Life is risky
Let us consider a historical example. People living in Nagasaki on the 8th August 1945 were unaware they would be obliterated on the 9th. They had, thus far, been spared the saturation bombing the Americans were inflicting across Japan.
“Bombs dropped from 279 Boeing B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers burned out much of eastern Tokyo. More than 90,000 and possibly over 100,000 Japanese people were killed, mostly civilians, and one million were left homeless, making it the most destructive single air attack in human history.”1
They might have thought they were spared because Nagasaki was the only predominantly Christian city in Japan.2 They were, of course, wrong.
Being obliterated by ‘A’ bombs is dramatic but road traffic accidents are worse because they’re unpredictable.3 It’s impossible to knowingly avoid an accident. Some people in Nagasaki might have, shrewdly, left the city between the 6th and 8th August because of the bombing of Hiroshima and worries that they might be next. But you can’t predict a road traffic accident.
Global deaths in road traffic accidents are 1.8 million annually. Motorists planned journeys and died. Additionally, “Between 20 and 50 million more people suffer non-fatal injuries, with many incurring a disability.”4 These were injured people, some of whom had life changing injuries and had their lives wrecked in an accident whilst they were planning on doing something else.
Day-to-day planning
Life is risky and today could be your last day. Planning is, nonetheless, necessary for everyday living even if it’s minimal. Eating requires a view of the future.
The philosophy of mealtimes is interesting. Ingredients imply trust. Suppliers are, very unlikely to sell harmful foods and can be trusted. Obviously, trust can be betrayed, and when it happens it’s disappointing. The Tesco horsemeat scandal,5 was a betrayal because ingredients were falsely labelled. The food wasn’t lethal but customers were deceived. Some customers might have bought the product because it was horsemeat and cheaper. Other customers might have been repelled if they’d known. Using false labelling means informed choice is denied.
Assuming the ingredients are trustworthy, preparing a meal is routine, either following a recipe or repeating a previous experience. Ingredients are brought together ready for cooking (or plating up) and consumption.
Preparing meals depends on believing that previous experience is a good guide for the future. The past is replicated every time a meal is eaten and confidence is reinforced on successive occasions. That this meal is safe becomes an obscure question, which needn’t be asked or answered. (This wasn’t an assumption that Medieval princes made.)6
Future Generations: Dynasties
Nobile families want to establish and maintain dynasties. This was done legally through primogeniture.7 Estates are prevented from being cannibalised and diluted with multiple succeeding families taking a portion. Primogeniture is a crisp policy for shaping the future. The British royal family use primogeniture for monarchical succession. The only criterion to be a monarch is to belong to the royal family and be the eldest child. The British monarchy is held within a single family legally.8
Ordinary families don’t plan for twelve successive generations like the dukes of Marlborough.9 The dukes of Marlborough intend that the rewards gained from early 18th century wars continue forever in their family. The property gifted by a grateful monarch is still theirs 300 years later. The stellar qualities which led to the creation of the dukedom of Marlborough have disappeared. The current 12th duke is a convict and scallywag. He probably isn’t what the first duke had in mind when he established his dynasty.
“In a bid to safeguard the Blenheim Palace estate from the then Marquess’s [now duke] excessive behaviour, his father won a court battle in 1994 to ensure his son never won control of the family seat…”
Prince Andrew would be king if he’d been born before his brother Charles. Dynastic thinking is illogical. Dynasties are protected by the single mindedness of families who use political power and networks to protect their privileges. Dynastic thinking is ludicrous and alive and well in Britain.
Future Generations: Unknown People
The dukes of Marlborough and the British royal family plan for future generations. Should governments plan for future generations? That is, should there be policies specifically made to maintain or improve the living standards of the unborn?
The greatest future catastrophe that is claimed to be known is climate change. Whether it will be the single greatest catastrophe is unknown. Other known catastrophic events might occur which could diminish climate change to a historical footnote. An asteroid collusion springs to mind, as does a pandemic. The Covid-19 pandemic diseases caused global disruption.10
But what of climate change? There is a widely made claim that climate change is understood and strategies can be employed to mitigate its impact. Climate change activists believe there will be a dystopian future. Activists say, ‘Life will be impossible’ because of climatic change. Taken literally, this means an uninhabitable earth with humanity eliminated. And that might be the case but is it sufficient for the current population of the world to do anything about it? Why should we care?
