The ethical standing of future people

Echarmion

Recent discussions of anti-natalism and climate change have made me aware that, while I am aware of several theories regarding the moral standing of currently existing people, I struggle to find firm ground regarding the standing future people should have.

It seems evident that exactly what weight a given system of moral philosophy assigns to the consequences a decision will have on future people has a significant impact on how at least certain decisions are judged. Yet, it seems that the question is rarely brought up, even when discussing topics where it obviously is relevant, like the ones I mentioned above. An exception here might be virtue ethics, which might sideline the entire question.

It seems conceivable that one might argue that future people have no standing at all. This would be unintuitive, but does not strike me as prima facie incompatible with common consequentialist or deontological systems. So, I'd like to use the claim that "future people have no standing at all" as a baseline for discussion and ask for your opinions and reasons as to why this statement is correct of false, given the system of moral philosophy you ascribe to.

I think it'd be best if we leave substantive discussions about topics like anti-natalism and climate change in other topics, though no doubt they will come up as examples. I also think this discussion can function regardless of whether you think moral systems are in some way objective.

With that said, what are your thoughts?

NOS4A2

↪Echarmion

Great thinking. Thanks for sharing it.

future people have no standing at all

It is counter-intuitive, but the statement is true both figuratively and literally, at least on the basis that no such people exist. On those grounds I don’t think the moral case for anti-natalism has any merit because it doesn’t deal with real people.

But when it comes to preserving the environment, it isn’t about one future person, but generations of them, to “posterity”, many of them born the moment I write this. So in a way, “posterity” exists and we can point out the countless pregnant and newborn people now existing in order to make it more concrete. For these “future people”, there must be some consideration of their future, at least to guide our actions in the present.

What are your thoughts?

Terrapin Station

I'm trying to figure out a way to comment on this without simply pointing out that "future people have/do not have moral standing" can't be correct/incorrect or true/false, but an angle on that is escaping me.

Antinatalism is the only moral "theory" that explicitly addresses the notion of future people. It wouldn't have to be, of course, but there's no other common moral theory, at least, that explicitly addresses them.

With other common moral theories, it seems to me that you could interpret things any way you like with respect to future people. For example, if you're a utilitarian, you could interpret any stance about the moral weight or lack of the same of future people as being or not being a benefit to people in general.

Deleted User

It would seem that you are starting to have inclinations toward thinking about the very modality of ethics itself. What it is for, what it’s purpose/function is.

The viewpoint you are describing is called Generationism or ancestor morality. It is the view that ethics should be grounded in a deification of future generations as our true judgers and argues that a good person is someone who strives to be a good ancestor.

The view is interesting but currently incomplete and needs work.

My advice would be to read Albert Schweitzer’s Ethical vision. Generationism is highly influenced by his works and the empirical findings within Moral Psychology.

Deleted User

@Possibility I think you should get involved in this discussion. You can go into the Hebrew origins of this view too.

Possibility is a really intelligent person and has some valuable constructive criticism of this view. While I think he agrees with me that a good person might be someone who tries to be a good ancestor, it isn’t the only factor in determining someone’s overall goodness.

Deleted User

This can be found in the Hebrew writings of the Pentateuch: the idea that what we’re doing now is not for our own benefit, but is setting up a world for our descendants to enjoy. The problem the Hebrew people encountered was that we’re not willing to suffer for the sake of someone else when those subsequent generations feel no gratitude toward us for setting the groundwork.

So it’s not only important to value the potential of future life, but to also value the endurance of the past, and the lessons learned the hard way. By the same token, it’s not just about those who may judge us in the future, but also about those from the past who may judge how we have squandered, trivialised or overlooked their efforts to get us where we are.

Echarmion

It is counter-intuitive, but the statement is true both figuratively and literally, at least on the basis that no such people exist. On those grounds I don’t think the moral case for anti-natalism has any merit because it doesn’t deal with real people.

But when it comes to preserving the environment, it isn’t about one future person, but generations of them, to “posterity”, many of them born the moment I write this. So in a way, “posterity” exists and we can point out the countless pregnant and newborn people now existing in order to make it more concrete. For these “future people”, there must be some consideration of their future, at least to guide our actions in the present. — NOS4A2

Well, but this raises the question: If the single future person really is a non-entity, because potentialities aren't people, how do we construct a notion of "posterity"? Sure, unlike an individual descendant, which depends on individual choices, "posterity" as a whole depends on social factors, and is thus perhaps more predictable over long timescales. But we'd still need to ground that posterity on something. If it isn't personhood, what is it?

With other common moral theories, it seems to me that you could interpret things any way you like with respect to future people. For example, if you're a utilitarian, you could interpret any stance about the moral weight or lack of the same of future people as being or not being a benefit to people in general. — Terrapin Station

If you can interpret things any way you like, that would imply that you know nothing, i.e. that you system simply offers no solution to the question. Which is a flaw if you wish to base your behavior on that system. Now it strikes me you don't personally ascribe to a moral system, but if one wants to, the question of how to deal with consequences for possible future people or generations seems important.

My advice would be to read Albert Schweitzer’s Ethical vision. Generationism is highly influenced by his works and the empirical findings within Moral Psychology. — Mark Dennis

Thanks for the advice. Are you personally familiar with Schweitzer? Would you say his moral philosophy can be categorized under a broader heading?

180 Proof

My remarks will be derived from, and cast mostly in approximate terms of, my not-so-recent studies of Reasons and Persons (esp. Parts 3 & 4) by Derek Parfit, Natural Goodness by Philippa Foot and my current reading of Patricia Churchland's Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition.

I'd like to use the claim that "future people have no standing at all" as a baseline for discussion and ask for your opinions and reasons as to why this statement is correct of false, given the system of moral philosophy you ascribe to. — Echarmion

'My future self has no standing at all.'

But that isn't true, is it? Or better: the statement makes no more sense than 'I, this present self, am not the future self of a past self'.

Based on inherent vulnerability to consequential harms, how can a future self [FuS] be judged not to have standing on, or claim to, the moral concern (i.e. judgments and conduct) of its past self [PaS] which includes most proximately the present self [PrS]? In the same sense that a future self [FuS] is always at risk of e.g. lung cancer caused by its past self's [PaS]'s cigarette habit, a claim on the present self's [PrS]'s agency (especially when foreseeable) functions as a tradeoff - cautionary - constraint on judgments (i.e. preferences, priorities ...) and conduct (i.e. practices, relationships ...) vis-à-vis health. Is concern for 'moral health', so to speak, really any different?

Can we not then, on the same temporal grounds, rationally generalize from this moral (i.e. intrinsic benefit of harm / helplessness avoidance & reduction absent, or independent of, extrinsic benefits (i.e. reciprocality (e.g. quo pro quo)) concern for our future selves [FuS] to moral concern for (our) future populations [FuPop]? :chin:

(Skip a few more digressive steps) suppose:

if PaS --> PrS --> FuS,

if PaPop --> PrPop --> FuPop,

if PrS ∈ PrPop,

then PaS ∈ PaPop --> PrS ∈ PrPop --> FuS ∈ FuPop;

therefore PrS --> FuPop :eyes:

Yes? Maybe? No? Not-even-wrong?

ChatteringMonkey

↪Echarmion

So, I'd like to use the claim that "future people have no standing at all" as a baseline for discussion and ask for your opinions and reasons as to why this statement is correct of false, given the system of moral philosophy you ascribe to.

With that said, what are your thoughts? — Echarmion

I'd start from the opposite assumption, that future people have as much standing as currently existing people, in theory at least. Because if you would know with certainty that you acting a certain way now will kill a person 100 years from now, that person will have been as real as people living now.

In practice however I think there are certain objections to this. For one the further you go in the future the less certain your knowledge of the impact of your actions becomes. And it makes sense to give more moral weight to certain harmful outcomes than uncertain ones.

