What Do We Owe Future Generations?

Josh Landy
How much should we care about future generations?

Ken Taylor
Shouldn’t we care as much about them as we do for ourselves?

Josh Landy
Why don’t just live it up and let the people of the future sortit out?

Ken Taylor
Welcome to Philosophy Talk, the program that questions everything…

Josh Landy
…except your intelligence. I’m Josh Landy.

Ken Taylor
And I’m Ken Taylor. We’re here at the studios of KALW San Francisco.

Josh Landy
Continuing conversations that began at Philosophers Corner on the Stanford campus, where Ken teaches philosophy and I direct the philosophy and literature initiative.

Ken Taylor
And today, our conversation centers on what to do we owe to future generations.

Josh Landy
That’s like asking what we owe Santa Claus or the tooth fairy: they don’t exist.

Ken Taylor
Future generations don’t exist YET, I’ll grant you that—but they will eventually.

Josh Landy
Isn’t up to us whether they exist or not?

Ken Taylor
What, you think we’re gonna just someday collectively up and decide, no more people to come? That would be a disaster.

Josh Landy
I’m not advocating human extinction.

Ken Taylor
Glad of that, Josh. I’m really glad.

Josh Landy
I’m just making a logical point, the logical point is this. Like, if we don’t owe it to future generations even to bring them into existence, how can we owe them anything at all?

Ken Taylor
Because choices have consequences, Mr. Logic. Look, I’m gonna grant you maybe my parents didn’t precisely owe it to me to bring me into existence. But you know, once they decided they were eventually going to have a kid, they were just free to squander all their resources anymore.

Josh Landy
Exactly how much of the resources should they have saved up for you? I mean, maybe they were right not to buy a yacht or something. But But what if they took evening classes or went to the theater, you know, things that contributed to their happiness and flourishing? Would you retrospectively begrudge them that?

Ken Taylor
Well, it depends. I might, I might well, if their profit legacy had made the future me permanently worse off? You bet I would. And look, if we don’t take care of the planet now. Future generations that will someday inherit this thing will definitely have the right to look back at us and say, I’m pissed off at you past people!

Josh Landy
What if you’re, you know, what if fear of future righteous anger like that, it caused your parents not to have a child at all? Would you like that better?

Ken Taylor
Oh come on. In that case, I wouldn’t even be around to complain about it, would I?

Josh Landy
Well, exactly. You’re making my point for me.

Ken Taylor
What point is that?

Josh Landy
The point is, it’s not your parents who owe you, it’s you who owe them.

Ken Taylor
I owe them for what, doing their duty as future parents?

Josh Landy
It wasn’t their duty, Ken. Look, deciding to have a child making sacrifices for that future child even before it’s conceived. These are acts of charity. It’s like a gift. I mean, it’s just you’re just making a mistake in thinking about relations to people of the future. In terms of duties.

Ken Taylor
Wait a minute. Suppose just for supposition sake, that we lay complete waste to this planet? Are you denying that people of the future would be within their rights to look back at us and say, Look past people, given that you despoiled our planet? Why did you even bother bringing us into existence?

Josh Landy
Well, then we say back to them, would you rather not exist?

Ken Taylor
And what if they said back to us, you know what, under these circumstances, we would rather not have existed. So we’re suing you, past people. We’re taking you to the court of intergenerational justice for wrongful existence.

Josh Landy
So let me see if I have you right here, Ken. Now you’re saying we might have an obligation not to bring future people into existence?

Ken Taylor
No, I’m saying we have an absolute duty to the future people not to ruin their future planet.

Josh Landy
Even if you’re right, there’s a huge difference between leaving them a ruined planet and leaving one that’s got, you know, a little wear and tear of planet that’s been lovingly used.

Ken Taylor
But what are you talking lovingly used? What are you talking about?

Josh Landy
Well, what I’m trying to say is this: the real question comes down to how much we should sacrifice for the sake of future generations. I mean, should we live like monks so that they can live a life of plenty?

Ken Taylor
No, I wouldn’t say that I No, no, no, that would imply that people of the future count more than us. I didn’t say that. And I wouldn’t say that.

Josh Landy
Well, do they even count the same as us?

Ken Taylor
What, you think they count less than us?

Josh Landy
Well at least a little less. I mean, we have real, concrete, urgent interests. I mean, think of all the people starving right now across the globe. Whereas the interest of future people, they’re, you know, abstract and hypothetical.

Ken Taylor
You know, that’s just the kind of attitude that explains our lack of action on things like climate change.

Josh Landy
Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m all for combating climate change. Absolutely. I just don’t think it’s obvious how much weight we should give to the well being of hypothetical future people, as opposed to our own.

Ken Taylor
Well, okay, Josh, you know what? That’s an interesting question, I agree. And it’s a challenging one and to help Us get started thinking about it, we sent our Roving Philosophical Reporter, Holly J. McDede to take a look at the history of our thinking about climate change, and its impact on future generations. She files this report,

Josh Landy
United Nations scientists so that we have 12 years left to avoid climate catastrophe. And even that would take a miracle. Celebrity naturalist David Attenborough pleaded for action during the recent UN Climate Summit in Poland.

David Attenborough
If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilizations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon.

Josh Landy
But in the run up to the Climate Summit, President Donald Trump spoke with 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl.

60 Minutes
I’m not denying climate change, but it could very well go back you know, we’re talking about—but that’s denying it.

