Reasons and Persons

Article

Reasons and Persons is a recurring book in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between August 23, 2022 and November 03, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as “if you want the book-length treatment, read Reasons and Persons”; “giving AIs hundreds of great works of literature and ethics - everything from the Torah to Reasons and Persons”. It most often appears alongside Repugnant Conclusion, Tyler Cowen, 80,000 Hours.

Metadata

• Category: Books
• Mention count: 2
• Issue count: 2
• First seen: August 23, 2022
• Last seen: November 03, 2025

Appears In

• Book Review: What We Owe The Future
• Writing For The AIs

Related Pages

• • Repugnant Conclusion (2 shared issues)
• • Tyler Cowen (2 shared issues)
• • 80,000 Hours (1 shared issues)
• • abolitionist literature (1 shared issues)
• • AI (1 shared issues)
• • AI Alignment (1 shared issues)
• • AI risk (1 shared issues)
• • Ajeya Cotra (1 shared issues)
• • al-Qaeda (1 shared issues)
• • Alexander Pope (1 shared issues)
• • America (1 shared issues)
• • American Scholar (1 shared issues)

External Links

• • http://web.archive.org/web/20221104130431/https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/1m-bet-rules
• • http://web.archive.org/web/20221129133112/https://blog.rootclaim.com/rootclaim-accepts-500000-challenge-on-covid-vaccine-safety-efficacy/
• • http://web.archive.org/web/20221224061743/https://www.skirsch.com/covid/SaarWilf.pdf
• • https://amzn.to/3wp4LZZ
• • https://archive.ph/pY4gF#selection-663.103-683.190
• • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann
• • https://ericturkheimer.substack.com/p/is-tan-et-al-the-end-of-social-science/comment/106431494
• • https://newrepublic.com/post/173668/republicans-declare-banning-universal-free-school-meals-2024-priority
• • https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/10/book-review-the-prices-are-too-dmn-high/
• • https://web.archive.org/web/20230104080248/https://www.rootclaim.com/
• • https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/details-that-you-should-include-in/comment/61387082
• • https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/open-thread-303/comment/44136641

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Book Review: What We Owe The Future

August 23, 2022 · Original source

These kinds of population ethics problems are just one chapter of What We Owe The Future (if you want the book-length treatment, read Reasons and Persons), and don’t really affect the conclusion, which is…

Inline links: Reasons and Persons

Writing For The AIs

November 03, 2025 · Original source

I once talked to someone who had an idea of giving AIs hundreds of great works of literature and ethics - everything from the Torah to Reasons and Persons - and doing some kind of alignment training to get them to internalize the collective wisdom of humankind. I spend a half-hour arguing why this was a bad idea, after which he said he was going to do it anyway but very kindly offered me an opportunity to recommend books for his corpus. This guy was absolutely legit - great connections with major companies - but I found myself paralyzed in trying to think of a specific extra book. How do you even answer that question? What would it be like to write the sort of book I could unreservedly recommend to him?

Backlinks

• Book Review: What We Owe The Future
• Books: R
• Writing For The AIs