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Articles

Ethics of the Future

Alexander Joy on the importance of not hurting future people.

We face a unique problem when we attempt to formulate an ethical system in which future generations are taken into account: the subjects of our attention do not exist. Of course, we assume that future generations will exist, barring an apocalypse of some kind, like some unexpected human extinction. Here I would like to sketch some of the difficulties involved in articulating an ethics that incorporates not-yet-existent subjects. First there is the question of whether we ought to factor future generations into our ethical decision-making at all. If we do decide that we should think about future people when evaluating our actions, there’s then the question of which kind of ethical system we should use to do so.

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