Josh Landy
Some scientists say we’re better off focusing on colonizing other planets to survive as a species. But author and journalist Nathaniel Rich says that 30 years ago, we had a real shot to save Earth for future generation.,

Nathaniel Rich
Major progress was made to try to explain the problem to the public and then to formulate a solution and, and yet we failed.

Josh Landy
In a New York Times piece called “Losing Earth,” Rich attempts to understand why and how. The story starts in 1979. A political lobbyist named Rafe Pomerance reads a report describing how the continued use of fossil fuels would bring about significant damaging changes to the global atmosphere. So a terrified Pomerance goes to alert Capitol Hill about the bad news.

Nathaniel Rich
Their first thought is that, well, surely if we explain the problem and what’s at stake to the elders of government, then surely they will take action, they’ll have no choice.

Josh Landy
Instead, President Ronald Reagan comes in opens up public land to mining and drilling. Then in 1985, there’s a shift.

Ozone news
Ozone in the news. Satellite photos show that a hole opens in the ozone layer for a few months during Antarctica’s springtime.

Josh Landy
Lo and behold, the Reagan administration proposes a reduction in CFC emissions by 95%. Then comes 1988, the hottest and driest summer in US history.

Nathaniel Rich
There was new science that had come forward that had shown that the problem was much greater than anyone had even feared. And the way that the ozone hole was being discussed, certainly in the public eye, was the sky had ripped open and the sun was blazing through and that we’d all get skin cancer and go blind. It was an image that people could visualize. It wasn’t nearly as abstract, it was far more immediate. And this the remedy was a lot easier.

Josh Landy
And all this urgency seemed to help the cause, at least at first. By this point, climate change is considered nonpartisan. Even major oil companies have studied the problem and possible solutions, like in this video from Shell.

Shell
Global warming is not yet certain. But many things that the wait for final proof would be irresponsible. Action is seen as the only safe insurance.

Josh Landy
President George H.W. Bush declared, “Those who think we are powerless to do anything about the greenhouse effect forget about the White House Effect.” 32 climate bills are introduced to Congress. Leaders around the world are poised to sign a global agreement to reduce greenhouse emissions—until Bush’s Chief of Staff convinces Washington that all this talk about global warming is bogus. And Washington doesn’t push back.

Nathaniel Rich
I think we obsess over our present generation, our present wellbeing. I think we care deeply about the next generation. I think we care less deeply about two generations after that. And beyond that, I think we have very little interest.

Josh Landy
And that says Nathaniel Rich was the beginning of the end.

Nathaniel Rich
The oil and gas industry had mobilized and started their decades long propaganda effort and the Republican Party had adopted as a kind of central tenant of republicanism. Climate denialism

Josh Landy
30 years later, which says Not much has changed even as the current generation experiences the facts of a changing climate,

Nathaniel Rich
The line tends to be, “See, now that climate change is at our doors, now that the flames are licking at our patio and the water is rising up the driveway—now surely, you have to take this seriously.”

Josh Landy
There are millions and millions of people whose lives are in imminent danger. But he says if we want to stop climate change, we need to push it as a moral issue.

Nathaniel Rich
Not simply we need to protect future generations but because it is the ethical thing to do, because it is consistent with our deepest values and it is consistent with our highest view of ourselves.

Josh Landy
Even if we do keep global warming down to two degrees, we still lose the world’s tropical reefs, the sea level still rises several meters, and the Persian Gulf is still gone. And scientists say that’s the best case scenario. A goal to push for it scientifically and technologically possible, but human nature will likely get in the way. For Philosophy Talk, I’m Holly J. McDede.

Ken Taylor
Thanks for that tour of the history of climate change debates and in the context of thinking about intergenerational justice, Holly. I’m Ken Taylor, with me is my Stanford colleague, Josh Landy. And today we’re thinking about what we owe to future generations.

Josh Landy
We’re joined now by Rahul Kumar, professor of philosophy at Queen’s University, and editor of ethics and future generations. Rahul, welcome to Philosophy Talk.

Rahul Kumar
Thank you, thanks for inviting me.

Ken Taylor
So Rahul, unfortunately, not many people devote all that much energy to worrying about the interest of future generations. You do, though, but I’m wondering What first got you so gripped by this question, that it led to a whole career of thinking about this?

Rahul Kumar
Good question. You know, when I was in high school, I used to read a lot of a lot of science fiction, both dystopian and some of it very hopeful. And, you know, at the same time, I was surrounded by posters about the doomsday clock, and we hear on the news about nuclear proliferation. So it seemed very vivid to me that, you know, we could simply end humanity at any time. And what a horrible thing it would be, because there are all these possibilities for the future, right? 500 years from now, I will really want it to believe that, you know, there would be life on Mars, thriving colonies, right, that we would live in advanced civilization. And then I went to grad school, and all of a sudden, I was told, Hey, these are actual philosophical questions, much to my, you know, amazement and delight, I could channel this sort of geeky interest into, you know, a career.

Josh Landy
Yeah, that that worked out. Well, I wanted to get your opinion on the question that Ken and I were debating about that. Right. So so we all you know, I think we all agree that we care about future generations. But But what makes you think that or should we think that that we have a duty to future generation as opposed to just well, we care?