Lurid tales of humanity being wiped out by Artificial Intelligence (AI) abound. This, it seems, might be an unintended consequence of humanity creating something more intelligent than themselves. And if humanity isn’t wiped out they will become slaves in an AI controlled world. The apex of technology, AI, could be the cusp of humanities’ collapse. What to do? A clear cost/benefit analysis is hard at work. Current benefits are in the ‘here and now’ and future generations will have to take their chance. It might be that humanity isn’t destroyed but is improved beyond our wildest dreams: Heaven. Or, humanity might be destroyed and earth becomes a humanity free zone. It’s unknowable.
The debate about future generations is predicated on them existing. Humanity might be wiped out by an asteroid collision in 2026. Resources consumed for the protection of the future generations would have been wasted. The question is: We don’t know if humanity will exist next year never mind the far distant future so why bother? Humanity could be in the same position as the people of Nagasaki on the 8th August 1945 – blissfully ignorant. If they can’t plan for their survival are we being arrogant planning for them?
Let us consider the first duke of Marlborough who died in 1722.11 What plans would he have envisaged for future generations of the Churchill family? He’s a historical alien. All his strategies were ‘Gospel’ but are obsolete. As a courtier, he firmly believed in the primacy of the monarchy, who are now a quaint relic. As a general he would find today’s battlefield odd. Soldiers are secondary to unmanned drones. The first duke has nothing interesting or useful to say in 2025.
Why do we believe that we have anything useful to say about the 22nd century?
Let us suppose there are future unborn generations. Why should I sacrificeanything for unknowable people in the future?12 Is there any benefit in spending anything on future generations? Spending on future generations is a category error. It is futile because we can’t know what challenges they are facing or what the significance of those challenges are.
Climate change activists are demanding global society act altruistically by investing resources for the benefit of future generations. They can’t know today’s sacrifices aren’t a mistake and unborn generations need more climate change. Human effects on the world are a fact but we don’t know whether they’re benign or not. We don’t know because the future is unknowable. We can only say that change means things will be different. That a change means things are different is trite but is the limit of our conceptual knowledge.
Climate change activists propose a global response to constantly rising carbon emissions, hoping to avoid a catastrophe. They prophecy that climate change is a change for the worse. Whether change will be worse is an untestable value judgement.(The counter-proposal that climate change is a change for the better is also untestable.) There’s can be no resolution between these positions as both are held without evidence. There is overwhelming belief that climate change is a change for the worse. Implicitly this is predicated on the theory that our world is ‘The best of all possible worlds’.13 And as Voltaire destroyed that thesis in his novel Candide,14 in 1759, it’s intellectually shaky.
Conclusion
Should we care about the unborn? In this case ‘care’ means formulating policies that we believe will enhance their well-being. On the basis of this discussion the answer is no we shouldn’t. This isn’t a callous disavowal but a straightforward analysis of how meaningless, or even harmful, those policies could be. The future is unknowable and formulating strategic responses is quixotic. The unfolding of climate change, AI , and whatever is the next pandemic are future events, which will have to dealt with by the generations living at that moment.
Notes
1 Bombing of Tokyo (10 March 1945) – Wikipedia
2 The two churches that survived the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
4 loc.cit.
5 Horsemeat scandal: Tesco reveals 60% content in dish – BBC News
6 Food taster – Wikipedia In medieval times the nobility often had food tasters as they didn’t believe that they could confidently eat food that was put in front of them at mealtimes
7 primogeniture meaning – Search The British royal family keep the monarchy in their hands.
8 The 17th century civil wars eventually removed the Stuart family with a messy succession in 1714.
9 James Spencer-Churchill, 12th Duke of Marlborough – Wikipedia In this way the dukedom and Blenheim estate has survived for 12 generations.
10 In comparison to the ravages of the Black Death it was mild. See Black Death – Wikipedia
11 John Churchill, 1st duke of Marlborough | English General & Military Strategist | Britannica
12 For a very subtle analysis see How much will it cost to cut global greenhouse gas emissions? – Grantham Research Institute on climate change and the environment
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