The Value and Meaning of Life [First ed.] 9781000199932, 1000199932

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1 Sanctity
Life
Sanctity
Equal worth
Religion
Quality
Summary
Notes
Chapter 2 Terms
Goodness
Life
Summary
Notes
Chapter 3 Value
Words
Things
Kinds
Sanctity and intrinsic value
Value and goodness
Summary
Notes
Chapter 4 Lives
Improving
Saving
Competing claims
Summary
Notes
Chapter 5 The Asymmetry
The Asymmetry
Some distinctions
Other views
Other asymmetries
Against the Asymmetry
Chappell
Explaining the Asymmetry
Summary
Notes
Chapter 6 Choosing
Choices and principles
Choosing and starting
Beneficence
Summary
Notes
Chapter 7 Anti-natalism
A weaker case
Interim
A stronger case
Summary
Notes
Chapter 8 Meaning
Preliminaries
Wolf – Local meaning
Nagel – Global meaning
A middle way
God
Does meaning matter?
Summary
Notes
Chapter 9 Immortality
Preliminaries
Approximations
The immortality problem
Solutions
Summary
Notes
Chapter 10 Extinction
Species
Extinction
Our extinction
The goodness of extinction
Summary
Notes
Appendix 1: Dworkin and reconciliation
Notes
Appendix 2: The experience machine
Notes
Appendix 3: How bad is death?
Notes
Appendix 4: Values and reasons
Notes
Appendix 5: XR/CV
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

The Value and Meaning of Life

In this book Christopher Belshaw draws on earlier work concerning death, identity, animals, immortality, and extinction, and builds a large-scale argument dealing with questions of both value and meaning. Rejecting suggestions that life is sacred or intrinsically valuable, he argues instead that its value varies, and varies considerably, both within and between different kinds of things. So in some cases we might have reason to improve or save a life, while in others that reason will be lacking. What about starting lives? The book’s central section takes this as its focus, and asks whether we ever have reason to start lives, just for the sake of the one whose life it is. Not only is it denied that there is any such reason, but some sympathy is afforded to the anti-natalist contention that there is always reason against. The fnal chapters deal with meaning. There is support here for the sober and familiar view that meaning derives from an enthusiasm for, and some success with, the pursuit of worthwhile projects. Now suppose we are immortal. Or suppose, in contrast, that we face imminent extinction. Would either of these threaten meaning? The claim is made that the force of such threats is often exaggerated. The Value and Meaning of Life is essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy, ethics, and religion, and will be of interest to all those concerned with how to live, and how to think about the lives of others. Christopher Belshaw teaches philosophy at the University of York. He has earlier taught at the Open University, UC Santa Barbara, and Lancaster University. His previous books include Environmental Philosophy, 10 Good Questions about Life and Death, and Annihilation. He has some ideas for a further book.

The Value and Meaning of Life

Christopher Belshaw

First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 Christopher Belshaw The right of Christopher Belshaw to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Belshaw, Christopher, author. Title: The value and meaning of life/Christopher Belshaw. Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020019726 (print) | LCCN 2020019727 (ebook) | ISBN 9781138908772 (hardback) | ISBN 9781138908789 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003097020 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Life. Classification: LCC BD431 .B3875 2020 (print) | LCC BD431 (ebook) | DDC 128–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020019726LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020019727 ISBN: 978-1-138-90877-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-90878-9 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-09702-0 (ebk) Typeset in Goundy by Deanta Global Publisher Services, Chennai, India

Contents

Introduction 1 Sanctity

1 8

2 Terms

26

3 Value

55

4 Lives

74

5 The Asymmetry

99

6 Choosing

121

7 Anti-natalism

141

8 Meaning

160

9 Immortality

182

10 Extinction Appendix 1: Dworkin and reconciliation Appendix 2: The experience machine Appendix 3: How bad is death? Appendix 4: Values and reasons Appendix 5: XR/CV Bibliography Index

207 231 234 236 239 243 249 255

Introduction

This book is about the value and meaning of life. Its focus is on several questions of current and widespread concern, and its aim is to provide answers to at least most of those questions which, as I hope, many will fnd compelling. So we can ask – is life valuable? Or better – which lives, if any, are valuable, and to what extent? What does their being valuable consist in? What sort, or sorts, of value do they have? How, if at all, does this value enjoin us to, or constrain us from, acting in relation to those lives? And then similarly – is life meaningful? But, again, there are better questions to be asked. Can lives have meaning? What sorts of lives? And what sorts of meaning can they have? How is this meaning arrived at? How might it be lost? The two sets of questions are, of course, not altogether distinct. And we can ask both whether a valuable life is, or is likely to be, a meaningful life; and also – different question – whether meaning is itself among the things that we should value. How is the argument going to be made? The method will be familiar. I start off with ordinary or everyday beliefs on a range of issues, giving priority to those that appear to be fairly frmly and fairly widely held. Inevitably, there are tensions within and between these beliefs. So then there is need for reasonable and reasoned adjustments, a better ft, and the development of a coherent and compelling whole. Thus intuitions as both the building blocks and anchors of theory with, at the end, what is often called refective equilibrium. But what gets to count as ordinary or everyday? Often, I talk about what people, or many people, or even on occasion what most people think or believe. But I mean to refer, by such claims, just to people around here and around now. Or, to people who might read this book. Or, indeed, other books mentioned in the bibliography. This is what the book does, or aims at. And there are, of course, many other things it doesn’t do, or aim at doing. Two of these might usefully be mentioned here. First, it doesn’t try to explore, or even take note of, all that has been said on these topics. Vast amounts have been said, and any modest book could only scratch the surface. I scratch in particular ways, focusing more on problems than on people (though of course several people, or at least their writings, are discussed at some length) and attempting to push a particular line, rather than broadly surveying the feld (though of course I consider various objections, lifted from the feld, to that line). Second, it doesn’t offer answers to, or even detailed

