The Preservation of Humankind as an Object of Moral Concern

Abstract

Within a globalizing world, human procreation can no longer be seen as merely naturally given. Is the preservation of humankind itself a moral duty? With Kant I will argue that this is so. But what kind of obligations toward not yet existing persons may be derived from this duty? Our moral relationship with people alive at the other side of the world can be based on given interests or rights, our obligations toward the far future cannot. Hans Jonas criticised this kind of moral thinking because of its anthropocentrism and argued that its focus on contemporaries would neglect the responsibility for a sustainable world. I will refute this criticism and defend the moral view as necessarily anthropocentric. A deontological conception of justice has particular moral implications for preceding generations toward the hypothetical interests of the later ones. Predecessors have to constrain their pleasures in favour of the well-being of those who will be born later, just as the rights of their contemporaries imply constraints on their activities. In this regard, I will join Rawls’s concept of justice, which will result in a rather reserved form of environmental ethics. A free-standing political conception, based on liberal principles and including democratic values, should be defended against the tendency to legitimate repressive environmental politics by means of the rhetoric of fear and urgency.