THC Science

Hilary Greaves
Hilary Greaves
	Greaves in 2015
Born	1978 (age 45–46); Cardiff, Wales
Education	University of Oxford (BA, 2003); Rutgers University (PhD, 2008);
Era	Contemporary philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
Institutions	Merton College, Oxford; Somerville College, Oxford;
Thesis	Spacetime Symmetries and the CPT Theorem (2008)
Doctoral advisor	Frank Arntzenius
Main interests	Effective altruism; moral philosophy; formal epistemology;
Website	users.ox.ac.uk/~mert2255/

Hilary Greaves (born 1978) is a British philosopher, currently serving as professor of philosophy at the University of Oxford.^[1] From 2017 to 2022, she was the founding director of the Global Priorities Institute, a research centre for effective altruism at the university supported by the Open Philanthropy Project.^[2]^[3]

Education[edit]

Greaves earned a BA in philosophy and physics from the University of Oxford in 2003, and a PhD in philosophy from Rutgers in 2008.^[4] Her doctoral thesis was titled Spacetime Symmetries and the CPT Theorem and was supervised by Frank Arntzenius.^[5] She has held appointments at Merton College and Somerville College and, since 2016, has been a professor of philosophy at Oxford.^[4]

Research[edit]

Greaves' current work is on issues related to effective altruism, particularly in connection to global prioritisation. Her research interests include moral philosophy (including foundational issues in consequentialism, interpersonal aggregation, population ethics,^[6] and moral uncertainty), formal epistemology, and the philosophy of physics,^[7] particularly quantum mechanics.^[8]^[9]

In October 2022, she was featured in Vox's Future Perfect 50 for her work on longtermism.^[10] She has argued that, just as geographical distance should make no difference to how important it is to alleviate a person's suffering (to the extent that one is able to), temporal distance is likewise morally irrelevant. Greaves has defended her longtermist position in terms of both utilitarian outcomes and intergenerational justice.^[11]

Selected publications[edit]

Books[edit]

Greaves, Hilary, and Theron Pummer (eds). Effective Altruism: Philosophical Issues. Oxford University Press, 2019. ISBN 9780192578303

Peer-reviewed articles[edit]

Greaves, Hilary. 2013. "Epistemic Decision Theory". Mind. 122, no. 488: 915-952.
Greaves, Hilary, and David Wallace. 2006. "Justifying conditionalization: Conditionalization maximizes expected epistemic utility". Mind. 115, no. 459: 607-631.
Greaves, Hilary. 2010. "Towards a Geometrical Understanding of the CPT Theorem". The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. 61, no. 1: 27–50. (Winner of the James T. Cushing Memorial Prize in History and Philosophy of Physics.^[12])

References[edit]

^ "Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford". Retrieved 10 September 2019.
^ "Global Priorities Institute opens at Oxford". Retrieved 7 November 2019.
^ "People, Global Priorities Institute". Retrieved 13 August 2023.
^ ^a ^b "Curriculum vitae: Hilary Greaves" (PDF). Retrieved 10 September 2019.
^ Greaves, Hilary (2008). Spacetime symmetries and the CPT theorem. RUcore (Thesis). Rutgers University. doi:10.7282/T3CF9QFX. Retrieved 2 November 2019.
^ Riesz, Matthew (28 March 2015). "British Academy announces Rising Star Engagement winners". Times Higher Education. Retrieved 2 November 2019.
^ "Hilary Greaves' home page". Retrieved 10 September 2019.
^ Price, Huw (2012). "Decisions, Decisions, Decisions: Can Savage Salvage Everettian Probability?" (PDF). Many Worlds? Everett, Quantum Theory, & Reality. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199655502. OCLC 1103786900.
^ Dizadji-Bahmani, Foad (2015). "The Probability Problem in Everettian Quantum Mechanics Persists". British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. 66 (2): 257–283. doi:10.1093/bjps/axt035.
^ Matthews, Dylan (20 October 2022). "Hilary Greaves is the world's leading philosopher of the long-term future". Vox. Retrieved 26 April 2023.
^ Samuel, Sigal (2 July 2021). "What we owe to future generations". Vox. Retrieved 17 November 2023.
^ "Cushing Prize 2012 Winner". University of Notre Dame. Retrieved 2 November 2019.