2

Introduction

discussions of, many of the important questions in ethics. Consider, for example, disability. Suppose a disabled child would have an overall good life. I argue that, unless we consider side effects, there are reasons neither for nor against bringing this child into existence. The child itself, we might say, is value neutral. But reasons elsewhere need to be taken into account. There might be reasons against – it will be very demanding, both in terms of money and time, to give this child a good life. And there might be reasons for – we don’t want to signal, as a society, our opposition to disability. Should we go ahead and have this child? Answers to ethical questions require us to form all things considered judgements as to what is right or wrong. My concern with value is restricted to identifying some of the main factors that bear on these ethical questions. I make very little attempt to say precisely how we should weigh these different factors. I’ve intended throughout for the book to have an overall clear structure, and to proceed pretty much systematically from beginning, through the middle, to its end. But, as writers are often more confdent about having achieved success in such matters than their readers might attest, I offer here a chapter by chapter guide as to how the book unfolds. It begins with questions and claims that are linked often to religion. Is life sacred? Many say it is, but it’s often far from clear, in saying this, just what they mean. I aim, in the opening chapter, to offer suggestions. And I focus on two key ideas – that human life has in all cases some special value, and that killing is always wrong. Yet the frst of these isn’t easy to understand, while the second is diffcult to defend. Moreover, there are problems in seeing how these pieces ft together. Claims about life’s sanctity get their best support from religious views, but then these, in turn, can be hard to sustain. A stronger position, I argue, derives from thinking of life’s value as varying with circumstances and between individuals, rather than fxed, and equal. We can call this the quality view. Can views about sanctity and quality, about fxed and shifting values, somehow be stitched together? It has been insisted that they can. And the notion of intrinsic value has been said to do important work here. There’s a good deal, in all this, needing to be explored. Some of it is done here, while the bulk spills over into the following two chapters. My frst concern, in Chapter 2, is to consider how we should use several altogether familiar value-related terms – good and bad, better and worse, beneft and harm – and then to argue that proper usage here brings with it no frm implications for value itself. For something might be good, better than some other thing, might be easily and signifcantly benefted, even while there is no reason whatsoever to care about this thing, or its fortunes. We shouldn’t think, then, that good things always matter, or are always valuable. Similarly for concerns arising later in the chapter. We often have no reason to take an interest in a thing’s interests, or in its level of well-being. And then I consider something a little less familiar – the notion of moral status. Things having moral status do, I agree, matter. But we shouldn’t assume they matter through and through. So I might damage, or harm, or even destroy a thing that has this status while yet doing nothing I have any reason not to do.

Introduction

3

This second chapter is in many respects spadework for the third, where I offer a sustained discussion of value. After some preliminary comment on the way we talk about value – and an important suggestion here is to link a thing’s being valuable with our having reasons to care about it – I advise against any ready acceptance of either the subjective/objective or the intrinsic/instrumental distinctions. This then allows for the exploration of personal value and – related – an insistence on the distinction between things valued for themselves, and those valuable in themselves. And then there is room made, in turn, for a rejection of intrinsic value. This – best construed, I claim, in Moorean terms – is something we can do without. And we can do without, also, Dworkin’s hopes for non-incremental intrinsic value. Suppose a painting is intrinsically valuable. Then, I say, the more of such paintings in existence, the better. Reject that, as I argue we should, and we’ll reject the value story behind it. But we might recall now a key claim of the previous chapter. Something might be good even while it has no value. So then, in a parallel fashion, a thing might be intrinsically good, while not being intrinsically valuable. And a further point here – we might, while rejecting intrinsic value, hold out a place for intrinsic disvalue. The next chapter takes this further. What do we want to know, where life’s value is concerned? We want to know which lives, if any, we have reason to improve, which to save, which to start. And the focus is very much on valuing lives, and engagement with lives, for their own sake, rather than for the sake of others. I say relatively little about improvement. The main point here, and one that has various implications in the arguments to follow, is to distinguish pleasures from pains, and to suggest an emphasis on the latter. Both matter but – though I refne this somewhat – pains matter more. The bulk of the chapter is concerned with saving lives, and hence with the badness of death. It follows from what has already gone, and the rejection of intrinsic value, that we won’t think death is always bad, or that all lives should be saved. But we can reject as well (though in an appendix I offer some reservations about this) the Epicurean contention that it is never bad. The sensible view, and one that most people want to hold, is that as value varies from case to case, so too does the extent to which death is bad for the one who dies. So far, so good, but now I reject the popular Deprivation Account and put in its place what I call the Desire Account of death’s badness. And I argue that death is bad only for persons, and so isn’t bad for animals, human fetuses, or babies. Various qualifcations are needed, but even with these in place, several of the claims here are, as I acknowledge, both controversial and challenging. Chapters 5–7 are about starting lives. The Asymmetry has it, as does widespread intuition, that starting bad lives is forbidden, while starting good lives is permitted, but not required. But this is generally reckoned hard to explain. I consider and reject some arguments against the Asymmetry – those offered by Chappell, Broome, and, though what he has to say is complex and elusive, Parft. And I offer a different explanation of why it should be that there is reason to save lives, but no reason to start them. The argument here draws on that of the previous chapter. The lives that matter, I say, are those of persons. These are the

