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Re: The Big Debt and our present behaviour

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>>Remember we are not Christ like beings, that is to sacrifice our life for
>>some future benefit for others. Only a God can do that. We are only humans
>>and as moral agents we value both our present life style and try not to harm
>>as much as we know future lives.

But how much more do we value are present lifestyle than we value not harming others?  It doesn’t seem that we’re doing a whole lot of changing our lifestyles despite this possibility of massive harm to future generations.  I mean, the Bush administration perspective on global warming, for instance, seems to be that we should carry on as we are and assume that scientific advancements will appear in the future that will save the day.  And that might happen – but it is a pretty selfish perspective.  The idea is that we just carry on doing exactly what we want to do and just hope that this selfishness happens to coincide with something that will help out future generations – that doesn’t seem to be giving any weight to future generations at all.  It’s nice to hope but does that really justify our current lifestyle? – in that we could change it and have a much better chance of sorting things out, than just hoping for scientific advances to fall into our laps.

And why do we have to be a god to sacrifice ourselves for others?  Is that just saying that we are too selfish to sacrifice ourselves for others, only a less selfish thing (like a god) could do that.  Doesn’t sound like a brilliant argument to me.  If I never gave any money to charity and someone asked me if I could morally justify that, and I said ‘well, it’s just because I’m too selfish’ – sounds a bit circular, because i think it makes sense to ask ‘can you justify being so selfish?’.  You might say that we can only be morally obligated to perform actions that are causally possible for us, and that our inherent selfishness means that these kinds of sacrifices are not causally possible for us, so we are not morally obligated to perform them.  I’m not convinced by that line of argument (the second premise anyway).  I don’t think people are so selfish that it is physically impossible for them to sacrifice themselves, I think it is more that they just really value their own lives and lifestyles much more than they value morality, and so they try various excuses in an attempt to limit morality to what they are already happy to do out of selfishness. 

So, my opinion on this ecological debt debate is that our current lifestyle is just selfish, and there is no defence for it.  If we’re not going to change our lifestyles then I think we should just admit that we’re being immoral.

That was cheery. 

Nick


>>> pmaniati <pmaniati@bigpond.net.au> 08/27/05 11:47 PM >>>
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Can we justify our present behaviour?
 
It seems that many writers think that our present behaviour will inevitably
lead to the destruction of many animal species including ours. It may not
necessarily be so. I say that our present behaviour, with its scientific
advancement, modified in some ways may prolong the survival of many species,
including the human one.
 
Natural events in the past, without human participation, have destroyed many
a mighty life (think of the dinosaurs). Human scientific technology may
prevent such catastrophes in the future.
 
Our behaviour, as far as ecology is concerned, is not completely unbridled.
>From time to time we rein in extreme practices, so that we continue to
benefit from scientific advances and prolong the inevitable.
 
Remember we are not Christ like beings, that is to sacrifice our life for
some future benefit for others. Only a God can do that. We are only humans
and as moral agents we value both our present life style and try not to harm
as much as we know future lives.
 
 
Peter M.
 
 
 
 




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