Future Generations

Under Objectivism, what are our obligations, if any, toward unborn future generations?

Jordan

Post 1

Thursday, August 7, 2008 - 3:16pm

I don't understand the question.

Each generation makes it's own considerations, despite what a past generation may have envisioned for it.

Post 2

Thursday, August 7, 2008 - 4:49pm

Presumably your question is equivalent to: What rights do future generations have? My short answer would be that rights apply only to living persons, so not-yet-living persons don't have any.

The notion that future generations have rights has interesting consequences for those who accept it.

If people who will be conceived and born some decades or centuries hence are at this time persons with natural rights (and that's what anyone means who says government ought to recognize and protect these rights whether or not it does so now), then, a fortiori, so are people already conceived and less than a year from being born. If persons (including, on this account, future persons) have any rights at all then they have the most elementary and indispensable of all rights, the right not to be killed. Since people who claim rights for future generations tend not to be abortion prohibitionists (or, as I argue, not to realize it), they have some explaining to do.

Think of what this would entail. If the yet-unconceived have a right to life, you'd have to go further than the traditional Catholic position, which is (was?) that any active interference with conception and bringing-to-term amounts to killing. You'd have to proscribe passive failure to conceive and bear children as well. Anytime you miss an opportunity to conceive and bear, you're taking life away from a member of future generations.

(Edited by Peter Reidy on 8/07, 4:51pm)

(Edited by Peter Reidy on 8/07, 5:36pm)

Post 3

Thursday, August 7, 2008 - 4:59pm

Peter: You hit the nail on the head, but Jordan isn't genuinely interested in being enlightened as to the Objectivist position.

Sam

Post 4

Thursday, August 7, 2008 - 6:11pm

Wow, Peter, you read all that into a single question??

I'm impressed.

Post 5

Thursday, August 7, 2008 - 7:12pm

Jordan,

I would say none.

However, as there is a natural predisposition towards perpetuating the species, I believe that most humans are inclined to choose promoting a favorable future for mankind. How they go about this may take many forms, depending upon what they personally feel is more important.

jt

Post 6

Thursday, August 7, 2008 - 10:52pm

I agree with Peter's take on the question - obligations need to be understood in the context of rights. My obligation may be someone's right. And that is the most important issue to be settled.

Having said that, I have another thought, one that borrows from the moral/political arena, but is really psychological. If you aren't interested in motivations, and are reading this thread for political or moral issues, this is a good point to stop reading this post.
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A person can "feel" an obligation that arises out of either love or guilt. And that sense of obligation can be projected onto the concept of a future generation.

We can "feel" an obligation towards that we deeply value.

As Objectivists, this seems a little backwards, since we prioritize values relative to their importance to us and make our own life the greatest of values. We don't owe something to our values - other than loyalty, i.e., integrity. We in essence have a contract - a natural contract, if you will - to honor our values. This creates an obligation to ourselves.

There are mechanisms by which this feeling of an obligation to ourselves can become transferred to a future generation. This is the point at which we leave the realm of ethics and becomes purely psychological.

There is a strong tendency to want your most important values to continue and do well through time. As an example, someone might support a private charity that protects wild horses, or protects places of natural beauty. As long as this isn't done with coercion, i.e., tax dollars, and it doesn't involve personal sacrifice, it is moral and to the degree that a person values and cares about, say, wild horses, they will feel something akin to an obligation to preserve that value - but it isn't an obligation in the normal sense, but rather a form of integrity.

To the degree that we are optimistic about a distant future, we might project onto to a future generation the joy of experiencing this value - a joy that we feel. We can concretize and experience our support of that value by imagining, off in a distant future, another generation enjoying this value as we do. And I see nothing wrong with this, to the degree it is kept proportional - that it is enjoying the imagined consequences of the support we give to a value, where it entails no sacrifice. It is a psychological relative of art.

And in this round about way we end up with what feels like an obligation (born of love) to a future generation. But in fact it is an obligation to our self - an instance of integrity - that is just visualized or editorialized as a future generation.
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Then there is "feeling" an obligation that is better labeled "guilt."

When someone feels guilt, rationally or irrationally, there is a drive to defend against this unpleasant feeling. Sometimes that guilt isn't anchored to a specific act or habit - it can be free-floating. One defense against a free-floating guilt is akin to repentance - to paying a price. If a person isn't religious, it is tougher for the subconscious to come up with who this price is to be paid to and how.

I often see Liberals as having a free-floating sense of guilty burden - that they feel like they owe someone something, but don't know who. They are happy to link up with the silly notion of an unborn generation being at the other end of an imagined contract so they can feel like they are paying their way (of course their payment will as likely be as phony as is the contract they imagined).