4

Introduction

only ones we have reason to save. And, because personhood develops over time, these are not ones that we are ever able to start. This puts a different slant on the Asymmetry. Almost everyone thinks that even supposing there is no reason to start a new life, if there’s going to be such a life, we should make it as good as we can. And if there’s a choice between lives we should opt for the best of those available. I reject this. There is, I argue, no reason, discounting side effects, for setting aside good lives in favour of those that are very good. I consider, and make objections to, much of what Parft has to say on these matters, including his illustrative cases, his discussion and development of relevant principles and, sitting behind all this, the so-called Non-Identity Problem. And I make links with the previous chapter, explaining in some detail how, if we accept the Asymmetry, we should accept also my conclusions here. Only through fudging on the Asymmetry, I argue, can Parft resist this. Starting new lives, I’ve said, is not required. But is it really permitted? Benatar, notoriously, says no. I explain what is wrong with his argument. But then I develop and defend a different version of anti-natalism, and one that doesn’t suggest that our lives are not worth living, and doesn’t appear to urge mass suicide. In brief, we shouldn’t bring into existence non-persons able to feel pleasures and pains. For, absenting the psychological integration afforded by personhood, pleasures, I argue, can’t compensate for, even if they can outweigh, pains. And so we shouldn’t bring into existence either animals or babies. But once babies develop into persons, there emerge reasons to sustain life and avoid death. The whole argument thus far aims to ft together. We should reject key ideas in the sanctity view, and with it the notion of intrinsic value. But a place remains, I’ve said, for intrinsic disvalue. So then we can maintain that pain is intrinsically bad even while pleasure is not intrinsically good. But it is still good, and in a way that matters. Consider, then, the question famously posed by Jan Narveson – should we make people happy, or should we make happy people? The focus here, I say, ought to be with the living. But non-existent people don’t sit altogether outside of our concern; we shouldn’t make unhappy people. Buy into all this and we can resist any temptation to suppose there are, absenting side effects, reasons either to add to good lives, or to favour the better lives, when a decision to add has been made. Personhood has also been important throughout. Animals and babies certainly matter, and matter where both pleasures and pains are concerned. But given their negligible concerns for the future – given the absence of relevant desires – there aren’t reasons, I’ve argued, to save them from a painless death. Keep this in mind, think through what it implies, and we can reveal more sympathy for Benatar’s anti-natalism than would otherwise be the case. The remaining chapters also ft closely together. All are concerned with life’s meaning. But, of course, much pertaining to value resurfaces here. A key concern in Chapter 8 is to distinguish between meaning at the local and at the global level. This has me follow, respectively, the discussions in Wolf and Nagel. I broadly agree with Wolf, and say so. But I take issue with Nagel, arguing that his claim about life’s being absurd is less interesting than it frst appears, and is

Introduction

5

not only distinct from the claim that it is meaningless, but uses ‘absurd’ just in a technical sense. I’ve said nothing about religion since Chapter 1 but here discuss how religion might make a difference to meaning. Wolf says virtually nothing about this while Nagel’s treatment is cavalier. Cottingham, in contrast, perhaps says too much. Still, religion, I say, is likely to make some difference. Yet how important is all this? In later sections I suggest the importance of our lives having meaning might be overrated. Meaning, rather than boredom is, I observe, Williams’ central concern in his well-known essay on immortality. But will the immortal life be meaningless? What Williams misses, I argue, is the importance of memory. And inevitable failings here will soften the deleterious effects of repetition. It won’t seem to us that we are seeing Hamlet for the hundredth time, even when we are. Something similar can be said against Scheffer’s contention that immortality’s providing relief from the pressures of time will similarly impact on meaning. For the future will seem to us to be limited, even if it is not, insofar as we have restricted powers of anticipation. So then what I call the moving envelope model of our grip on time offers, I claim, considerably more hope both for the immortal life, and also for the very long life, than is often allowed. The fnal chapter begins with a discussion of extinction generally. So animals resurface here. I argue that it is not bad for the rhino, or indeed for rhinos, if the rhino goes extinct. Of course, this might nevertheless be bad in many other ways. Is it the same with people? I consider both the general claim that our extinction would be a very bad thing, and not because of effects elsewhere; and the more particular contention that extinction soon would be very bad for people now. I’ve reservations about both these claims. But suppose we do care about human extinction. I ask whether it is the ending of human life, or of human culture, that we will most regret. And then I ask the further, and different question of whether our extinction might be good, and neither because of effects elsewhere, nor because individual lives are no longer worth living. Some reasons are offered for thinking it might indeed be best if we simply die out, and fade away. Millions of people care, and care a good deal, about the questions addressed here. People ask, think, and worry about our relation to the environment, to animals, to the planet’s future. They care most (and it might be said, too much) about people, and about how we can fashion a good life for ourselves and our successors in a world of limited resources. They ask about the allocation of these resources; how they should be divided between rich and poor, young and old, and – most important – between present and future people. So then concerns over population size, population growth, whether and how this should be managed, are no longer the province of academics alone but near (although it might be said, still not near enough) to the forefront of everyday thinking. There are concerns too about what, and how much, will need to be done to build for ourselves a sustainable future. Technological developments excite some, but worry others. Similarly for the spread of globalization, mass bureaucracies, the changing shape of politics. And a fear for many is that, collectively, we are building a world that

