It can be hard to care about the wellbeing of people who might be living thousands or millions of years in the future, when they seem so abstract and remote. But imagine if you were somehow living one million years in the past, a time when Homo erectus still roamed the earth. Would you say that people living in the present have less moral value than you, just because they live one million years in the future compared to you? Would you say that their joys and pains are any less worthy of moral consideration and sympathy? I remember the joys of going to my cousin’s wedding, and conversely the atmosphere of grief going to a friend’s funeral.* I don’t think what happens in the present should matter any less from the perspective of someone living a million years in the past, and likewise, the experiences that people in the distant future have matter just as much as what happens now.
Now, there are some instrumental reasons to discount moral value of people in the future which I think are quite legitimate. For example, if you think that there’s only a 70% chance that there will be any people a thousand years from now, you should apply a discount factor for that. You might also think that helping the present has more positive ripple effects to help people in the future, so you could focus on supporting people living in the present in order to help safeguard future generations. Still, we should think of the intrinsic value of people as the same regardless of when they are living.
*This sentence can be removed or left out entirely.
It can be hard to care about the wellbeing of people who might be living thousands or millions of years in the future, when they seem so abstract and remote. But imagine if you were somehow living one million years in the past, a time when Homo erectus still roamed the earth. Would you say that people living in the present have less moral value than you, just because they live one million years in the future compared to you? Would you say that their joys and pains are any less worthy of moral consideration and sympathy? I remember the joys of going to my cousin’s wedding, and conversely the atmosphere of grief going to a friend’s funeral.* I don’t think what happens in the present should matter any less from the perspective of someone living a million years in the past, and likewise, the experiences that people in the distant future have matter just as much as what happens now.
Now, there are some instrumental reasons to discount moral value of people in the future which I think are quite legitimate. For example, if you think that there’s only a 70% chance that there will be any people a thousand years from now, you should apply a discount factor for that. You might also think that helping the present has more positive ripple effects to help people in the future, so you could focus on supporting people living in the present in order to help safeguard future generations. Still, we should think of the intrinsic value of people as the same regardless of when they are living.
*This sentence can be removed or left out entirely.
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