Global Warming Cont...

[arkansasbob]

Then you cannot owe a debt to future generations, PERIOD, in a framework without precisely defined terms! To operate with loosely defined terms is not philosophically operable, period.

i have demonstrated how such a contract can be operable, and "future generations" is specific enough to make it so.

Not really -- this is hardly an objectivist theory. In fact, the original proponents of these arguments would NOT support objectivist thought. Nonetheless, the argument stands on its own merits. It does suggest that we must rethink our framework of bioethics that places duties on the present for future generations. Objectivist logic is not necessarily the only answer - it is what I believe to be the obvious answer, but this is a problem that ultimately utilitarians, deontologists, etc., must deal with. You are still glossing over the problem. Frankly, all moral philosophies that discuss future generations have not properly considered the conundrum.

then argue it based on commonly accepted premises, rather than those of a specific group of philosophies.

[JuBru]

why are there two different groups? why aren't they the same, just with different things done to them?

[randerizer]

just admit that your original argument ("the people you are saving the earth for won't exist") was absurd.

as for the environmental argument, i would say that such a contract is implicit in any coherent philosophy that regards other individuals as being of equal or greater importance than self. if one believes it to be fairly likely that there will be future generations, then one has the obligation not to make life more difficult for them, just as one has the same obligation to one's contemporaries.

I suppose you are right -- any coherent philosophy that defines a group as an entity of inherent, independent value would not have this problem. However, there is no such thing. :icon_wink: Simply, a group is a group of individuals. The future generation is a generation of individuals. To be individual requires specificity. Every philosophical framework (consequentialist or deontological) ultimately reduces to this basis.

Make life more difficult for them? There is no way to do this. You can act to make them not exist (if preserving their life or quality of life is your goal, you have failed miserably), but you cannot make their life better or worse.

[randerizer]

why are there two different groups? why aren't they the same, just with different things done to them?

Let's say that 10 years from now, if everything continued on its current course, you would have a daughter. Because you take action, a different sperm wins -- this one has a Y chromosome! After your action, you would no longer have a daughter as a result of a specific act of conception, but you would instead have a son. The would-be son and would-have-been daughter are clearly not the same entity, and since groups are collections of individual entities, there cannot be the same group.

[arkansasbob]

I suppose you are right -- any coherent philosophy that defines a group as an entity of inherent, independent value would not have this problem. However, there is no such thing. :icon_wink: Simply, a group is a group of individuals. The future generation is a generation of individuals. To be individual requires specificity. Every philosophical framework (consequentialist or deontological) ultimately reduces to this basis.

Make life more difficult for them? There is no way to do this. You can act to make them not exist (if preserving their life or quality of life is your goal, you have failed miserably), but you cannot make their life better or worse.

how can you not see how absurd this is? you cannot specifically define individuals of the future. if i say "people of the future" it is referring to a specific group of individuals, but we cannot know specifically who those individuals are. just as the prisoner that escapes as a side effect of some other unknown prisoner's jailbreak can say to himself, "i owe that guy." he is speaking of a specific individual, although he does not know who he is yet.

[JuBru]

Let's say that 10 years from now, if everything continued on its current course, you would have a daughter. Because you take action, a different sperm wins -- this one has a Y chromosome! After your action, you would no longer have a daughter as a result of a specific act of conception, but you would instead have a son. The would-be son and would-have-been daughter are clearly not the same entity, and since groups are collections of individual entities, there cannot be the same group.

Yeah, every action has an equal and opposite reaction... still doesn't explain why it's two different groups... Predetermination has to be taken account into all aspects, not just nit-pick here and there, in order to even remotely make it two different groups. Otherwise, no determination beyond that there will be future generations can be made, and whatever we do with anything affects those generations.

[randerizer]

how can you not see how absurd this is? you cannot specifically define individuals of the future. if i say "people of the future" it is referring to a specific group of individuals, but we cannot know specifically who those individuals are. just as the prisoner that escapes as a side effect of some other unknown prisoner's jailbreak can say to himself, "i owe that guy." he is speaking of a specific individual, although he does not know who he is yet.

You are stretching - that is not at all the same thing. You are now closer to duckbill's example of a doctor injecting patients to cure MS.

You are right - we cannot know specifically who those individuals of the future are. But we know enough about genetics, chaos theory, etc., to argue precisely that those specific individuals that would have been will not be. It is certainly unconventional, but it is most certainly not absurd. All ethical arguments regarding future generations simply gloss over the paradox.

