Existential risk and human extinction: An intellectual history

Abstract

The study of existential risk and human extinction emerged from a specific historical shift during the Enlightenment, marking a transition from religious apocalypticism to secular, scientific prognosis. Prior to this period, the philosophical Principle of Plenitude and the assumption of an inherently moral cosmos precluded the possibility of permanent species loss. The intellectual foundation for contemporary X-risk research was established through three scientific developments: geoscience, which revealed Earth’s catastrophic history; demography, which categorized humanity as a precarious biological species; and probabilism, which enabled the mathematical assessment of distal hazards. Crucially, the philosophical separation of natural facts from human values reframed moral agency as a self-legislated project. This realization established that the persistence of reason and value depends entirely on the survival of rational agents. Consequently, the mitigation of existential risk is not merely a modern technical concern but is fundamental to the definition of human rationality and the ongoing project of self-responsibility. This historical perspective legitimizes present-day macrostrategy by framing the protection of the long-term future as a core component of the human vocation. – AI-generated abstract.