What We Owe the Future (2022)
What We Owe the Future is a 2022 altruism book written by William MacAskill.
Future generations cannot vote, protest, or argue their case, yet the choices made today will shape the lives of everyone who comes after. Oxford philosopher William MacAskill builds his 2022 book around a straightforward claim: the people of the far future count morally, there could be an enormous number of them, and our actions can make their lives better or worse. Drawing on effective altruism, he treats influencing the long-term future as one of the central moral priorities of our era, and asks how ordinary planning might reasonably stretch across dozens or even hundreds of generations rather than a single lifetime.
Quick answers
What is What We Owe the Future about?
Future generations cannot vote, protest, or argue their case, yet the choices made today will shape the lives of everyone who comes after. Oxford philosopher William MacAskill builds his 2022 book around a straightforward claim: the people of the far future count morally, there could be an enormous number of them, and our actions can make their lives better or worse. Drawing on effective altruism, he treats influencing the long-term future as one of the central moral priorities of our era, and asks how ordinary planning might reasonably stretch across dozens or even hundreds of generations rather than a single lifetime.
When was What We Owe the Future published?
What We Owe the Future was published in 2022.
Who made What We Owe the Future?
What We Owe the Future was written by William MacAskill.
Official site
A few thoughts on What We Owe the Future
Readers drawn to big-picture moral reasoning should try Toby Ord's The Precipice, which maps the existential risks to humanity's survival, or Peter Singer's writing on ethics and altruism. For a sweeping view of where our species has been and where it might go, Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens pairs naturally with William MacAskill's long-lens thinking about the generations still to come.