External links[edit]

Official website
Hilary Greaves publications indexed by Google Scholar

[1] "Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford". Retrieved 10 September 2019.

[2] "Global Priorities Institute opens at Oxford". Retrieved 7 November 2019.

[3] "People, Global Priorities Institute". Retrieved 13 August 2023.

[cv-4] "Curriculum vitae: Hilary Greaves" (PDF). Retrieved 10 September 2019.

[5] Greaves, Hilary (2008). Spacetime symmetries and the CPT theorem. RUcore (Thesis). Rutgers University. doi:10.7282/T3CF9QFX. Retrieved 2 November 2019.

[6] Riesz, Matthew (28 March 2015). "British Academy announces Rising Star Engagement winners". Times Higher Education. Retrieved 2 November 2019.

[7] "Hilary Greaves' home page". Retrieved 10 September 2019.

[8] Price, Huw (2012). "Decisions, Decisions, Decisions: Can Savage Salvage Everettian Probability?" (PDF). Many Worlds? Everett, Quantum Theory, & Reality. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199655502. OCLC 1103786900.

[9] Dizadji-Bahmani, Foad (2015). "The Probability Problem in Everettian Quantum Mechanics Persists". British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. 66 (2): 257–283. doi:10.1093/bjps/axt035.

[10] Matthews, Dylan (20 October 2022). "Hilary Greaves is the world's leading philosopher of the long-term future". Vox. Retrieved 26 April 2023.

[11] Samuel, Sigal (2 July 2021). "What we owe to future generations". Vox. Retrieved 17 November 2023.

[12] "Cushing Prize 2012 Winner". University of Notre Dame. Retrieved 2 November 2019.

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Effective altruism
Concepts	Aid effectiveness Charity assessment Demandingness objection Disability-adjusted life year Disease burden Distributional cost-effectiveness analysis Earning to give Equal consideration of interests Longtermism Marginal utility Moral circle expansion Psychological barriers to effective altruism Quality-adjusted life year Utilitarianism Venture philanthropy
Key figures	Sam Bankman-Fried Liv Boeree Nick Bostrom Hilary Greaves Holden Karnofsky William MacAskill Dustin Moskovitz Yew-Kwang Ng Toby Ord Derek Parfit Peter Singer Cari Tuna Eliezer Yudkowsky
Organizations	80,000 Hours Against Malaria Foundation All-Party Parliamentary Group for Future Generations Animal Charity Evaluators Animal Ethics Centre for Effective Altruism Centre for Enabling EA Learning & Research Center for High Impact Philanthropy Centre for the Study of Existential Risk Development Media International Evidence Action Faunalytics Fistula Foundation Future of Humanity Institute Future of Life Institute Founders Pledge GiveDirectly GiveWell Giving What We Can Good Food Fund The Good Food Institute Good Ventures The Humane League Mercy for Animals Machine Intelligence Research Institute Malaria Consortium Nuclear Threat Initiative Open Philanthropy Our World in Data Raising for Effective Giving Sentience Institute Unlimit Health Wild Animal Initiative
Focus areas	Biotechnology risk Climate change Cultured meat Economic stability Existential risk from artificial general intelligence Global catastrophic risk Global health Global poverty Immigration reform Intensive animal farming Land use reform Life extension Malaria prevention Mass deworming Neglected tropical diseases Suffering risks Wild animal suffering
Literature	Doing Good Better The End of Animal Farming Famine, Affluence, and Morality The Life You Can Save Living High and Letting Die The Most Good You Can Do Practical Ethics The Precipice Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies What We Owe the Future
Events	Effective Altruism Global

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Academics	Google Scholar MathSciNet