Rahul Kumar
I think we actually have duties to future generations. Future generations are other people like the people you’re sitting beside, you have few of your relationships with them, you have duties to them, whether or not you have relationships with them? I think intuitively, that’s all you need to think they’re clearly obligations to other people.

Ken Taylor
There are other people. But there are other hypothetical. John made this point well, which people they are depends on what we decided to do. And if, if my parents had decided not to have a kid when they did, I wouldn’t exist. So what was their obligation to me? I mean, yeah, there are other possible people, but not other actual people. And we don’t even have reciprocal relations to that.

Rahul Kumar
I think I really don’t think that that kind of problem matters, right. So you don’t need to know, right? You’re passing people on the street, you don’t need to know much about the particular people that are their identities to know you just have obligations to them. You know, that, you know, if you’re flying over, you know, a far off country, you don’t know anyone there, all you know, is that there are people there, you think, well, maybe I won’t drop a bunch of waste on their country. Right, and, you know, kill people as the waste is falling from the airplane. And so I think, you know—

Ken Taylor
Yeah, but the people in the other country, I don’t know, they’re not hypothetical people. They’re not merely possible people. They’re actual concrete people to whom I can do actual concrete harm. So look, if my parents hadn’t given birth to me, would they have done an actual concrete harm to me?

Rahul Kumar
No, they wouldn’t. But the moment they decide to have you, I think they have obligations to us. And I think most of us want, we want humanity to continue. We don’t want it to end. Right. In the moment we started thinking, well, we want humanity to continue, then I think we have obligations to sort of make sure that the other people who live in the future have a certain kind of lifestyle.

Ken Taylor
I kind of tend to sort of kind of agree with that. But I still hear Josh probably would object Yes, but particular people but that’s a question we’ll get into. Okay, so you’re listening to Philosophy Talk. Today, we’re asking what we owe to future generations with Rahul Kumar from Queen’s University.

Josh Landy
How do we balance the hypothetical interests of future people against our own interests, which are concrete? Should their interests count more or less are about the same as ours?

Ken Taylor
It’s a smackdown between the future people and the present people, how do we strike the balance—plus your calls and emails when Philosophy Talk it continues.

MGMT
A family of trees wanting to be haunted.

Ken Taylor
Decisions made today affect babies born tomorrow. So what do we owe them? Now? I’m Ken Taylor. This is Philosophy Talk, the program that questions everything…

Josh Landy
…except your intelligence. I’m Josh Landy and we’re asking Asking what we owe to future generations. Our guest is Rahul Kumar from Queen’s University editor of ethics and future generation. So

Ken Taylor
I don’t want to construe the competition between future and present generations, it’s like a smackdown. But it has a little bit of a competitive thing. And you got to strike a balance, here’s a natural seeming thought maybe, well, we should count all people’s interests equally, whether they’re past, present or future. But know what, since the future people are going to eventually outnumber the total people around. Now, when that kind of balancing mean that we present people are, you know, we’re always gonna end up getting the short end of the stick. And that seems wrong.

Rahul Kumar
I don’t think we’re going to get the short end of the stick, I do think we end up we’re gonna have to make sacrifices to protect the interests of future people. But the relationship between people now and people in the future isn’t the same, right? What we can do for them is, you know, not undermined the prospects of them taking care of themselves and continuing to have a flourishing cyst civilization, for people now we can do a lot more, we can make bigger sacrifices to really directly improve the quality of life. So I don’t think we stand in this sort of conflict of interest rate to everyone counts the same, but we can do different things to protect their interest.

Ken Taylor
Wait a minute, wait a minute. So let’s there’s a lot of thought there. So you’re not quite sure if you agree or not agree, disagree? That it sounds like you’re saying two things. One is their interest count equally to ours, but our opportunities to affect their difference versus the opportunity to affect the interests of people now, are are different. And it’s a combination of like the weight of their interests, combined with our opportunities. Is that correctly?

Josh Landy
That’s absolutely right. But that is the worry for me will be if we think about this in terms of justice. Yeah, obviously, again, we agree that we have to care we have to take action. Now. The question is, does it really look like justice? Because think about justice, the point of justice is impartial. And everyone is treated equally. So if we were to treat future people equally to the way that we people treat people today, then gosh, there are so many more of them than there are of us, it seems like we would have to basically starve ourselves to make it possible for them to have equal treatment.

Rahul Kumar
Yeah, I think that that way of thinking things suggests that thinking about people impartially just a matter of thinking, how well or badly off, are they right? And then if we think that way, we think there are going to be so many future people who have to benefit. We have to starve ourselves. I think I think that’s the wrong way to think about it. ,

Ken Taylor
Right, pause for a second, could you pause for a second? Because I think you’re right, that’s the wrong way of thinking about it. But it sounds to me, I don’t know if Josh has this in mind. Like if I were a utilitarian, that’s almost exactly how I would think about it. Right? Every every person counts equally, just do the calculus of the greatest good for the greatest number, the future numbers are going to swamp the present numbers.

Josh Landy
So I mean, one way of thinking about this, you know, is again, I’m advancing this just as an idea, not as something I myself believe. But, you know, you might imagine somebody saying, population control, right? There’s, there’s too many people on the planet right now. And so one thing we should be striving with, you know, we should be limiting our own desire, for example, to make a certain number of babies, you know, because that’s going to increase the possibility for future generations to live a meaningful, choice worthy life.