6

Introduction

is leaving us, as individuals, powerless and alienated, able to pursue pleasure but cut off, perhaps, from both genuine happiness and meaning. My hope is that some within these millions will, along with both students and teachers of philosophy, and also others in the universities, want to read this book. That hope has impacted on its design. So it aims to sustain a certain momentum. As well as knowing where they are, and where they’ve been, readers will, I hope, want to keep reading. Material that might detract from this – digressions, technicalities, comment on secondary sources – has in considerable part been confned to endnotes which, in consequence, are not few in number. Further material that could impede the fow fnds its way into appendices. And I’ve wanted to avoid unnecessary repetition. Many of the topics here have already been much discussed, both in book and journal form, and many of the relevant terms, concepts, and distinctions have been explored and explained in various of those discussions. These topics, these terms, could easily have emerged in several places through the text. I’ve tried to avoid that, restricting each of them to a best location. My hope is that the judgements here have been sound. There are, I say, few technicalities, but I might note here some important -isms. First, I am overall well-disposed to hedonism. It seems obvious that pleasures and pains matter, though of course less obvious that they alone matter. Still, I make some effort to promote this view, although focusing on a whole array of mental states, rather than just pleasures and pains narrowly construed. Given the view, several of my suspect claims will, I think, fall into place. There is an inclination, too, towards some version of anthropocentrism. This needn’t, however, lead us always to choose people over penguins or, more generally, to see the non-human world in purely instrumentalist terms. Rather, it is to recognize that we alone have the ability to think about the important questions here, and then to do, if not our best, at least something halfway decent for ourselves and others. It is, as well, to insist that much – though certainly not all – of what we think matters does so only because it matters to us. And the importance of the human links, for me, with the importance – something I often stress – of the aesthetic. Third, there is in two respects a leaning to what I might call naturalism. So in the frst place a sort of naturalism about language. And with this goes an undercurrent of scepticism about some prevalent philosophical procedures. Rather than thinking we should use our training and expertise to fnd out just what (say) value, or harm, or meaning, or status really is, my inclination is to explore and make note of the ways in which people talk about such things, and try to proceed from there. Anthropology, rather than metaphysics, then. An upshot here is my acceptance that yes/no answers to seemingly well-formed questions will often not be forthcoming. Second, there are reservations about the role of reason. It is certainly worth discovering what reason demands, allows, prohibits. But I don’t assume we should aim to obey reason’s dictates through and through. There is our human nature to take into account. It might be irrational to care about the rhinoceros even while caring reveals something good about us. And even if there

Introduction

7

aren’t good reasons to keep our species in existence it might be both expected, and welcomed, that we will. Various people have read and commented on parts, often substantial parts, of the book. They include, in no particular order, Chris Jay, Stephen Holland, Gary Kemp, John Benson, Josh Milburn, MaryAnn Robertson, Andrew Ward, Michael Hauskeller, Peter Wright, Jesse Tomalty, Richard Cookson, John Fischer, Mary Leng, and Christian Piller. Talks relating to its arguments have been given at various universities, including Sussex, Oxford, York, the Open, Surrey, Lisbon, Syracuse, Liverpool, St. Andrews, Johannesburg, Riverside, and Utrecht. I say the topics here are of broad concern. And so I’ve given talks also to more general audiences, including the London Week of the Dead, The Wellcome Institute, Wellington College, and The Gibraltar Philosophical Society. Many thanks, in all these cases, to the organizers and contributors involved. Thanks also to Steven Gerrard, for great patience.

1

Sanctity

Many people say that life is sacred. We can ask, what is it that these people are saying when they say this? And, is what they say true? But this oversimplifes matters. The key terms here are susceptible to a variety of meanings and interpretations. So what people are wanting to say when they make such a claim will vary from case to case. So too, perhaps, will the truth of what they are saying. We can ask frst, then, how ‘life’ might be understood when it is said that life is sacred. And then we can, in the same way, ask about the meanings of ‘sacred’. Begin, however, with a preliminary question. Is this talk of sanctity, as both etymology and many texts suggest, essentially religious? Or might we have, as a number of people seem to believe, a robustly secular account? I’ll argue that the most plausible and consistent of the familiar versions have religion pretty much at their core. But these virtues are only conditional – plausible and consistent given God. So those disinclined to the religious view will fnd sanctity talk harder to embrace.

Life Some discussions of the sanctity of life might appear to be from the outset confused. Consider this: A man is really ethical only when he obeys the constraint laid on him to help all life which he is able to succour, and when he goes out of his way to avoid injuring anything living. He does not ask how far this or that life deserves sympathy as valuable in itself, nor how far it is capable of feeling. To him life as such is sacred. He shatters no ice crystal that sparkles in the sun, tears no leaf from its tree, breaks off no fower, and is careful not to crush any insect as he walks.1 But ice crystals aren’t alive. Schweitzer here runs together a concern for living things with an attention to nature more generally. This isn’t a stupid mistake, for, as I’ll explain in more detail later, there are evident connections between the two spheres, but it is a mistake nevertheless. Perhaps others, in holding that further non-living things – certain places, rituals, crosses, fags – can be sacred are not