[randerizer]

Yeah, every action has an equal and opposite reaction... still doesn't explain why it's two different groups... Predetermination has to be taken account into all aspects, not just nit-pick here and there, in order to even remotely make it two different groups. Otherwise, no determination beyond that there will be future generations can be made, and whatever we do with anything affects those generations.

I'm lost, can you be a little more clear? Predetermination into all aspects? I gave one example of a specific genetic change. Even if a different X-chromosome sperm wins, it is a completely different individual that will come to be.

If it is different individuals, how is it not different groups? All ethical frameworks ultimately reduce to individual entities.

[JuBru]

I'm lost, can you be a little more clear? Predetermination into all aspects? I gave one example of a specific genetic change. Even if a different X-chromosome sperm wins, it is a completely different individual that will come to be.

If it is different individuals, how is it not different groups? All ethical frameworks ultimately reduce to individual entities.

You were stating something predetermined - that my original actions would have a son by my actions, but because I changed my actions, I would have daughter. How can I change my actions if they haven't been done yet?

[randerizer]

You were stating something predetermined - that my original actions would have a son by my actions, but because I changed my actions, I would have daughter. How can I change my actions if they haven't been done yet?

You undertake a specific action with the (sole) intent of doing it for the benefit of your future child. I don't know that I would say predetermined, but I would argue that the relevant environment at conception would be X in the event that you did not take this action, and it would be Y (meaning different from what it would have been) if you did take this action.

[randerizer]

The fact that this is what your argument boils down to shows how lame you guys are.

There is no group A of individuals who will be born if we protect the environment and Group B of individuals who will be born if we dont.

If you dont give a shit about making changes to protect the environment because youre a lazy ****er, or a greedy bastard, just say so. Dont try to back up your self-centeredness with some lame ass arguments.

A little pissy... :icon_wink:

[JuBru]

You undertake a specific action with the (sole) intent of doing it for the benefit of your future child. I don't know that I would say predetermined, but I would argue that the relevant environment at conception would be X in the event that you did not take this action, and it would be Y (meaning different from what it would have been) if you did take this action.

Either way, there's a future being... so why are there two groups? Whichever choice, it's going to affect the future being either way.

[daybreaker2]

You were stating something predetermined - that my original actions would have a son by my actions, but because I changed my actions, I would have daughter. How can I change my actions if they haven't been done yet?

Amen Rus.

Here's one for you Rand and Guiss:

Should I drink coke or water?

What if drinking coke will result in one of my sperms reaching the egg at a different time than if I had drank water? Which child deserves to be born? Coke baby or water baby? OH NO! I BETTER DRINK BOTH, OR I MAY KILL ONE OF MY FUTURE-CHILDREN.

Sorry, you guys are just full of lame-ass shit-tastic "reasoning". What will happen in the future is not pre-determined. There is no Group A, or Group B of children who will be born in the future. There are only the children who ARE born when that time arrives.

And they deserve to be born into a world that isnt much, much worse than the one we have today. Because leaving them with the problems we created may be too late for them to do anything about it.

[randerizer]

Either way, there's a future being... so why are there two groups? Whichever choice, it's going to affect the future being either way.

It will cause one future being to not exist, and it will cause another to exist. But the one that would have existed (before we altered the course with an action motivated by duty to the future) is the only one that anyone could POSSIBLY owe anything to.

But it won't really affect the quality of life of any future being, unless your scale of "quality of life" includes "existence" and "never coming into existence"

[randerizer]

Amen Rus.

Here's one for you Rand and Guiss:

Should I drink coke or water?

What if drinking coke will result in one of my sperms reaching the egg at a different time than if I had drank water? Which child deserves to be born? Coke baby or water baby? OH NO! I BETTER DRINK BOTH, OR I MAY KILL ONE OF MY FUTURE-CHILDREN.

Sorry, you guys are just full of lame-ass shit-tastic "reasoning". What will happen in the future is not pre-determined. There is no Group A, or Group B of children who will be born in the future. There are only the children who ARE born when that time arrives.

And they deserve to be born into a world that isnt much, much worse than the one we have today. Because leaving them with the problems we created may be too late for them to do anything about it.

Do you really consider the ramifications to your future children when you decide between coke and water?

You are partially right -- it is not predetermined. However, that does not mean that Group A and Group B are not different. They might deserve whatever you want to say they deserve. The point is, though, that acting on the environment will in no way accomplish giving them what they deserve. It will cause the would-be Group A to never have the world at all. :icon_wink: