Future-proof ethics

Abstract

This piece kicks off a series on how we might try to be reliably “ahead of the curve” on ethics: making ethical decisions that look better - with hindsight, after a great deal of future moral progress - than what conventional wisdom would recommend. I examine the idea that a combination of utilitarianism (“the greatest good for the greatest number”) and sentientism (“if you can experience pleasure and/or suffering, you matter ethically”) gives us a good chance for “future-proof ethics," a system that is reliably ahead of the curve.