2023-09-24 09:00:06
QWhat are, in truth, our good reasons to deny the joke of Groucho Marx (1890-1977): “But why worry regarding future generations? Did they take care of us? » Well, today here is a very active project in moral philosophy, this branch of philosophy that some accuse of chatter, but which nevertheless, over the centuries, has profoundly changed our societies, allowing them to be more open and inclusive.
We might quickly answer this question: no need to philosophize, we love our children and our grandchildren and what can happen to them concerns us first and foremost. Yes, our children and grandchildren, but do we really go beyond that? It is striking to see that our societies have greatly expanded their spatial horizon, due to globalization and the incredible opening of means of communication. What happens on the Libyan coast or in Morocco these days concerns us much more than it would have done a century ago.
But this seems to come at the expense of our time horizon, which has narrowed. Our societies are in the hustle and bustle of the present moment. At the time, when construction began on a cathedral, we were planning a century and a half of work.
The search for maximum well-being
We live much longer than before, which gives us the impression of going through history on our own. We pay much less attention than before to our ascendants and our deaths. 1is November was once a major date in the calendar of the year and the cult of the dead was very much alive in societies like China, with a very keen feeling of transmission between generations. This has all subsided today.
Among an immense literature, I particularly note the work of Samuel Scheffler, Why Worry About Future Generations ? (Oxford University Press, 2018). A first current of thought on this question, says Scheffler, comes to us from utilitarian philosophers, very active in the Anglo-Saxon world and popular among economists.
The basic principle for them is the search for maximum well-being for the population. They must be recognized for having been the first to expand the circle of what we mean by “population”: all humans alive today, but also those who will live tomorrow. They are also to whom we owe the openness to broader issues such as the moral rights of animals and other living species beyond humans.
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