Advances in science have greatly increased our ability both to affect future people and to predict how our actions will affect them, thereby intensifying the moral problems these effects raise.
By Derek Parfit, from Les raisons et les personnes
Key Arguments
- Parfit claims that 'Science has given to our generation great ability both to affect these people, and to predict these effects', indicating that technological and scientific progress have expanded our causal reach.
- Because our actions can now have large-scale, foreseeable impacts on distant future people (e.g., through environmental or technological choices), the moral stakes of decisions about the future are correspondingly higher.
- The combination of high causal power and improved predictability makes questions about our duties to future generations both more tractable and more urgent.
Source Quotes
These are future people. Science has given to our generation great ability both to affect these people, and to predict these effects. Two kinds of effect raise puzzling questions.
Key Concepts
- Science has given to our generation great ability both to affect these people, and to predict these effects.
Context
Still in the opening paragraph of Section 120, as Parfit moves from defining 'future people' to emphasizing the unprecedented power and foresight our generation has regarding their lives.