Sanctity

9

making this mistake, but intentionally widening the feld. This is arguably wellmotivated; these things, in contrast to nature more generally, are directly linked with human life and human practices – the place is sacred as miracles occurred here; the cross because Jesus was nailed to it; the fag symbolizes the history, struggle, destiny or what have you of the American people. So then these things are, we might say, sacred through association. A more intimate connection is that between human life and human remains, which are also, of course, often viewed as sacred. As I write this there is widespread outrage about the inappropriate disposal of body parts. Concerns here are in some measure about health risks, but mostly centre on a failure properly to respect the residues of those who once were living.2 If we focus, as plausibly we should, just on life, or living things, then the broadest interpretation holds that animals, plants, and microbes are all sacred, and are, if Schweitzer is right here, all to be helped, and not harmed, where possible. But restrictions might be in place – it can be held that sanctity attaches just to sentient life, so that perhaps we should help, and not harm, only those who might as a result feel, or cease to feel, pleasure or pain.3 Another restriction is familiar – it is just human life, and in all its conditions and forms, that is sacred, and thus to be sharply distinguished from other lives. Is there yet a further restriction to consider? Many of those who appear most exercised about the sanctity of human life often seem untroubled by or supportive of war, capital punishment, targeted executions, sometimes even torture. And the claims and insistences these people make about abortion in particular might suggest that in their view only innocent human lives are sacred, perhaps that we are all to varying degrees corrupted by the world, and that criminals, enemies, all those intentionally threatening innocent lives, thereby forfeit sacredness. Certainly it is possible to want to limit the sphere of the sacred in this way; but how this might be achieved, as I’ll soon explain, depends on how sanctity is to be understood. A further, different, and conficting restriction can be considered. It might be suggested that the lives only of persons are sacred. So, roughly – and more needs to be said in the chapter to follow – what matters here is rationality, selfconsciousness, awareness of time, perhaps also a moral sense.4 And then the very young – fetuses, newborns – and some among the very old – in particular those with severe Alzheimer’s and other degenerative diseases of the mind – along with those who at other ages become unable to think as you and I, and most of those we know, are fully able to think; all these fall outside of sanctity’s remit. This is a conficting restriction in two respects. First, it is possible, at least in principle, for there to be non-human persons; and whales, dolphins, apes have been offered as candidates here. Moreover, it is possible in principle – and this will depend on how developments in artifcial intelligence proceed – also for there to be nonliving persons. Second, and this is true not only in principle but, unfortunately, also in practice, there are many non-innocent persons.5 Now holding only for persons isn’t at all how sanctity talk is commonly understood, and there’s little warrant for introducing this sort of restriction, so long as such talk retains its overt and familiar religious connotations. But, as I’ve said,

10

Sanctity

attempts are often made to sever the links here, and then to develop secular accounts of sanctity. And then these accounts might well appeal to some such restriction, and identify persons as chief among those having the characteristics and status that sacredness seems to involve. I’ll say more in sections below, and show that this isn’t going to work. Here, though, a fnal and not unrelated point about life. In talking of its sanctity people might be thinking that life itself, living, or the property of being alive, is what is sacred, and the thing thus to be respected, revered, promoted, or whatever it is that sanctity enjoins us to do. Or they might instead be focusing on the individual things, the concrete particulars – plants, porpoises, people – that have life. There is, of course, no locus for life, being alive, beyond the range of living things, and so it might be wondered whether the distinction here will be of any signifcance. And in most of what follows I’ve no need, and make no attempt, to differentiate between these senses. Nevertheless, there is something here worth noting. If life itself is sacred it is presumably always and everywhere sacred. If the things that have life are sacred then perhaps they’re sacred only when they are alive. But perhaps not. For the idea that living things are sacred might lend itself to the belief that some residues of sanctity persist in the body even after death. But if we think sanctity attaches to the property, being alive, then we’ll care less for, and think less of, this once-living body. So there is a link here with the distinction between burial and cremation, and, of course, an echo of the earlier point about human remains.6

Sanctity What is meant by sanctity, and our saying that such and such is sacred? People often use these terms without giving any developed account of what it is they have in mind. But it seems there are two components at least implicit within sanctity talk. First, there’s some kind of claim made about the nature of things that are sacred – what it is about these things that differentiates them from the profane. And second, there are insistences on what follows from this regarding our attitudes and activities – how we should behave in relation to the sacred. The concern here is just with life. The claims, I’ll say, focus on value. The insistences take on various forms. So then it seems clear that there is some sort of value to life on the sanctity view. But very many things have some sort of value – the value that life has, because it is sacred, is going to be in certain ways special. Both supporters of the sanctity view and its detractors also will agree this is a key component.7 Yet the questions, frst, of precisely what value is, and then, second, of what particular value is in play here are both of them taxing, and are not altogether done with until Chapter 3. Still, we can make a start. And, as I’ll claim, the sort of value at the core of this sanctity talk is special or distinctive in two ways. It doesn’t depend on us. And it doesn’t very much depend on the condition the allegedly sacred thing is in, or what it is like.

Sanctity

11

What sorts of value might usefully be distinguished? Several of these are familiar. We value many plants and animals for food, clothing, medicines, but also, particularly as with plants, just for their appearance, and, as with animals, for companionship. Other people are, of course, valued in the last of these ways, but we recognize as well that people – ourselves and others – typically value their own lives, want them to continue, and to go well. I’ll say considerably more about these values – and we can refer to them, oversimplifying somewhat, as instrumental and personal values – in a later chapter. But it will be clear already that if something is said to be sacred then it allegedly has some value of a quite different kind from those just sketched. Talk of the sanctity of human life – and this is going to play a central role in any sanctity account – illustrates this well. For the lives that are said to be sacred are not at all confned just to the useful lives – doctors, architects, crop-gatherers, mothers, politicians – but include many that have no obvious point or purpose. Nor are they restricted to the good or happy lives, or to those that are, in fact, valued by their owners. Both those who have, for various reasons, no interest in continuing to live and those who actively want to die have lives, it is said, that are sacred. They are valuable in themselves, whatever their condition, and whatever their relation to the wants, needs, and preferences both of those living these lives, and of the various others – parents, children, friends, and carers – having a close relationship to and interest in them. But now what is this special and distinctive value that attaches here to the sacred; attaches, as I’ve said, at least to human life in all its variety? It might be suggested – and again there is considerably more on this to come – that we are talking here of intrinsic value. Several writers, and from a variety of positions, make this point explicitly, with several others at least often implying it.8 Grant this, at least provisionally. It needs to be considered now what sorts of demands a thing’s being sacred, having this special value, will put on us. And the beginnings of answers here, and moreover answers at two levels, can be found by returning to Schweitzer. The passage quoted above is excerpted from a work where he reveals an explicit concern with a reverence for life. And this notion sits at the heart of his career as a whole. But both within this work, and in many further places besides, Schweitzer talks instead of respect. So what is it to respect or revere life? What is it, more generally, to treat something with respect? Start with a distinction between neutral and positive evaluations. We respect something by properly understanding it, and then treating or engaging with it appropriately. But what is appropriate needn’t be favourable. We might be told to respect the weather, or to handle some dangerous substances with due respect. It isn’t implicit here that the weather is a good thing, something I should look after, or that this substance is one we should want to preserve. But talk of respect often seems to imply an overall favourable attitude. I admire this thing, care for it, want to preserve or promote it. You might be thought to have missed the point if, told you should respect your parents, you cut off all ties with them on the grounds that they are scoundrels. Similarly, whereas I might, assuming the frst sense, show respect for a poison by carefully disposing of it, it would be diffcult, given the

12

Sanctity

second sense, to demonstrate respect for an inconveniently located tree, and the life of a tree, by cutting it down.9 How do these notions of respect connect with sanctity? The requirement that we treat things appropriately is very wide-ranging. Arguably in this sense, we should treat everything with respect. Nothing, whether it is life, or nature, or walls, or cars, should be dealt with inappropriately, thoughtlessly, carelessly. Respect’s second sense, where some positive or protective attitude is involved, has a narrower scope. But it can be made narrower still. We might respect, care for, look after something – perhaps a landscape, some artwork, a vintage car – because this thing matters to certain people, and they care about it. Sacred objects, in contrast, should in some sense be cared for, looked after, nurtured, not for our, or someone else’s beneft, but just for their own sake.10 Ideas or notions of reverence lack these ambiguities. There seems to be an evident religious dimension here, where the things we revere are pretty much explicitly in some way valuable, deserving of care, protection, and admiration in themselves. Having the view that something is sacred, then, it follows we should revere that thing. This doesn’t yet get us very far. We need more detail. Fortunately, in talking about our needs to help and not harm, Schweitzer gives useful pointers here. For we can consider frst what we might be required positively to do, in response to sanctity, and then, in contrast, what we might be forbidden from doing. In short, what is prescribed and what proscribed. Yet I need here a further distinction, and one that will help shape several of the chapters to come. For our various interactions in support of life might be understood in three ways, relating to starting, saving, and improving. Consider each of these in relation frst to what, on sanctity views, might be prescribed. The least controversial here is the last. Many of us will think there is some sort of obligation to attend to the living things that are, and will continue to be, in existence, and to improve their lot. We might, for example, ensure that trees don’t suffer from drought, free a rabbit or hare caught in barbed wire, or provide for our children a decent education. Fairly closely connected is the business of saving lives. And many will believe we ought, where we can, to rescue plants, animals, and human beings from the threat of death, and so to extend their lives. Yet this, as will be explained below,11 should strike us as a more controversial claim, and one where the category of persons might play an important role. More controversial still, and this time perhaps obviously so, are claims about obligations to start new lives. But we are all aware that there are some of us, and perhaps especially within the Catholic Church, who believe that we ought to increase the number of people in existence, spread ourselves across the globe and, if possible, into the stars. It should be noted, however, that the scope for promoting life, in all three areas, is limited. Few of us can do more than scratch the surface where giving aid or assistance is concerned. Few of us can save more than a handful of threatened lives. And only a few of us can bring more than small numbers of new lives into existence. This isn’t in itself a criticism. The prescriptions here put real demands on us. But they needn’t be seen (and appear by Schweitzer not to be seen) as excessive.12 Focus just on human life. The suggestion isn’t that we make endless

Sanctity

13

sacrifces to help our children, do all that is possible to save those who are near to death, make every effort to expand the population. But life, on the sanctity view, is in some way valuable. So then there are some steps we should take to promote, in these several ways, the quality, duration, and number of lives. Still, there are limits to what we should do. Consider now proscriptions. Many people will agree that there are obligations on us not to harm living things, not to make things worse for them. Similarly, many will be inclined to think that killing is wrong. Far fewer, surely, will think it wrong to prevent new lives from starting, even though there are still people who will agree with the Catholic Church’s doctrine on contraception.13 As the scope for helping is restricted, so too for avoiding harm. Inevitably we make things worse for some living creatures. What about killing? Is this similarly inevitable? An insistence that we never kill, or bring life to an end, lies at the centre of many sanctity views, and it needs to be considered not only how this can be justifed, but whether the ruling here is something we could possibly obey. But frst, a point on how proscriptions and prescriptions might, and might not, within sanctity views, be linked. Assume we mustn’t stand in the way of new lives, mustn’t kill, mustn’t harm. The rulings here might connect with requirements to start, save, and improve lives. So, for example, we should, having rejected contraception, pursue intercourse. Or we should frst refuse requests for euthanasia and then seek to ameliorate the patient’s unhappy condition. Or again, we should frst avoid harm and then attempt to help, where living things are concerned. But it might, in contrast, suggest a general hands-off, quietist, or nature-knows-best style to our dealings with life. So then interventions, whether they involve killing, saving, or bettering, will all of them be frowned upon. Certain religions, or factions within religions, urge such an approach, especially in relation to human life, while many environmentalists have a similar attitude with regard to the natural world.14 Yet there is no need to decide what comes next if, even where proscriptions are concerned, it is impossible, or near impossible, to do as sanctity views demand. Is it? Here is one seemingly sceptical voice: People often say that life is sacred. They almost never mean what they say. They do not mean, as their words seem to imply, that life itself is sacred. If they did, killing a pig or pulling up a cabbage would be as abhorrent to them as the murder of a human being. When people say that life is sacred, it is human life they have in mind.15 There is something right, but then also things wrong here. Singer is assuming (and I’ll agree correctly assuming) that sanctity views often claim to impose on us a strict ban on killing. And certainly, were we both to take this literally and then also to interpret it widely, we’d have considerable diffculty in living out our own lives. But what is missing here is any acknowledgement that the scope of such views can vary considerably. Assuming the concern is just with life, there are still questions of precisely with which lives we are to be concerned. And then

