Kacper Kowalczyk

I am an Associate Lecturer in Philosophy at University College London. I joined UCL in 2020 as a Teaching Fellow. Between 2021 and 2023, I was a Research Fellow supported by a grant from Longview Philanthropy.

I received a DPhil from Oxford in 2021, a BPhil from Oxford in 2016, and a BA from Cambridge in 2014. I am interested in population ethics, personal identity, equality, aggregation, risk, and decision theory.

You can email me at kacper.kowalczyk [at] ucl.ac.uk.

I am also on PhilPapers. I record most of my referee work on Web of Science.

Papers

Opaque Options. (With Aidan Penn.) Philosophical Studies, forthcoming. [abstract]

Moral options are permissions to do less than best, impartially speaking. In this paper, we investigate the challenge of reconciling moral options with the ideal of justifiability to each individual. We examine ex-post and ex-ante views of moral options and show how they might conflict with this ideal in single-choice and sequential-choice cases, respectively. We consider some ways of avoiding this conflict in sequential-choice cases, showing that they face significant problems.

Ex-Ante Pareto and the Opaque-Identity Puzzle. (With Johan Gustafsson.) Journal of Philosophy, forthcoming. [abstract]

Anna Mahtani describes a puzzle meant to show that the Ex-Ante Pareto Principle is incomplete as it stands and, since it cannot be completed in a satisfactory manner, decades of debate in welfare economics and ethics are undermined. In this paper, we provide a better solution to the puzzle which saves the Ex-Ante Pareto Principle from this challenge. We also explain how the plausibility of our solution is reinforced by its similarity to a standard solution to an analogous puzzle in quantified epistemic logic. We also show that even if the puzzle were to remain unsolved, its impact on welfare economics and ethics would be limited.

Saving Fanaticism. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, forthcoming. [abstract]

Fanaticism is the view that, for every finite good x and every positive probability p, there is a finite good y such that getting y with probability p is better than getting x for sure. I develop a neglected argument for a form of fanaticism limited to life-saving scenarios. I explain how my argument is compatible with some forms of small-probability discounting, imprecise probabilism, risk-aversion and aggregation scepticism. I also try to respond to theoretical problems that fanatical arguments encounter in cases that involve infinitely many possible people. I also suggest why, even if fanaticism is true, we might often be warranted in our intuitive reluctance to accept fanatical conclusions.

Risk, Non-Identity, and Extinction. The Monist, vol. 107, no. 2, April 2024, pp. 146-156. (With Nikhil Venkatesh.) [abstract]

This paper examines a recent argument in favour of strong precautionary action—possibly including working to hasten human extinction—on the basis of a decision-theoretic view that accommodates the risk-attitudes of all affected while giving more weight to the more risk-averse attitudes. First, we dispute the need to take into account other people’s attitudes towards risk at all. Second we argue that a version of the non-identity problem undermines the case for doing so in the context of future people. Lastly, we suggest that we should not work to hasten human extinction, even if significant risk aversion is warranted.

A New Puzzle for Limited Aggregation. Analysis, Advance Articles, February 2024. [abstract]

This paper presents a new puzzle for limited aggregation. Unlike other recent puzzles, this one arises independently of the issue of rational aversion to risk. Some possible responses are laid out and explored.

People in Suitcases. Journal of Moral Philosophy, vol. 20, no. 1-2, March 2023, pp. 3-30. [abstract]

Ex-ante deontology is an attempt to combine deontological constraints on doing or intending harm with the idea that one should act in everyone’s interest if possible. I argue that ex-ante deontology has serious problems in cases where multiple decisions are to be made over time. I then argue that these problems force us to choose between commonsense deontological morality and a more consequentialist morality, and that we should choose the latter.

Johnston versus Johnston. Synthese, vol. 200, issue 2, April 2022, article 167. [abstract]

Personites are like continuant people but shorter-lived. Johnston argues that personites do not exist since otherwise personites would have the same moral status as persons, which is untenable. I argue that Johnston’s arguments fail. To do that I propose an alternative way to understand intrinsicness and I clarify the meaning of reductionism about persons. I also argue that a plausible ethical theory is possible even if personites have the same moral status as persons. My arguments draw on Johnston’s earlier debate with Parfit about personal identity and the place of ordinary concerns in a naturalistic world. I also describe an important but metaphysics free problem that arises from Johnston’s discussion.