Ken Taylor
Yeah, but but good. Okay. There’s a lot there. But I want you to tell me, was I thinking about it and utilitarian ways when I when I was thinking about that or not?

Rahul Kumar
You You were and I think that utilitarian thinking leads us to sort of think our current lives are going to be swamped by the interests of future people. It’s just another reason to reject utilitarian thought, like so much. I mean, I think there are many nails in that coffin. You know, my friends will disagree with me about this. But I think it’s just the wrong way to conceive it, we shouldn’t think of it ourselves is just in question. How much good wish can we do we should think about it is, what kind of lives do we want, you know, our successors to have in four or 500 years? Right? What kind of, you know, opportunities? Do we want them to have? What do we want? Do we want them to carry on our projects, our civilizations? Do we want this? That should be the—

Josh Landy
So what’s the what do you think about that? I mean, because you know, you might think, on the one hand, well, we want them to have in a kind of abstract way, the same opportunities as us. So we want them to be able to make similar kinds of choices. Or you might think there are some very specific things like for example, we want Venice still to be around want everyone to continue to be able to enjoy Venice. So So is it. Is it what we want specifically specific things we have now to be available? Or is it this kind of broader, we want to live recognizably human lives where they can make meaningful choices and live in various parts of the planet? Which one is it?

Rahul Kumar
I think both are true. I’ll give you an anecdote when I was about 10 years old. I got this picture book about ancient history from the library. And you know, one of the illustrations was about The Great Library of Alexandria and its destruction. And it really upset me. weighs on me, I think, Well, how could they do that we should have had that I want, I want Venice to continue. You know, I want those, you know, I want Pomar to continue. I want the great Buddhist statues to continue.

Ken Taylor
But have you read the man of man for all seasons? Yeah, we would all like to, I can’t remember the exact line. We were all like something to be something, but

Rahul Kumar
we would like it. But you know, we’re, we’re in a position to make these choices, right. Unlike past generations, we know what we’re doing. We know, you know, what the effects will be hundreds of years from now. I think future generations can look back and say no, did you do this? You knew what you were doing? You ignored our interest. Right? You made sure we wouldn’t have Venice. We Yeah, the great art,

Ken Taylor
I get that. But there’s one thing I want to say then let’s get some callers in here. We got a whole lineup of them. But one thing I want to say is that I Okay, I think there was lots of injustice done in the past lots and lots. I think the human world is a theater of moral imperfection and moral injustice. But actually don’t think that any of those past people, the people who sacked the library in the Library of Alexandria, I don’t think they did an injustice to me. So I mean, I might not like it, but do I have a complaint against them? Hey, look, you deprived me, right, of the good of the Library of Alexandria? Ah,

Rahul Kumar
no, I think they’re, I think people then did not have the thought about the importance for this. For people who live in the far future, our thinking has become much more cosmopolitan, both globally. And temporally right now. It’s perfectly available to us, right? What we will do, if we destroy this future generations will have this is the real part of the reason we worry about climate change. Were we worried about what to do with nuclear waste? We worried about, well, you know, people in the far future gonna have to deal with this, what are

Ken Taylor
we so so I think, well, so the trend of history is for a way from normative circles built around Qin clan and tribe to evermore encompassing circles of humanity and global human community. And now you’re saying it’s the human community stretching forward and backwards in time that has become the locus of our moral concern?

Rahul Kumar
I think that’s absolutely true. I think most people feel this concern for further future, what holds them back is fear of what it might mean for their lives, right to what changes they will have to make it to really address that concern.

Ken Taylor
You’re you’re listening to Philosophy Talk, we’re talking about what we owe to future generations, we’d love to have your thoughts on this. And Elizabeth from Berkeley’s on the line. Welcome to Philosophy Talk. Elizabeth, what’s your comment your question?

Elizabeth
Good morning. So when I was in policy school, I, you know, we had to try to figure out the future value that future generations would place on things and people would say, you know, this is not a philosophy class. But how are we going to approach this. And so I did kind of come up with a way of thinking about it, that has worked for me pretty well. And you might find it rather, Pat. But the notion is that if you we can think of future generations, as we think about potential guests in our home, that we you know, you want to be prepared to receive them and have them feel comfortable and like they have appropriate options, but you don’t make yourself crazy. You know, you don’t deny yourself completely, because, you know, you’re preparing a place for both you and them to, you know, share in a way. But for them to experience that that seemed like the appropriate way to think about them, and that you can make the assumption that they will value at their core, some of the basic things that we will value as well. The comfort and, and having choices. That’s, that’s worked for me.

Ken Taylor
That’s good. Elizabeth, one ask you really quick questions. Does that mean they should think of us as the owner of the house? Or should they think of us as only the temporary custodians of the house, which is equally theirs? I mean, to say their guest is to say we have an asymmetric relationship to this earth?

Elizabeth
Well, I mean, I think this is more for us in terms of like, they are not our guests. But if we think of them with the same attitude that we do think of how we prepare for guests, but like that they you know, like, not that not that they are going to be guests this they will be the custodians. You’re right. But in terms of what we, the way we think of how we prepare, the way we think the way we prepare for guests is kind of how we would prepare. Okay,

Ken Taylor
Thanks a lot. It was but that was a great discussion. What do you think, Rahul?