Another objection follows from who we are as human beings. We typically feel more for people closer to us, in time... but also in distance. This is the basically the same reason I disagree with someone like Peter Singer who thinks one ought to treat a person across the globe morally the same way as someone next door. It just won't work... because it makes abstraction of moral intuitions and ways in which people tend to behave.

The best reason to care for the future, for me, is maybe more an aesthetic than moral one. There's a certain joy or satisfaction in working together with other people to create a future. And the idea that things will go to hell is depressing.... even if I wouldn't be there anymore. I dunno, maybe this is even akin to religious feelings in that it gives some kind of larger purpose or justification to what you are doing now.

Deleted User

↪180 Proof

I was with you up until the conclusion “Present Self implies Future Population.”. Could you maybe expand on that a little and clarify. Or correct my reading of the conclusion if it is wrong.

Are you saying; as only the present self has agency, it has an obligation to use some of that agency for a future population?

Pfhorrest

I submit that we all act in consideration of future people all the time: our future selves. I keep going to work and doing other difficult adult things instead of goofing off enjoying myself all the time so that a future version of me who doesn’t exist yet won’t suffer.

I don’t think considerations of other future property are much different. Just a combination of that and a more general concern for other people at all.

Deleted User

↪Echarmion

Sorry I meant to get back to you earlier but got distracted.

Schweitzer was a Nobel peace prize winner and set up a hospital in French equatorial Africa. A Theologian, musician, philosopher, writer and a physician. A polymath really. He was Lutheran but he’d say his dominant value was a reverence for life. This guy actually had headlines written about him calling him “The greatest man on earth”. He fell out of favour though when he started predicting that our technology would one day destroy us and he worried that we would destroy the world. His views on race where in some ways really progressive... however although he cared deeply for all his fellow man, he was accused of being overly parental toward non-whites who, although he called them his siblings, he saw himself as the elder sibling and viewed other races as children. He may have meant technologically though as he was very critical of the morality of white people and claimed that most Christians today blaspheme the name of Christ by being all talk and no action when it came to philanthropy, plenty of people talking about loving their neighbour but not enough actually following through in his opinion.

He’s a hard one to put in a box in my opinion as most Polymaths tend to be.

tim wood

Morality isn't a vending machine, not even a Japanese vending machine (from which all manner of wonders can be got, I'm told). The idea is that the moral person acknowledges the possibility of a duty, identifies and grasps and reasons it out, and takes an appropriate action - which might even be no action. Clearly people can disagree on what action, how, and why - they do here at least - but I'm pretty sure that most would accept that purposeless/thoughtless/stupid/ignorant action is indefensible.

The question as to the "ethical standing" of future people, or of any duty owed to them, isn't really one of existence, but rather of the freedom to make a right choice in regard of it. Freedom as the ability to accomplish one's duties and obligations - isn't freedom something we're condemned to? The issue whether to do a good job of it or muck it up.

Terrapin Station

If you can interpret things any way you like, that would imply that you know nothing, i.e. that you system simply offers no solution to the question. Which is a flaw if you wish to base your behavior on that system. — Echarmion

In practice, that's how all systems--utilitarianism, etc. work. That's one of the many things that underscores that contra any beliefs otherwise, ethics really comes down to people feeling however they feel, having whatever dispositions they have, about interpersonal behavior. Systems are adopted because they match dispositions people have on the abstract level on which the systems are stated, but when it comes down to using the system to reach a conclusion about a particular scenario, there's a lot more divergence, because all of this stuff is really about persons' preferences, emotions, etc.

There's no way to ever get to a(n objective) fact that amounts to a valuation or prescriptive normative of any sort.

Echarmion

Can we not then, on the same temporal grounds, rationally generalize from this moral (i.e. intrinsic benefit of harm / helplessness avoidance & reduction absent, or independent of, extrinsic benefits (i.e. reciprocality (e.g. quo pro quo)) concern for our future selves [FuS] to moral concern for (our) future populations [FuPop]? — 180 Proof

Well, for one the whole notion would seem to require a consequentialist approach, since we are talking about benefit and harm, correct?