Transfinitely Transitive Value. Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 72, no. 1, January 2022, pp. 108–34. [abstract]

This paper develops transfinite extensions of transitivity and acyclicity in the context of population ethics. They are used to argue that it is better to add good lives, worse to add bad lives, and equally good to add neutral lives, where a life’s value is understood as personal value. These conclusions rule out a number of theories of population ethics, feed into an argument for the repugnant conclusion, and allow us to reduce different number comparisons to same number ones. Challenges to these arguments are addressed, including the issue of comparing existence and nonexistence in terms of personal value, the possibility of minimal quanta of time and life, and the meaningfulness of measuring closeness between outcomes with different population sizes. An asymmetry is uncovered between transfinite cycles of worseness and betterness, supporting a version of the weak procreative asymmetry. Transfinite transitivity principles are also favourably compared to the better known principles of continuity.

Thesis

Persons, Populations, and Value. DPhil thesis, University of Oxford, 2020. [abstract]

This thesis consists of six independent papers on personal identity, population ethics, and value theory. The central theme of this thesis is the unimportance of personal identity. I begin in Chapter 1 by developing new Parfitian arguments for the unimportance of personal identity in morality, paying special attention to their implications in population ethics. In Chapter 2 I analyse Mark Johnston’s similar metaphysics driven challenge to person based morality, but argue that it is less successful than my own. In Chapter 3 I lay out choices facing egalitarians in population ethics, arguing against some recently prominent forms of egalitarianism. In Chapter 4 I provide new decision-theoretic arguments against deontic constraints on harming, suggesting that it is consequentialism rather than deontology that can better respect persons. In Chapter 5 I introduce transfinite extensions of the familiar value theoretic principles of transitivity and acyclicity. I use them to try to resolve some key issues in population ethics, concerning the value of creating new people and the procreative asymmetry. In Chapter 6 I aim to support these transfinite principles by analysing their role in the theory of rational choice.

Talks

Towards Full Aggregation. Workshop on Aggregation, Fribourg, December 2023.

Deontic Cyclicity. With Tomi Francis. Workshop on Social Contract Theory and Dynamic Decision Theory, Stockholm, December 2023.

A New Puzzle for Limited Aggregation. Aristotelian Society Open Session, London, July 2023.

Longtermism as Fairness. International Society for Utilitarian Studies, Rome, July 2023.

A New Puzzle for Limited Aggregation. Society for Applied Philosophy Conference, Antwerp, June 2023.

Longtermism as Fairness. LSE-GPI Workshop on Longtermism, London, May 2023.

A New Argument for Fanaticism. Workshop on Unboundedness, Austin, November 2022.

A New Argument for Fanaticism. Workshop on Welfare, Saarbrücken, June 2022.

Allais Preferences are Bad for You. Risk Attitudes Workshop, Princeton, May 2021.

Yet Another Argument Against Anti-Aggregation. Formal Ethics Conference, Ghent, June 2019.

Equality and Population Size. Princeton Population Ethics Graduate Conference, May 2019.

Intrinsic Value, Extrinsic Identity. ISUS conference, Karlsruhe, July 2018.

Intrinsic Value, Extrinsic Identity. CEPPA Graduate Conference, St Andrews, February 2018.

In Polish

Longtermizm, czyli pojutrze ludzkości. Znak, January 2023, issue 812.

Discussed on Tok FM (here, here) and in Gazeta Wyborcza (here, here).

Człowiek, gatunek międzyplanetarny. Znak, January 2023, issue 812 (conversation with Nick Bostrom).

Czy granice mają moralne znaczenie? Znak, February 2022, issue 801 (conversation with David Miller).

Dobroczynna prokreacja. Znak, October 2017, issue 749 (conversation with Julian Savulescu).

Thanks to Todd Karhu for allowing me to use his website template.