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comment by mk
mk  ·  4270 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: We're Underestimating the Risk of Human Extinction

    Well suppose you have a moral view that counts future people as being worth as much as present people. You might say that fundamentally it doesn't matter whether someone exists at the current time or at some future time, just as many people think that from a fundamental moral point of view, it doesn't matter where somebody is spatially---somebody isn't automatically worth less because you move them to the moon or to Africa or something.

Perhaps a bit too cynical, but this might highlight our shortcoming. We don't seem to have been able to overcome the effect that spatial differences have on our moral obligations. We only seem very motivated when there are active cultural bonds.





NotPhil  ·  4270 days ago  ·  link  ·  

People in our immediate vicinity do, usually, carry more immediacy for us than people far off.