Rahul Kumar
I completely I think that’s a great way to think about it right to think about, you know, what, what could we what kind of home could we prepare such that they could be comfortable and I would think of us as, as custodians. When she was she was talking I was reminded me a bit cheesy, but I was reminded of watching Downton Abbey right and the way they would talk about the estate, as you know, just custodians of the state which they were passing on to futures generations, right? They had to keep it in good condition and working order so they could so far people in the far future could also continue to enjoy it. That’s a good way to think about our physician.

Josh Landy
I agree. I agree. That’s a really nice way of striking the balance. I mean, another metaphor that that came to mind for me was the oxygen masks, you know, on the airplane there was it Yeah, you know, put your put it on yourself first, and then put it on other people. So it’s a balance. Yeah, there’s a balance. But it does bring up the question we’re talking about earlier, one of the questions which is okay, yeah, let’s leave aside. You know, hedonism, let’s leave aside people buying yachts and burning gas for fun. But let’s talk about the devotion of resources to solving the world’s pressing problems like, like hunger? How do we strike a balance between addressing problems of today? And problems of tomorrow?

Rahul Kumar
Yeah, I think a lot of a lot of these things go go hand in hand. And you know, Paul, actual policy people, economics, people can talk about this. More precisely, but a lot of people a lot of questions having to do with lifting people out of poverty, have to do a trade and industrialization. And those questions raised questions about combating global warming, what kind of world is going to be for future generations? Because we know they can’t follow the same industrialization path we did. Right? That that has led to the situation we’re in, they need a different path, right? They need a different way to raise their standard of living. So I think this idea that, you know, well, either we help the global poor, or we worry about future generations is a false dichotomy. Worry about them both together,

Ken Taylor
I grant you that but I don’t think speaking of policy people, especially economic policy, people, I actually don’t think they know how to think about this, I think they have a way of thinking about it. But they’re a kind of utilitarian consequentialist, and it’s gonna get you lots of the wrong answers, I believe. So I actually think people like you who reject utilitarian consequentialism need to like engage people like them, so that they, right there put their policy frame on a different philosophical foundation. What do you think about that?

Rahul Kumar
I think that’s right. And I think philosophers are, are working hard to do that. Partly, you know, partly, it’s, you know, it’s it becomes the responsibility of for people like me to learn how to talk their language, right? I don’t think economists are particularly actually really actually fundamentally are wedded to utilitarian or welfarist thinking. It’s just the way they’ve just the way people are taught in grad school. nudged away from it, if you really engage them.

Ken Taylor
Steven in Berkeley’s on the line. Welcome to Philosophy Talk, Steven.

Steven
Well, this might sound a little harsh, but even by your guys, adult standards, I think—

Ken Taylor
Adult? Those are fightin’ words!

Steven
The point is that our obligation as a species is not to future generations of humans, it is to the rest of this ecosystem and planet. You know, we have a population of seven and a half billion and counting on an ecosystem that by best estimates can only cope with at most two and a half billion of us. And our primary obligation at this point is to not reproduce. That simple back the matter is this planet, we better off if our species didn’t exist. And we need to face that, adopt a little humility, and actually start acting appropriately for the planet that is discussion of what do we owe future generations of humans is unbelievably self centered.

Ken Taylor
Okay, well, you could say you could put it that way. So when I said to Josh, in the beginning, what what you could decide not to have any more people he backed off? He said, he’s not advocating human extinction. But you, Steve, sound like you are in a row. I want to know what you think about that, should we be gradually winding down the Human Project?

Rahul Kumar
No, I think it would be a great tragedy. I think we all think it would be horrible. If the human project ended, we want it to continue, we look what we’ve accomplished in the past 1000 years and think, wow, you know, given what we’ve done, imagine what we could do with, you know, five or 6000 more years. But it’s a respectable position to think it’s really, it’s really bad for the planet that the human human species exists, right? That’s something to be taken into account when we think about how the human species goes forward. But, you know, it goes very deep in all our psyche that we can’t imagine, you know, the Human Project just ending, right?

Josh Landy
I mean, so maybe I take that point, but why not take seriously the idea of serious population control. So even if we don’t go to the extreme, when you understand people saying, it’d be better for human beings didn’t exist, you take into account all of the other members of this ecosystem. But okay, if you stop short of that, why not say, let’s have serious population control? Maybe we owe something to future generations, but we haven’t decided how big those generations are going to be. Maybe we owe something to a future population of 2 billion.

Ken Taylor
Yes, think about how draconian though that, that way of thinking will get quickly, because then it’s like, who’s going to reproduce and who’s going to have the right to reproduce and who’s and and we’re going to change the whole human calculation of what a well lived human life is to be like. So that’s a really draconian thing, don’t you think Rubble?

Rahul Kumar
Actually, I think there’s not a real problem about population control. I think just the, the empirical evidence suggests the problem takes care of itself as people’s standard of living rises. But the problem is not going to be you know, that there’s going to be too many people, the problem is going to be making sure that, you know, humanity continues in sufficient numbers to sustain itself right to make sure we can continue, you know, the various kinds of, you know, aspects of humanity we cherish, not that there are too few people to maintain. Yeah, arts and culture and science.

Ken Taylor
I agree with you. But I think there is a problem about the distribution of the population around the globe, but that’s a different issue.

Rahul Kumar
That’s absolutely a different issue. And that’s part of the reason people think there’s a big population, probably I live in Canada, we could take a lot more people with empty space here.

Ken Taylor
You’re listening to Philosophy Talk, we’re thinking about what we owe to future generations with Rohan Kumar from Queen’s University.

Josh Landy
What can we do now to safeguard the interests of future people? What should we do? And how can we convince people of the present to care about people of the future,

Ken Taylor
Sacrificing in the present in order to safeguard the future—when Philosophy Talk continues.

Sex Pistols
No future for you!

Ken Taylor
Well, if the next generation think there’s no future, why worry about what we might own generations beyond them? I’m Ken Taylor, and this is Philosophy Talk, the program that questions everything…

Josh Landy
…except your intelligence. I’m Josh Landy, our guest is Rahul Kumar from Queen’s University. And we’re thinking about what we owe future generations.

Ken Taylor
We’ve got a caller—John in Mountain View, welcome to philosophy top. Tom, what’s your comment your question?

John
Before I ask the question, surely you can find more horrible music than that. Future generations and not mythical unimagined act entities. If we have an environmental crisis with a 12 year horizon, as you stated at the beginning of the program, those future generations are already here, for people with pregnant offspring, for example.

Ken Taylor
John, you’ve got a point. There are overlapping generations with us. And you might think, Well, the question of intergenerational justice when it’s about overlapping generations is one thing. But a lot of this discussion is about non overlapping generations, because it’s kind of easier to see that we might have generations to obligations to sort of actual people younger than us who are already here and to whom we’re in some kind of relationship already. But I’ll let rose to the authority weigh in on whether I’ve got that right or not?

Rahul Kumar
I agree, I think most people, you know, they find it easy to worry about their kids, their grandkids, maybe at a stretch their great grandkids. But when we worry about obligations to future generations, we’re worried not about the effects of the next 12 years, we’re worried about the effects 100 years from now, right? What if climate change leaves a situation where the remaining human population is just struggling for existence? Right? That seems like the real catastrophe, right, we want to write and

Ken Taylor
write and that worry means that we’re going to have to impose costs, because justice is always about cost and benefits, we’re going to have to impose cost on you’re about to be born grandchild to, right. So there are costs that we already have imposing you’re about to be born grandchild, because they’re gonna have to pay into Social Security, and then whether we’re gonna get it or not. And there’s a question of fairness. But then it’s more, there’s more costs that we’re going to impose, not just for the old people around. So it’s a it’s a complicated calculus route, don’t you? I mean, this whole calculus is extraordinarily complex.

Rahul Kumar
It is it is, it is complicated, I tend to think it’s less, it’s less complicated for the children and the grandkids than it is for us. Because they will adapt into the world they inherit, right? So if they inherited a world where the expectation is, well, you know, your, you know, your lifestyle is more modest your expectations, right? You pay more into Social Security and so on. They’ll just take that for granted, that will just be the background against which they shape their plans. It’s more alarming for us, because when we use to our opulent lifestyle, and we think, wow, we have to give all this up, we really have to revise our expectations that can be that can be disturbing and make people sort of shut down the question of obligations to future generations when they start thinking about it.

Ken Taylor
So we got a call from Al who’s in over there. I’m not quite sure where over there is, is that where the Yanks are coming. Welcome to Philosophy Talk, Al.

Al
another way to call it evil. But anyway, I’m just asking what thought this might be to any of you. Going the opposite of what Trump like does call himself? The beauty of him is that he’s greedy. Now, if you go in sort of my thought the opposite way of that is sort of the notion of the Greek agape. Does that make any sense? Yeah,

Ken Taylor
It makes a lot of sense.

Al
Trying to, sort of overlord if you will, haha. To our younger generations, this idea of agape.

Ken Taylor
So thanks for that. What do you what do you think, Rahul?

Rahul Kumar
I think that makes a lot of a lot of a lot of sense that people, I think people feel this to a certain extent that they have, they have a certain thoughts about love for inco hate thoughts about love of humanity, right? You know, with the people, you know, when people go to museums, right, and see these, you know, ancient artifacts and things, you know, they feel great admiration and pride in what the human species has, has accomplished. You can teach the younger generation, a certain feeling that you know, what they’re contributing to, right is the continuity of the Human Project. And they can have feelings of love for that to think, well, you know, this is really something deeply worth caring about and important to them, right? Something bigger than themselves.

Josh Landy
We’ll start from the Library of Alexandria. So let’s get specific right here. So we’re gonna we’re gonna do something to somebody on the show, we’re gonna make usar for intergenerational justice, right? So you you can do, you can take any steps that you think are appropriate to get us present people to just serve the core cause of you know, the future generations. So So what’s what’s the single most consequential thing you think you do, you know, as a first act as czar?

Rahul Kumar
I think everyone would say the same thing as dramatically reduce carbon emissions, right, just move us to the low carbon economy as quickly as possible. It would, it will hurt but you know, we will adjust.

Josh Landy
So you think carbon tax, you think maybe expanding the solar grid? What’s the what’s the way forward?

