Why should we care about people who are not yet born? If climate change destroys the lives of people two or three generations down the line, so what? Well, bear with me, here’s a possible answer. And it involves a thought experiment — one proposed by the American philosopher Samuel Scheffler but inspired by a work of fiction.
We normally take two basic facts for granted. We take it for granted that one day we will die —that we’re mortal. And we take it for granted that although we ourselves will die, other people will go on living. But suppose you knew that after your death the human race would soon die out. Perhaps for some reason humans had become infertile, the plot line for P D James’ novel, The Children of Men. In other words, imagine that people who are alive today, including your children and grandchildren, would live out their natural lives — but no new people would appear.
How would that make you feel? What would that do to how you live your life? Would it make any difference to the projects that you currently pursue?
Samuel Scheffler thinks that most of us would regard the imminent end of humanity as a catastrophe. He’s spoken to so many audiences about this that he has empirical evidence to back up this hunch. And if we really believed humans would cease to exist soon after our deaths, he says, it would affect almost everything we do.