It seems convincing that any consequentialist system has considerations of the future states of current person's build in. To this effect, it requires us to consider persons as stable through time. However, is that consideration not based on the current personhood of the self? I view my Future self as an extension of myself, but I wouldn't view my grandchildren in that manner. They have no current personhood which I could extent into the future. I'd have to assume they have some ideal personhood based on their potential existence, but that seems at least a questionable assumption.

I'd start from the opposite assumption, that future people have as much standing as currently existing people, in theory at least. Because if you would know with certainty that you acting a certain way now will kill a person 100 years from now, that person will have been as real as people living now. — ChatteringMonkey

It might be real, but it might not be. The uncertainty can become a problem if we have to make policy decisions that might help people now, but might hurt people later.

I submit that we all act in consideration of future people all the time: our future selves. I keep going to work and doing other difficult adult things instead of goofing off enjoying myself all the time so that a future version of me who doesn’t exist yet won’t suffer.

I don’t think considerations of other future property are much different. Just a combination of that and a more general concern for other people at all. — Pfhorrest

But isn't there an extra step required to extend concerns from people who already exist to people who might potentially exist?

↪Mark Dennis

Thanks for the overview!

The question as to the "ethical standing" of future people, or of any duty owed to them, isn't really one of existence, but rather of the freedom to make a right choice in regard of it. Freedom as the ability to accomplish one's duties and obligations - isn't freedom something we're condemned to? The issue whether to do a good job of it or muck it up. — tim wood

I am asking what our duties actually are though. And there might be conflicting duties towards current and future people.

There's no way to ever get to a(n objective) fact that amounts to a valuation or prescriptive normative of any sort. — Terrapin Station

Nevertheless, moral philosophers have tried to establish systems for deciding how to act. I, personally, like to consider such systematic approaches.

Deleted User

↪Terrapin Station

There's no way to ever get to a(n objective) fact that amounts to a valuation or prescriptive normative of any sort.

I don’t know that I’d agree with this. If we anthropologically state that humans use ethics and moral values for the biologically driven purpose to propagate their species and increase long term security and safety, and if we state that it is a biological fact that humans need food and water to do this, then we can probably objectively say something like this; If humans want their species to thrive, they must establish and maintain stable food and water systems.

Deleted User

↪Terrapin Station

So would it be fair to say you are a moral relativist? You believe that morals and value are relative based on things like culture, nationality, religion?

There are a lot of problems with cultural moral relativism. The two main components of the claim 1, Moral norms differ between cultures. 2, there are no universal moral norms. However this stance creates moral monoliths out of every culture as if there is consensus within them but not without. Also, claim number one sounds a lot like a universal norm which is immediately contradicted by claim number two. Now, descriptive moral relativism which looks into moral demographic makeups of a nation, culture or religion is at least a bit more insightful.

tim wood

Now, descriptive moral relativism which looks into moral demographic makeups of a nation, culture or religion is at least a bit more insightful. — Mark Dennis

Thank you for this, one of those sentences that occasionally appear the sense of which I think worth the candle. It allows me to resolve moral relativism (which as a substantive expression I think bankrupt, and those who argue it engaged ultimately in fraud) into a particular framework in which to organize data, but not the thing itself.

Deleted User

↪tim wood

It allows me to resolve moral relativism (which as a substantive expression I think bankrupt, and those who argue it engaged ultimately in fraud) into a particular framework in which to organize data, but not the thing itself.

Good, I’m glad it helps. Descriptive moral relativism belongs in the tool box, not our principles.

Terrapin Station

Nevertheless, moral philosophers have tried to establish systems for deciding how to act. I, personally, like to consider such systematic approaches. — Echarmion

Sure, but what do you take to be an example of a system that would tell you even whether to murder someone else without it being a case where really you could interpret the system to recommend either a positive or negative answer?

