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What’s wrong with human extinction?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
Abstract
This paper explores what could be wrong with the fact of human extinction. I first present four reasons why we might consider human extinction to be wrong: (1) it would prevent millions of people from being born; (2) it would mean the loss of rational life and civilization; (3) it would cause existing people to suffer pain or death; (4) it would involve various psychological traumas. I argue that looking at the question from a contractualist perspective, only reasons (3) and (4) are admissible. I then consider what implications this limitation on reasons has for the wrongfulness of various forms of human extinction.
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- Information
- Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 47 , Issue 2-3: Special issue: Ethics and Future Generations , 2017 , pp. 327 - 343
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- Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2017
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