “Does Kierkegaard mean us to prefer one of the alternatives? Or are we thrown back on the existentialist idea of radical choice?” That had probably been written by a professor. I recognized the professors’ characteristic delight at not imparting information."

Either/Or" by Elif Batuman: https://a.co/4q7yZ0f

Consider a minor in American Studies

 

The Reluctant Prophet of Effective Altruism, & The Case for Longtermism-What We Owe the Future

William MacAskill’s movement set out to help the global poor. Now his followers fret about runaway A.I. Have they seen our threats clearly, or lost their way?

The philosopher William MacAskill credits his personal transfiguration to an undergraduate seminar at Cambridge. Before this shift, MacAskill liked to drink too many pints of beer and frolic about in the nude, climbing pitched roofs by night for the life-affirming flush; he was the saxophonist in a campus funk band that played the May Balls, and was known as a hopeless romantic. But at eighteen, when he was first exposed to “Famine, Affluence, and Morality,” a 1972 essay by the radical utilitarian Peter Singer, MacAskill felt a slight click as he was shunted onto a track of rigorous and uncompromising moralism. Singer, prompted by widespread and eradicable hunger in what’s now Bangladesh, proposed a simple thought experiment: if you stroll by a child drowning in a shallow pond, presumably you don’t worry too much about soiling your clothes before you wade in to help; given the irrelevance of the child’s location—in an actual pond nearby or in a metaphorical pond six thousand miles away—devoting resources to superfluous goods is tantamount to allowing a child to drown for the sake of a dry cleaner’s bill. For about four decades, Singer’s essay was assigned predominantly as a philosophical exercise: his moral theory was so onerous that it had to rest on a shaky foundation, and bright students were instructed to identify the flaws that might absolve us of its demands. MacAskill, however, could find nothing wrong with it.

By the time MacAskill was a graduate student in philosophy, at Oxford, Singer’s insight had become the organizing principle of his life. When he met friends at the pub, he ordered only a glass of water, which he then refilled with a can of two-per-cent lager he’d bought on the corner; for dinner, he ate bread he’d baked at home. The balance of his earnings was reserved for others. He tried not to be too showy or evangelical, but neither was he diffident about his rationale. It was a period in his life both darkly lonesome and ethically ablaze. As he put it to me recently, “I was very annoying.”

In an effort to shape a new social equilibrium in which his commitments might not be immediately written off as mere affectation, he helped to found a moral crusade called “effective altruism.” The movement, known as E.A. to its practitioners, who themselves are known as E.A.s, takes as its premise that people ought to do good in the most clear-sighted, ambitious, and unsentimental way possible. Among other back-of-the-envelope estimates, E.A.s believe that a life in the developing world can be saved for about four thousand dollars. Effective altruists have lashed themselves to the mast of a certain kind of logical rigor, refusing to look away when it leads them to counterintuitive, bewildering, or even seemingly repugnant conclusions. For a time, the movement recommended that inspirited young people should, rather than work for charities, get jobs in finance and donate their income. More recently, E.A.s have turned to fretting about existential risks that might curtail humanity’s future, full stop.

Effective altruism, which used to be a loose, Internet-enabled affiliation of the like-minded, is now a broadly influential faction, especially in Silicon Valley, and controls philanthropic resources on the order of thirty billion dollars. Though MacAskill is only one of the movement’s principal leaders, his conspicuous integrity and easygoing charisma have made him a natural candidate for head boy. The movement’s transitions—from obscurity to power; from the needs of the contemporary global poor to those of our distant descendants—have not been altogether smooth. MacAskill, as the movement’s de-facto conscience, has felt increasing pressure to provide instruction and succor. At one point, almost all of his friends were E.A.s, but he now tries to draw a line between public and private. He told me, “There was a point where E.A. affairs were no longer social things—people would come up to me and want to talk about their moral priorities, and I’d be, like, ‘Man, it’s 10 p.m. and we’re at a party!’ ”

On a Saturday afternoon in Oxford, this past March, MacAskill sent me a text message about an hour before we’d planned to meet: “I presume not, given jetlag, but might you want to go for a sunset swim? It’d be very very cold!” I was out for a run beside the Thames, and replied, in an exacting mode I hoped he’d appreciate—MacAskill has a way of making those around him greedy for his approval—that I was about eight-tenths of a mile from his house, and would be at his door in approximately five minutes and thirty seconds. “Oh wow impressive!” he replied. “Let’s do it!”

MacAskill limits his personal budget to about twenty-six thousand pounds a year, and gives everything else away. He lives with two roommates in a stolid row house in an area of south Oxford bereft, he warned me, of even a good coffee shop. He greeted me at his door, praising my “bias for action,” then led me down a low and dark hallway and through a laundry room arrayed with buckets that catch a perpetual bathroom leak upstairs. MacAskill is tall and sturdily built, with an untidy mop of dark-blond hair that had grown during the pandemic to messianic lengths. In an effort to unwild himself for reëntry, he had recently reduced it to a dimension better suited to polite society.

MacAskill allowed, somewhat sheepishly, that lockdown had been a welcome reprieve from the strictures of his previous life. He and some friends had rented a home in the Buckinghamshire countryside; he’d meditated, acted as the house exercise coach, and taken in the sunset. He had spent his time in a wolf-emblazoned jumper writing a book called “What We Owe the Future,” which comes out this month. Now the world was opening up, and he was being called back to serve as the movement’s shepherd. He spoke as if the life he was poised to return to were not quite his own—as if he weren’t a person with desires but a tabulating machine through which the profusion of dire global need was assessed, ranked, and processed.

He was doing his best to retain a grasp on spontaneity... (continues)

==

The Case for Longtermism--What We Owe the Future

by William MacAskill

there is remarkable overlap between the best ways we can promote the common good for people living right now and for our posterity

...Every year millions of people, disproportionately in poor countries, die prematurely because fossil fuel burning pollutes the air with particulates that cause lung cancer, heart disease and respiratory infections. Moving off carbon is a win-win for both the near and the long term. The same holds for preventing pandemics, controlling artificial intelligence and decreasing the risk of nuclear war.

The idea that we could affect the long-term future, and that there could be so much at stake, might just seem too wild to be true. This is how things initially seemed to me. But I think this wildness comes not from the moral premises that underlie longtermism but from the fact that we live at such an unusual time.

Our era is undergoing an unprecedented amount of change. Currently, the world economy doubles in size about every 19 years. But before the Industrial Revolution, it took hundreds of years for the world economy to double; and for hundreds of thousands of years before that, growth rates were close to zero. What's more, the current rate of growth cannot continue forever; within just 10,000 years, there would be a trillion civilizations' worth of economic output for every reachable atom.

All this indicates that we are living through a unique and precarious chapter in humanity's story. Out of the hundreds of thousands of years in humanity's past — and the potentially billions of years in its future — we find ourselves living now, at a time of extraordinary change.

A time marked by thousands of nuclear warheads standing ready to fire. A time when we are rapidly burning fossil fuels, producing pollution that might last hundreds of thousands of years. A time when we can see catastrophes on the horizon — from engineered viruses to A.I.-enabled totalitarianism — and can act to prevent them.

To be alive at such a time is both an exceptional opportunity and a profound responsibility: We can be pivotal in steering the future onto a better trajectory. There's no better time for a movement to stand up, not just for our generation or even our children's generation, but for all the generations yet to come.

William MacAskill is a professor of philosophy at Oxford University and the author of the forthcoming book "What We Owe the Future," from which this essay has been adapted. nyt