MODULE 4: Future People

 AGENDA

1. Future ethics
2. Discount View vs. Longtermism
3. Debate/Discussion

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Future ethics

1. How much should we do for future people?
2. How much should we spend on future people?

There are also future animals, plants, ecosystems, which might raise different issues

Future ethics is relevant to all sorts of environmental questions

1. Climate change, because worst impacts will be in the future
2. Aquifer overusage, ditto
3. Wilderness and wildllife disappearance, ditto

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Two positions on our obligations to future people

1. Discount View--environmental economists discussed by Broome--Nordhaus, Stern
2. Longtermism--Will MacAskill, What We Owe the Future; Who is he?

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The discount view (discussed Mar 14)

We should do and spend less on future people, the more future they are

• I should do and spend less on my future self, the more future she is
• We should do and spend less on future climate change problems, the more future they are
• Discounters propose specific discount rates 

Longtermism

• "Future people count. There could be a lot of them. We can make their lives go better." (MacAskill p. 9)
• They are a bit different from present people because they aren't as "near and dear" and can't reciprocate (p. 11)
• But they still "matter significantly" (p. 11) and we should be discounters

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Arguments for discounting

1. Prioritarianism
2. Pure temporal distance
3. Investment
4. Other arguments

Arguments against discounting

1. Utillitarianism
2. No temporal discounting

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Arguments for longtermism

1. The hiker argument
2. The future plague argument
3. The time/distance argument
4. The imagining future people argument
   
5. The sheer number argument
6. Other arguments

Arguments against longtermism