Rahul Kumar
I think I mean, I’m a big Carbon Tax fan. And I actually talk about the carbon tax in courses I teach, which actually have nothing to do with future generations, just because I want people to understand that it’s a very effective way of reducing carbon emissions. Yeah, solar grids. Right. You know, I

Ken Taylor
agree with all that, but I want to do something to you, I will put something to you. One of the biggest carbon footprint things there is our airplanes, and air travel. Okay, suppose we eliminated airplanes and air travel tomorrow, given that we don’t have Star Trek transporter, the global economy, global commerce, international exchanges of all sorts, would likely grind. I don’t know if it grind to a halt, but it would slow down quite a lot. We will I mean, so what some of these things that generate this pollution and all that this assault on the earth are at the core of our thriving in the world of our living the lives that we live in all these great achievements that we see. So what about that?

Rahul Kumar
It would definitely mean so that would definitely mean less travel. I don’t have this doom and gloom view about it. Because I think we will I think the technology will adapt. I think part of the reason it hasn’t is the large companies don’t actually think the population is really serious about reducing our carbon footprint. If they really thought people wanted this now and they were going to start changing their behavior to achieve that goal. The technology would evolve to make flights less a source of carbon emissions, I think probably fairly, very quickly. Look what’s happening within our lifetimes. It’s amazing. Yeah,

Ken Taylor
We got a caller on the line—Ariane from San Francisco, welcome to Philosophy Talk.

Ariane
Thank you for taking my call. I just want to comment that the planet is actually a living being and we’re actually engaged in massive genocide which endangers the human species as well. And it’s not enough to be talking about these things. We really have to come together as a society and find, find ways to actualize change. All these years we’ve been discussing and wrangling over whether climate change existed was part of the plan of the fossil fuel industries to basically continue to maximize their profits. And we’re not doing enough or fast enough, and we have to come from another place within our heart beyond our complacency. Maitreya, a great teacher in London says that America’s greatest sin is our complacency, okay, to find a way to be different.

Ken Taylor
All right, I think you’re onto something. I want to put that row in a certain way, because you kind of talked a little bit about our ever evolving consciousness, the consciousness of The past generations versus our more cosmopolitan consciousness. But I wonder in late 21st century capitalism, which shapes consciousness as much as any cultural force ever? Are we ever going to get to this place?

Rahul Kumar
I hope so. I hope so. It’s I mean, this is not, you know, it’s, it’s a struggle, right. But the fact that, you know, we, we worry about it as much as we do, you know, even talk about the fossil fuel industry, the amount of work the fossil fuel industry has put in, to stop to make us worry about going to a low carbon economy and make us fearful of it shows that, you know, it’s, it’s on our radar, we’re thinking about it, we can see it happening, we’re, you know, we’re open to embracing it, you know, it would help if, you know, the, you know, that’s the state itself or, you know, less less involved in, you know, the propaganda and making us fearful of the possibility and encouraging us to think that we can we can do this right, it won’t be so bad.

Josh Landy
I guess that’s true. I also think about something that the philosopher Sam Schaeffler said that, if we really realized how much is in our own self interest, to leave a world to future generations that’s recognizably like our own, that might change people’s minds. Because there’s once one thing to say, well, you, you have an obligation, or it’s, it’s, I mean, I prefer Elizabeth way of thinking about it, we should think of it as a kind of kindness to future possible guests. But how much more powerful to say you know, what you’re doing, you know what you’re doing, if you’re letting the world grind itself down to nothing, or at least to a human, nothing, you’re making all of your projects meaningless. Everything you’re doing right now, is meaningless, unless there’s a human population that future that lives lives that we can understand.

Rahul Kumar
We think that Well, I think that’s, I think that’s, that’s powerful. And I think Sam’s argument is exactly, exactly right. And it shows not just that, you know, it’s in our self interest, but it’s in our interest, because we already care, right? It shows that, you know, our concern extends way beyond ourselves, right? We want our projects, you know, to continue into the future, we want people to care about the same kinds of things were caring about, and the thought that it will just be all over. This is terrifying.

Ken Taylor
Yeah, I get you. I totally agree with both of you. But there is this thing, I do think there’s another countervailing force. In our time, we are deeply presentist, we think the past is a desert of, you know, moral error. And this, that and the other thing, and we we do think a bit about the future, but we think about the future in terms of protecting us. So I think there is an ethos of presentism in our way that that gets deeply in our way.

Josh Landy
Absolutely.

Rahul Kumar
I you know, I think I think there is that that ethos of presentism get gets in our way. But I think part of the part of the ethos is just driven by fear, right? That it’s there’s an underlying awareness of the challenges the future presents us and we tend, we tend to we tend to hide from it, we tend to think, you know, it’s so overwhelming, right? We think about global poverty, we think about future generations, we think about environmental concerns, and we think you know, can’t deal with it just going to focus on the here. And now. That’s the thing we have to get past the thought that this is something we cannot cope with. We can’t do

Ken Taylor
that was no, I’m going to say that future generations will thank us for having had you on this program someday. So thanks for joining us.

Rahul Kumar
Well, thanks for inviting me. It was fun.

Ken Taylor
Our guest has been Rahul Kumar is professor of philosophy at Queen’s University, editor of “Ethics and Future Generations.” So Josh, you got one last brief thought?

Josh Landy
Listen, I think you guys are a little too sanguine about population. I’m not saying don’t have any kids. But maybe instead of three have to, instead of eating meat seven days a week.

Ken Taylor
Three days a week. We did an episode on one child too many. That’s this one is too many. Population issue is a big issue. I do think we have to think about that. But I am not for the extinction of the species and neither am I. The conversation continues at philosophers corner at our online community of thinkers where our motto is Kota tau Ergo blog. Oh, it’s apologies to Descartes, I think, therefore, I blog and you can become a partner in that community just by visiting our website Philosophy Talk about oh, RG.