They are projecting a personal guilt from some failed obligation to self onto a future generation. Then by crusading for the protection of some value for that future generation, they are in effect taking a free-floating sense of guilt and attempting to politically and morally launder it, like dirty money, to feel good about themselves. They attempt convert a personal, negative into a public positive. The real sense of 'guilt' is still there, but the feeling of righteousness that accompanies a crusade tries to mask it or offset it.
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Emotions attempt to impel our actions, yet we need to act or not based upon reason rather than emotion. Understanding an emotion makes it easier to choose whether or not to act, and when we act it can be with greater force. And when reason says not to act on an emotion, it is easier to resist when that emotion is understood. Introspection and understanding the principles of psychology are forms of integration.

Post 7

Thursday, August 7, 2008 - 11:52pm

Delayed Harms

There is a negative requirement that one do no actual harm. For instance, one cannot deliberately create defective human embryos and allow them to develop into deformed suffering people. One cannot intentionally bring upon a future disaster, such as building a dam one knows will fail. But these are very limited and concrete and negative obligations. If you built a defective dam 30 years ago, put a leaky barrel in the reservoir 30 years ago, or put a government cap on oil exploration 30 years ago, and the harm is real now, then you are just as responsible for the real damages you have caused now as would be someone who is advocating building a faulty dam now or not removing such a cap now. Future delayed harms and past delayed harms are harms.

The Republicans should be screaming daily that the anti-energy Democrats don't care about the children. The Democrat argument that benifits will only occur in the future means that they want our children to suffer.

Of course, this is rhetoric more than an agenda. There is no positive obligation to the future, no sin of omission, just of commission.

Post 8

Friday, August 8, 2008 - 3:49am

Interesting observations, Steve.....
Quite correct, Peter.... well said..

(Edited by robert malcom on 8/08, 3:51am)

Post 9

Friday, August 8, 2008 - 6:18am

Steve,

Great comments.

Would you also ascribe any natural instinct to the process? All living things are instinctively driven towards propagation, and the success of their progeny. While humans are not bound by instinct, I expect this predisposition manifests itself as a value, along the lines you've stated. This may be expressed by having or adopting children to carry on the values of the parent, attempting to create an enduring work, or supporting an ideal - e.g. preserving wild horses.

jt

Post 10

Friday, August 8, 2008 - 7:32am

Jay,

I'm not a fan of instincts as an explanation for human behavior.

Post 11

Friday, August 8, 2008 - 11:31am

Peter & Steve,

I have a right to cheat on my girlfriend, a right to call strangers names in the street, a right to cut people off on the highway. But I am *obligated* not to do those crappy things -- because obligations are primarily a matter of *ethics*, and not the derivative matter of rights.

I think Objectivism makes its stance clear that only presently living human beings have rights, as Peter basically spelled out. (Incidentally, some here might find it interesting and bizarre that various fields of law -- including wills, trusts, real property and estate law -- presently disagree an acknowledge rights for non-existent future generations. Could be worth a mini-lecture if you guys are interested.)

I appreciate your insight, Ted. Delayed harm. Nice. There're some fascinating tort law theories which incorporate that concept.

Jordan

Post 12

Friday, August 8, 2008 - 12:20pm

Steve,

urQ "I'm not a fan of instincts as an explanation for human behavior. "

Do you rule it out entirely, or feel it is just a minor factor?

jt
(Edited by Jay Abbott on 8/08, 12:25pm)

Post 13

Friday, August 8, 2008 - 1:13pm

What is described as instinct in other animals, such as fixed action patterns like wasp hunting behavior or nest building, is, for the most part, absent in humans. The most you can say for humans is that we have inborn motor patterns for such things as suckling and crying - not hugely cognitive - and that we have a pleasure/pain impulse form certain sensations such as taste and touch. Humans don't have to decide that sugar tastes sweet and that sweetness is pleasurable. But given these most basic reflexes and incentives, humans learn complex ways to pursue ever more long-term values. Sex, for instance, is not instinctual. We find certain sensations pleasurable - touch, sight and smell, and learn that others who smell good are pleasurable to rub against. Children will learn this much younger only if shown. Adult sexual behavior is learned, but founded upon a base of inborn stimuli.

Post 14

Friday, August 8, 2008 - 9:27pm

Jordan,

You said, "I have a right to cheat on my girlfriend, a right to call strangers names in the street, a right to cut people off on the highway. But I am *obligated* not to do those crappy things -- because obligations are primarily a matter of *ethics*, and not the derivative matter of rights."

I see three different ways the word "right" can be used - validly - in the context of our current discussion. Natural rights (which are also called ethical rights or individual rights) arise out of our being human beings - they may or may not be recognized by the law in a given jurisdiction. Another category of rights are legal rights, which are defined by law or granted by contract.

For example I have no natural right to take your property, like moving into your house, but we both have the natural right to enter into a lease agreement whereby I could then have the legal right to live in your house and you would have acquired a legal right to payment.

Another way the word "right" can be used is not a type of right - strictly speaking - but more of a statement of rightness or wrongness. It can apply to any action or condition, and it tends to be used as an adjective - whereas natural rights and legal rights are nouns. This is the "right" of virtue and of stating that things are as they ought to be. For example, "It is right that our natural right to the product of our efforts be given the recognition of legal rights to our property."