14

Sanctity

there are questions also as to the depth of this concern. So frst, people can mean what they say. But they can mean to refer to human life without needing always to spell things out. Context does some work. Second, they can, however, and instead, mean that all life is sacred, without thinking that all killings are abhorrent. Schweitzer is an example here. And geography also does some work. People around here may mostly have human life in mind. People elsewhere are often thinking of life more generally. So consider this ban. If we think the sacred lives are just human lives, then an injunction against killing, even if we don’t fully understand or agree with it, is relatively easy to comply with; most of us get through life with neither the temptation nor the need to kill anyone. But if we hold that animal and plant lives fall also within the purview, then of course a strict ban on killing is, as Singer implies, much harder to maintain. And although almost all of us could, if we wished, give up on meat, still there are likely to be deaths. For while many fruits can be harvested and eaten while the tree or bush remains intact, vegetable farming most often involves the whole plant being dug up or cut down.16 Still, there are compromise positions available. It might, as I suggested earlier, appear perfectly possible to interpret life’s sanctity as insisting that we endeavour not to kill thoughtlessly, unnecessarily, on a whim, without good reason. So some sort of dilution of the killing constraint is usually in place, when what counts as life is given a wide interpretation. But the narrower the account, the easier for a stricter constraint to be insisted on. Singer is wrong, then, to suggest that believers in sanctity will inevitably put forward untenable views. A further detail is needed. We all do, in fact, kill thoughtlessly and unnecessarily, just as we get on with the day-to-day business of living, and tread on or drive over insects or young plants. Where the killing ban is most successful is in targeting deliberate or intentional killing. And now this leaves loopholes, even where human life is concerned, that some sanctity believers will want to exploit. So the politician can decline to involve her country in famine relief, even while knowing, and regretting, that people will die. The general can agree he is killing, but isn’t intentionally killing, innocent civilians. More telling, the doctor can kill, and even knowingly kill, her sick patient even while seeking only pain relief, and maintaining her opposition to euthanasia. What might be claimed, by professed believers in sanctity, is that the gist of the constraint is being obeyed; no one here is aiming at death.17 Sanctity believers are able also to defend a commitment to capital punishment, where certainly death is the desired outcome. They can claim that by life they mean just innocent life. Or they can claim that they are taking the murderer, his choices, his actions seriously and, in now ending his life, treating him with due respect.18 The concern over sanctity accounts shouldn’t be, then, that we can’t obey them. Even if there is some unclarity over precisely what respecting life commits us to, on any reasonable interpretation the showing of respect – taking some steps to improve the lot of living things – is perfectly possible. Similarly, and especially when a restriction to human life is in place, it is perfectly possible to refrain from

Sanctity

15

any intentional killing. The concern, rather, is that it is often obscure why we should obey them. Return to the threefold distinction between starting, saving, and improving lives. The business of starting can, for some considerable time, be set aside. The claims that we should bring new lives into existence and that we shouldn’t stand in the way of such lives are both of them controversial, and play at best a minor role in most sanctity views. In contrast, claims that we should aim to help, and not to harm, extant lives are pretty much uncontroversial. Indeed, they are perhaps better seen as key components of common-sense morality than in any way distinctive to sanctity views. But this isn’t, as I’ll explain, fully to endorse them. And we need to ask precisely when and why we have any reason whatsoever to involve ourselves in making things better for some living thing. What about saving, and not ending life? This is where puzzles about sanctity most evidently lie. For while improving appears to be connected with the good in lives – we want to make people happier, reduce animal pain, and advance plant health – saving, and not killing, and especially the latter, are supposed to take place even when, in equally familiar ways, life isn’t and won’t be good, and, most obviously where sentient creatures are concerned, would be best ended.19 I say more about this in a section below. But frst, there are further puzzles, not unrelated, about good lives.

Equal worth We can kill no one. But we can’t help everyone. So how do we decide who to help? Sanctity views certainly allow us, and perhaps invite us, to make some judgements on this score. If I can feed a hundred starving people by going south, but only ten by going north, then it will seem I should go south.20 But other sorts of judgements, other discriminations, sit uncomfortably here: ‘He does not ask how far this or that life deserves sympathy as valuable in itself, nor how far it is capable of feeling. To him life as such is sacred’. So Schweitzer wants to reject discriminations between lives, and insists that we simply help so far as we are able. This sits at one end of a spectrum. But the friends of animals might insist that a capacity for feeling, rather than merely living, is very much at issue where the sacred is concerned, and others, of course, will want us to attend to the important distinctions between the human and non-human in marking out the bounds of sanctity. Yet while there might be in this way certain sharp divisions between categories or kinds of lives, within these categories there is no room, on most sanctity views, for further distinctions. So then perhaps not all lives, but at least lives of a certain kind, are, it seems, equally sacred, equally deserving of respect, equally meriting help, and equally not to be killed. And though, of course, lives vary in a multitude of different ways – there are differences from the outset between lives and then the development of differences over time within lives – none of these differences, at least on an individual basis, impact on whether, or to what extent, a life is sacred. Sanctity just doesn’t come in degrees.21 Many will fnd this aspect of the sanctity view puzzling. Ideas of reverence and respect, sympathies for wider accounts of value, and in particular claims that we