Josh Landy
And if you have a question that wasn’t addressed in today’s show, we’d love to hear from you. Send it to us at comments@philosophytalk.org, and we may feature it on our blog. Now, what do we owe to fast talking futurists? Let’s ask Ian Shoales the Sixty Second Philosopher.

Ian Shoales
Ian Shoales… One of the weird things we do is tar an entire group of people with a sticky brush, just because their birthdays clump together. It probably began with the invention of the teenager in the mid-fifties. Sure, before that we had the bobby soxer. But once Frank Sinatra got a little meat on his bones, and started singing show tunes in Vegas, we’d all go back to normal. But then the fifties came along. Teevee turned everybody into customer and product both. While the adults wolfed down tranquilizers and martinis, waiting for the bubble to burst. And the generation born in the period just after WWII, known as the Baby Boom, came to be known as the Boomers. They grew up in the biggest burst of prosperity for the biggest number of people the world has ever seen. And it came to pass the Boomers ruined everything. We LIKED being called Boomers for one thing, so we made up names for the generations to follow, Gen X, Gen Y, Millennials. And they all hate Boomers. Boomers hate Boomers! There’s so many! Even as we start to die off! Some try to hate the Millennials more, but it’s hard. Those are our kids. They can’t be worse than we are. We worked hard for our entitlement. We’d have to give back all the memoirs and rehab stints and tell alls, and who would have them? Boomers ruined everything. We made rock and roll a thing, and then paid too much attention to it, and made everybody sick of it. We made the Beatles so famous they had to quit. It was too weird. We made the records smaller and smaller until they disappeared. We made the movies smaller and smaller until they disappeared, except for blockbusters, which we invented, thus ruining movies for everybody. Except for Obama and maybe Carter, all our Boomer leaders have been sleazy. Our current leader, President Trump, wears his sleaze like a crown of thorns, which was purchased at Walmart, all thorns removed. We are supposed to admire Steve Jobs. Can’t do it. I’ve tried. Every time I watch a video on my iPhone, I lift my eyes to heaven. But I know he’s not there, and then my screen freezes and I throw the phone across the room. It’s a sucker’s game! And we are the kings and queens of suckers. The Nigerian scam was developed for fools such as we. In politics, we started with Korea, moved on to VietNam, Iraq, Afghanistan. We have won nothing. We even blew winning the Cold War. We’ve made a hot mess of things, and not only was Oliver North not tried for treason, he was made head of the National Rifle Association. Boomers turned the NRA from a gun safety organization into everybody buy guns all the time or the terrorists win kind of boys’ club. We keep cutting our own taxes, and don’t want to pay for anything, except HAMILTON tickets, or basketball playoffs. We put a new spin on self righteousness. You can’t talk to us about ANYTHING. We were the kings of smoking, and then the kings of scoldy non-smokers. We were the queens of self-indulgence until we became mommies, and then we childproofed everything in sight. We love drugs until we are drug free. We gave the world disco music. We embraced the concept of “woke.” Millennials may have killed JC Penney, but Boomers did in Woolworth’s. Downtown has never been the same. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, which is melting because we’re horrible stewards of the planet. Even discussing what we owe to generations not yet born is such a Boomer thing. God forbid we pay taxes for infrastructure. We’re taking it with us, that’s all there is to it. It’s a good thing millennials like selfie sticks. If you make them biodegradable, which you should, that’s about all there will be left to eat. That is my final advice and that’s all you’re getting from me. I didn’t get my jet pack. You live with it, youtubers. Make a podcast about it, millennials. That’s like radio, only lazy. Do that job in your pyjamas. Boomers wish they’d thought of that. Though thanks to the efforts of Ralph Lauren, we did make the polo shirt a fashion superstar. Millennials, you gave the world avocado toast and the bespoke hoodie. Take that pride to the grave. Follow our lead and give your children nothing. And we’ll see you in heaven. Which Boomers will have acquired in a leveraged buy out. So you be at the Pearly Gates with cash in hand. You snooze, my friend, you lose. Nuff said. I gotta go.

Ken Taylor
Philosophy Talk is a presentation of KALW local public radio San Francisco and the trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University copyright 2018.

Ozone news
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Ken Taylor
The Senior Producer is Devon Strolovitch. Laura Maguire is our Director of Research. Cindy Prince Baum is our Director of Marketing.

Ozone news
Thanks also to Merle Kessler, Angela Johnston and Lauren Schecter.

Ken Taylor
Support for Philosophy Talk comes from Stanford University and from the partners at our online community of thinkers.

Josh Landy
The views expressed (or mis-expressed) on this program do not necessarily represent the opinions of Stanford University or of our other funders.

Ken Taylor
Not even when they’re true and reasonable.

Josh Landy
The conversation continues on our website, philosophytalk.org, where you too can become a partner in our community of thinkers. I’m Josh Landy.

Ken Taylor
And I’m Ken Taylor. Thank you for listening.

And thank you for thinking

Al Gore
In the last six years we have been able to stop global warming. Glaciers that once were melting are now on the attack. As you know, these renegade glaciers have already captured parts of Upper Michigan and northern Maine, but I assure you we will not let the glaciers win.