I mention it here because it too relates to "obligations." It is "right" for me to refrain from calling strangers names in the street even if I have a both the natural and legal rights to do so. That is, I can rationally show that civility is a value and that value should be honored and I can show that it is irrational to engage in name calling that needlessly puts my physical well-being at risk.

If there is a value involved in not cheating on the girl friend, not calling strangers names, not cutting people off in traffic, etc. Then an obligation arises - BUT, it is an obligation to myself (and maybe to the girlfriend, if we have an agreement to be exclusive). It is the issue of integrity. I have no obligation to the stranger not to call him names - it is an obligation to myself to the degree that I value civility.

Actually there might be an obligation not cut people off in traffic if so doing might cause them to have an accident - that is my obligation not initiate force. An obligation that arises from a natural right. That obligation would be to those people in the other car.
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I see ethics as that field of knowledge that explains both individual rights and the rational egoist principles that define integrity and the other virtues.
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You said, "I think Objectivism makes its stance clear that only presently living human beings have rights, as Peter basically spelled out." You are talking about natural rights in this context and I agree. Only human beings have natural rights.

My post talked about a "feeling" of obligation to future generations, and I spelled out that it was psychology and that I was not talking about the obligation that is reciprocal to a right.
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You say, "...various fields of law -- including wills, trusts, real property and estate law -- presently disagree an acknowledge rights for non-existent future generations."

In this context the word "rights" is apparently "legal rights" - not natural rights - and I can understand having legal rights for a currently non-existent, future person or persons - not a whole generation. The reasoning would be that I can leave my grandson or granddaughter, should my children have children, some money in my will. It would stipulate that the money be held in trust until such time as the grandchild is old enough to enter college but that if my children have not produced offspring by such and such a date that the money will instead go to a specified charity.

Post 15

Friday, August 8, 2008 - 9:32pm

Jay,

If you search this forum I think you can find threads or articles dealing with the differences between instincts, needs, reflexes, and learned behaviors. Humans have genetically determined needs or drives and with reflexes, but none of these come with any knowledge of how to satisfy them. That pretty much makes "instinct" a non-starter for explaining human behavior.

Post 16

Saturday, August 9, 2008 - 4:34am

Steve,

I can completely agree with your statement "Humans have genetically determined needs or drives and with reflexes, but none of these come with any knowledge of how to satisfy them". However, I do not see how you get from there to your statement "That pretty much makes "instinct" a non-starter for explaining human behavior", unless by non-starter you mean it is a relatively minor factor.

Ted's comments - looking at the physical aspects that may give rise to what are often described as instinctual behaviors - is also a smart, balanced approach to the subject. He says "Sex, for instance, is not instinctual", which I feel is accurate. Instead, the pleasure response to sexual stimulation is built into our nature, thereby promoting or "pushing us" towards propagation.

This still, of course, doesn't adequately explain all of the permutations of action we see, which are often described as preservation of the species.

I think there is a demonstrable human drive to leave something of permanence behind (make a mark), whether it be children or great works. Explanation for this may come out of psychological analysis, but I would not be surprised to see if they result, in part, by an internal psychological 're-wiring' of what we might otherwise describe as instincts.

I will take a look for earlier posts.

jt
(Edited by Jay Abbott on 8/09, 4:37am)

Post 17

Saturday, August 9, 2008 - 9:52am

Steve,

"Rights" is quite the spongy term, no doubt. I think I see your answer, anyway, but just in case, to omit the term "obligation," I would happily reword my question as such: Is there anything we should do or not do on account of unborn future generations?

Jordan

Post 18

Saturday, August 9, 2008 - 11:36am

Jordan,

The short answer is "No." I agreed with Peter in Post #2.

If someone does not yet exist, neither do their natural rights, and because of that we have no obligations to them of that kind.

When you change the sentence to "should we do or not do on account of future generations." It becomes a little bit different. I still have no obligation to do anything for people who don't yet exist, and that I might never even know, much less value.

But if I can make a small change that would make a big difference in something - like a charity where I'm donating a small amount - I'm free to do that, and it is only a minor obligation, and only an obligation to me - not future generation, and only to the degree that I subscribe to the value being supported (so that it isn't sacrificial).

Let's say I'm in my 70's or 80's and I donate some money I'll never use to an organization that will promote free market economics education for high school students who are going on to become teachers. That will not bear fruit till after I'm gone - so in a sense I am helping future generations.

Mostly, I think that the "future generations" arguments are put forth for emotional reasons - to sway people into going along with irrational sacrifices, out of guilt.

And, although a few of the things they allege we should do for future generations are things we ought to for ourselves out of self-interest, I suspect that most of them are things that aren't in our self-interest.

Can you think of anything that we "should do or not do on account of future generations"?

Post 19

Saturday, August 9, 2008 - 12:30pm