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February 27, 2009

The past is a different place

Of course, we cannot tell how the future will feel, but one simple test is to ask ourselves how we feel about the past - are we angry that our great-grandparents did not live more frugally so that we would now be richer? Personally, of all the things I would have liked my great-grandparents to do differently, this is not one of them. However, you may feel differently.

Is there an ethical basis for being concerned about global warming that does not depend upon the notion that quite generally we are radically negligent about future people? I think that there is, but this concern depends upon a rights-based notion of ethics rather than on utilitarianism.

I don't buy economists' case for fighting climate change
The past was a hard place, and I took do not regret that my ancestors didn't save more. In the scheme of human endeavors I wished they spend more on research, medicine, and innovation than giant temples, but the total amount of saving is hard to second guess when many people had little.

What does bother me is the needless extinction. The dodo, the carrier pigeon, the Tasmanian wolf and other animals that were not driven to extinction by the need for food or other essentials, but just because they were an annoyance or even for sport. If we did in the Wholly Mammoth, perhaps we did so because we were a species on the edge struggling for survival in an unkind world. Similarly, if some frog went extinct so that we could drain our swamps to keep our children from getting malaria, that too I understand. But there are a few obvious cases that are simply a waste, and I regret my species did those things.

Posted by OneEyedMan at February 27, 2009 6:30 PM

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