Date of Submission
Fall 2020
Academic Program
Philosophy
Project Advisor 1
David Shein
Abstract/Artist's Statement
This project examines how we value future generations. From looking at different ways we value future and present wellbeing we are able to see a tension that arises from having a high value on both. When looking at examples of ways we value future wellbeing we can see that if you value future wellbeing highly it will devalue current wellbeing. Then we look for a justification for valuing one over the other. This leads us into two ways of how we justify valuing either valuation of wellbeing and a discussion of the average and the classical principles of utility. We come to the conclusion that the average principle of utility should not be used and so explore the classical principle. Through the classical principle we look at the repugnant conclusion and determine that the rare disease problem is an instantiation of this conclusion. Through a framework of how we value future wellbeing in the rare disease problem, we are able to use an appeal to innovation to resolve the repugnant conclusion and thus have a justification for valuing future wellbeing over present wellbeing.
Open Access Agreement
Open Access
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Dorf, Elias Connors, "How we value future generations" (2020). Senior Projects Fall 2020. 14.
https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_f2020/14
This work is protected by a Creative Commons license. Any use not permitted under that license is prohibited.
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