The only way around that is to simply specify "Do not murder others" and so on, but you're not going to be able to specify every possible scenario.

Echarmion

Sure, but what do you take to be an example of a system that would tell you even whether to murder someone else without it being a case where really you could interpret the system to recommend either a positive or negative answer?

The only way around that is to simply specify "Do not murder others" and so on, but you're not going to be able to specify every possible scenario. — Terrapin Station

Let's take positive laws as an example in lieu of a moral system. A given body of law can represent a legal system, and in that legal system there will always ultimately be an answer of whether or not an act is legal. That answer is not necessarily uncontroversial, but for a wide variety of cases, there will actually be uncontroversial answers.

Of course, a legal system can rely on a bunch more axioms than a moral system, but in theory you could have moral rules that operate in a similar way.

Terrapin Station

↪Echarmion

In other words, a moral system in which everything is morally permissible unless we specify that it's morally prohibited?

Deleted User

↪Terrapin Station

What point are you trying to make with Echarmion here exactly? That prescriptive moral systems don’t exist?

Deleted User

↪Terrapin Station

Also, what do you mean by “common” moral theories? Do you mean out of the ones you’ve read about or the ones that commonly exist whether codified or not?

Terrapin Station

Sorry I hadn't addressed your posts yet:

So first, re this:

If we anthropologically state that humans use ethics and moral values for the biologically driven purpose — Mark Dennis

Are you suggesting a purpose that might not be consciously present in individual humans, or are you saying that contingently, due to biology, that purpose is consciously present in all individual humans?

Deleted User

↪Terrapin Station

In other words, a moral system in which everything is morally permissible unless we specify that it's morally prohibited?

what an outlandish interpretation of law. It’s pretty much a given that the law attempts to make moral arguments and claims, but it also seeks to be challenged on its ever changing stance toward what is and isn’t morally acceptable. To describe the law as a concept that says “everything is allowed but for some reason we’ve decided you can’t do this stuff even though it’s allowed.” Every law has a moral implication behind it, whether the implication is right or not is for ethics and metaethics to decide in the long run. Just a pity it’s such a slow process.

Terrapin Station

what an outlandish interpretation of law. — Mark Dennis

It was a question. I was asking if that's what he was suggesting.

Deleted User

↪Terrapin Station

Are you suggesting a purpose that might not be consciously present in individual humans, or are you saying that contingently, due to biology, that purpose is consciously present in all individual humans?

Sorry for the snappy last message, thought you were ignoring me.

This is a good question. I’ll give you a preliminary answer now and I’ll message you another later after it’s incubated a bit.

Now, it’s important to bring up subconscious and conscious. I do not believe that every human has a conscious desire to have babies, but most have a conscious desire to have sex, or do the thing that makes babies and nearly everyone has the subconscious desire.

Asexuals and abstainests are a little different. Asexuals more so. I’m not asexual so I couldn’t begin to imagine what values they should have. Asexuals May still adopt though, and sexual abstainests in religion usually see sex as the wrong but not having babies. So all productivity no play for these people.

As a collective though, barring a human extinction event or sterility causing epidemics, most humans are gonna keep having sex and babies. To argue whether they should is a pointless and futile endeavour as a collective. Pragmatic arguments could be made for certain individuals not having babies due to medical complications that make a pregnancy riskier than normal for certain women. However you’d be fighting a losing battle to stop said women from adopting or surrogate seeking if she wants to.

Terrapin Station

↪Mark Dennis

I don't buy the idea that we have "subconscious" (or unconscious) mental content, such as desires.

Deleted User

↪Terrapin Station

You can not buy it all you like. Your hindbrain and medulla beg to differ. The frontal cortex can come up with all the arguments it likes, but in the end the primal part of the brain always tells the frontal cortex when to eat, excrete, sleep and have sex.

Terrapin Station

↪Mark Dennis

What do you think would count as evidence that we have unconscious mental content?

The ethical standing of future people

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