Is It Future Generations That Are Important?

 

Why Worry About Future Generations? is Samuel Scheffler’s small book from his Uehiro Lectures at Oxford in 2016. It is a philosophically sophisticated reflection on the temporal parochialism that has led to the world’s extraordinary under-response to such risks as climate change. Scheffler argues that our concern properly goes beyond obligations for doing good (avoiding harm) to future populations because they are, like us, people. There are additional normative vectors, which may or may not be matters of either obligation or morality.

Moral Obligations to the Future

Suppose that something like the classical utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham, were true. I don’t think it is true. However, consequentialist reasoning dominates most policy analysis and discussion, and consequences must play some role in any plausible moral theory. That being so, it is useful to take an unflinching look at what a generalized version of utilitarianism would have to say about the duty of those of us now alive have towards future populations including those of the deep future.