Future People

ISBN-13: 9780199282203 / Angielski / Twarda / 2006 / 402 str.

Tim Mulgan

Opis

What do we owe to our descendants? How do we balance their needs against our own? Tim Mulgan develops a new theory of our obligations to future generations, based on a new rule-consequentialist account of the morality of individual reproduction. He also brings together several different contemporary philosophical discussions, including the demands of morality and international justice. His aim is to produce a coherent, intuitively plausible moral theory that is not unreasonably demanding, even when extended to cover future people. While the book focuses on developing this new account, there are also substantial discussions of alternative views, especially contract-based accounts of intergenerational justice and competing forms of consequentialism.

Recenzje

What we owe to our own children, to the children of others, to our descendants, to the descendants of others, to future distant generations in our community, and to the future distant generation of distant others is a question few moral theories fully address. This glaring oversight is finally remedied by Tim Mulgan's Future People, an in-depth analysis of our obligations to future people, and the implications this analysis has for the plausibility of moral theories. Mulgan's extremely clear style makes Future People accessible and enjoyable. This book...should be read by all who take moral interest in others (and even more so by those who don't).... Mulgan has written a timely and important book of incredibly impressive scope and interest. He argues in favor of highly reasonable reproductive rules and his intriguing book will no doubt be of great value to this neglected area of ethics.