It seems weird that the longtermism is being accused of white supremacy given that population growth is disproportionately happening in countries that aren’t traditionally considered white? As you can see from the map on this page, population growth is concentrated in places like Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. It appears to me that it’s neartermist views of population ethics (“only those currently alive are morally relevant”) that place greater moral weight on white folks? I wonder how a grandmother from one of those places, proud of her many grandchildren, would react if a childless white guy told her that future generations weren’t morally relevant… It also seems weird to position climate change as a neartermist cause.
Those grandchildren already exist; no one’s saying they don’t matter. Are you saying these grandmothers want to have more and more grandchildren? I’m not sure people in these countries are having as many children as they would prefer; I’d expect them to prefer to have fewer, if more informed or if conditions were better for them. Child brides and other forms of coercion, worse access to contraceptives, abortion and other family planning services, worse access to information, more restrictive gender roles and fewer options for making a living generally, higher infant mortality rates, etc..
Was a claim made that future generations aren’t morally relevant? I think the objections were more specifically against the total view (and the astronomical waste argument), which treats people like mere vessels for holding value. Longtermism, in practice, seems to mostly mean the total view. There are many other person-affecting views besides presentism (“only those currently alive are morally relevant”), some of which could be called longtermist, too. So-called “wide” person-affecting views solve the non-identity problem, and there’s the procreation asymmetry, too.
It seems weird that the longtermism is being accused of white supremacy given that population growth is disproportionately happening in countries that aren’t traditionally considered white? As you can see from the map on this page, population growth is concentrated in places like Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. It appears to me that it’s neartermist views of population ethics (“only those currently alive are morally relevant”) that place greater moral weight on white folks? I wonder how a grandmother from one of those places, proud of her many grandchildren, would react if a childless white guy told her that future generations weren’t morally relevant… It also seems weird to position climate change as a neartermist cause.
Those grandchildren already exist; no one’s saying they don’t matter. Are you saying these grandmothers want to have more and more grandchildren? I’m not sure people in these countries are having as many children as they would prefer; I’d expect them to prefer to have fewer, if more informed or if conditions were better for them. Child brides and other forms of coercion, worse access to contraceptives, abortion and other family planning services, worse access to information, more restrictive gender roles and fewer options for making a living generally, higher infant mortality rates, etc..
Was a claim made that future generations aren’t morally relevant? I think the objections were more specifically against the total view (and the astronomical waste argument), which treats people like mere vessels for holding value. Longtermism, in practice, seems to mostly mean the total view. There are many other person-affecting views besides presentism (“only those currently alive are morally relevant”), some of which could be called longtermist, too. So-called “wide” person-affecting views solve the non-identity problem, and there’s the procreation asymmetry, too.