•  5
    The possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) exists despite no observed evidence, and the risks and benefits of actively searching for ETI (Active SETI) have been debated. Active SETI has been criticized for potentially exposing humanity to existential risk, and a recent game-theoretical model highlights the Hobbesian trap that could occur following contact if mutual distrust leads to mutual destruction. We argue that observing a nearby ETI would suggest the existence of many unobserve…Read more
  •  324
    Climate Change and Decision Theory
    In Pellegrino Gianfranco & Marcello Di Paola (eds.), Handbook of Philosophy of Climate Change, Springer Nature. pp. 267-286. 2023.
    Many people are worried about the harmful effects of climate change but nevertheless enjoy some activities that contribute to the emission of greenhouse gas (driving, flying, eating meat, etc.), the main cause of climate change. How should such people make choices between engaging in and refraining from enjoyable greenhouse-gas-emitting activities? In this chapter, we look at the answer provided by decision theory. Some scholars think that the right answer is given by interactive decision theory…Read more
  •  63
    The problem of collective impact: why helping doesn’t do the trick
    Philosophical Studies 180 (8): 2377-2397. 2023.
    Collective impact cases are situations where people collectively bring about a morally significant outcome by each acting in a certain way, and yet each individual action seems to make no, or almost no difference to the outcome. Intuitively, the beneficial or harmful outcomes give individuals moral reason to act (or refrain from acting) in collective impact situations. However, if the individual action does not make a difference to the outcome, it is not clear what those moral reasons are. The p…Read more
  •  30
    Collective Responses to Covid-19 and Climate Change
    with H. Orri Stefánsson
    Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics 14 (1). 2021.
    Both individuals and governments around the world have willingly sacrificed a great deal to meet the collective action problem posed by Covid-19. This has provided some commentators with newfound hope about the possibility that we will be able to solve what is arguably the greatest collective action problem of all time: global climate change. In this paper we argue that this is overly optimistic. We defend two main claims. First, these two collective action problems are so different that the act…Read more