RE: Moral Obligations toward Possible Worlds
May 19, 2021 at 7:18 am
(This post was last modified: May 19, 2021 at 7:27 am by The Grand Nudger.)
We drift and wander, but there's a good springboard there for the discussion about abortion and environmental action. A direct answer to the question of how and why a person can think we have moral obligations towards possible worlds that includes one but not the other.
Environmental action is the retained goal in an agglomerative value theory. Where we get the good (or bad) by adding up the good for all the people involved.
If we consider all of the people involved in abortion - banning abortions is bad. It harms more people than it helps. Environmental action, not so much. Approached from the other end, abortion could only be an agglomerative bad in the sample size of two people, maybe extend it out to family if your heart bleeds. Environmental inaction, otoh, is an agglomerative bad for the sample size of all people regardless of whether our heart bleeds enough to include them, even in the event that they fail to include themselves.
If I have a moral obligation towards possible (and in this case future) worlds - then I have an obligation to consider the broadest sampled import and an obligation to pursue goals or actions which would or at least could accomplish those/their stated goals. Anti abortion activism fails in both cases where environmental activism succeeds.
Environmental action is the retained goal in an agglomerative value theory. Where we get the good (or bad) by adding up the good for all the people involved.
If we consider all of the people involved in abortion - banning abortions is bad. It harms more people than it helps. Environmental action, not so much. Approached from the other end, abortion could only be an agglomerative bad in the sample size of two people, maybe extend it out to family if your heart bleeds. Environmental inaction, otoh, is an agglomerative bad for the sample size of all people regardless of whether our heart bleeds enough to include them, even in the event that they fail to include themselves.
If I have a moral obligation towards possible (and in this case future) worlds - then I have an obligation to consider the broadest sampled import and an obligation to pursue goals or actions which would or at least could accomplish those/their stated goals. Anti abortion activism fails in both cases where environmental activism succeeds.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