16

Sanctity

should help and not harm other creatures, are, as I’ve said, pretty much commonplace and, whether or not we fully accept them, none of them deeply troubling. But all of this is naturally allied to a position which allows for difference and wants discrimination; someone might act in such ways as to earn or forfeit our respect, a thing’s value, of whatever kind, can change as the thing itself changes, and our dealings with others take account, and it often seems should take account, of their distinctive particularities. Some of this will impact, too, on thoughts about killing. Ending a good life we might think is obviously wrong, while ending a bad life might appear permissible, or even required. On the sanctity view all this is set to one side, and a demand for what might seem a suspect even-handedness, both in what we think and what we do, put in its place. Several aspects of this, however, are more familiar, even if not more comprehensible, when set in a secular landscape. So it might be suggested, frst, that strictures against killing fnd contemporary expression in claims about the right to life, and the apparently absolute prohibition on our infringing that right. And absolute regardless of both internal qualities and external circumstances – killing someone is wrong, and equally wrong, whether they are young or old, sick or healthy, cruel or kind. Might I kill one to save ten? Utilitarians will think so but innumerable people, and only some of them expressly signed up to the sanctity view, will disagree. The right to life allows no room for such trading. Yet is there such a right? Certainly we, or our governments, can act in ways that give people this right in a legal sense.22 But whether we can justify such laws by maintaining there is here, and antecedently, some underlying moral right is less straightforward, and a matter deserving of debate. A second suggestion needs more discussion. Consider the claim that lives are of equal value. Not many will think this is true across species, and that we should toss a coin between helping a dog or a dandelion, or between a doctor and a dog. But some will think it holds within a species. Focus just on one particular species and the claim will enjoy considerable support, with very many of us insisting that human lives are of equal value or equal worth. It may well be that in several western countries more people believe in a secularized version of the equality claim than believe explicitly in life’s sanctity. It is a tenet of democratic and liberal values, and sits at the centre of key political documents.23 Whether any such claim – either made with respect to human beings generally or restricted just to persons – has, as might be assumed, a solid grounding in reputable philosophical texts is markedly less clear.24 But the claim nevertheless needs now to be considered. Suppose there were a view – people have value just because they are intelligent, or healthy, or powerful, or kind. All of these come in degrees, with some of us more intelligent, but also less kind than others. So if such properties sit behind value, it would seem it has to be admitted that we are of unequal value, unequal worth. But the sanctity view has value deriving from life. And now shouldn’t we think that we are all equally alive? It might be allowed that there are a few exceptions, concerning deathbed cases, but in general this will seem plausible. Prominent features of the sanctity view would appear soon to follow. Killing is wrong, and equally wrong because lives are valuable, and equally valuable. And

Sanctity

17

as human beings are equally alive, so then equally they should be helped, and not be harmed. A blanket ban on killing doesn’t require discrimination. We can simply kill no one. But as we can’t help everyone then there may be circumstances in which we need to choose who to help. While on many accounts there will be various factors we can and should take into consideration here, the sanctity view has it that these signifcantly different lives place equal demands on us. As we can’t save both the mother and her fetus then, given their equal worth, perhaps we should toss a coin. What many will see as an unwelcome result here can be avoided if, frst, we return now to the less familiar view, mentioned earlier, that sanctity attaches not to human beings in general, but in particular to persons. And then we might focus on the claim, much more familiar, that persons, sacred or not, are the things enjoying equal worth. This will allow us to discriminate, in accordance with widespread intuitions, between the mother and the fetus, and indeed between the mother and her newborn child. Similarly, we can now put the worth of old Yolanda, still in possession of her faculties, above that of young Ziggy, unfortunately in an irreversible coma. And a focus on personhood offers a different basis for value. We can attend not to biology but to psychology. So rather than deriving from life, the worth of people, it is now suggested, stems from their character as autonomous rational and/or moral beings.25 And it is perhaps easier to see properties such as these offering a platform for value than merely being alive. Moreover, the centrality of sanctity views that give priority to people over animals and plants is easier to explain if we attend to these distinctive human qualities than if we look instead at the shared property of life. Yet it is one thing to claim that persons are of higher worth than non-persons, whether these be other human beings, animals, or plants; and another that the worth of these persons is in all cases the same. Isn’t it just obvious that in many important respects – intelligence, health, well-being levels, moral probity, rationality, life expectancy; as well as in their relations to others in society – there are vast differences between people? And these, much more so than simply being alive, would appear to be clearly relevant to assessing someone’s worth or value. Accounting for the equal worth of persons is, then, far from straightforward. Related claims deal with equal treatment, equal consideration, equal opportunities. All of these can appear to follow from, while none of them, given a reasonable interpretation, also imply equal worth. Equal treatment is, on the face of it, deeply puzzling. Why give both Kate and Jane the same medicines when their conditions differ? Equal treatment claims must be otherwise understood, then, and are best given a more modest interpretation – we should all be given equal treatment under the law, allowed equal political representation, acknowledged to make equal claims, subject to different needs, on limited health resources. So far so good, but it can still be asked whether the explanation for all this lies in our having equal worth or – perhaps more plausibly – because it is overall morally, socially, or politically expedient so to deal with us. There is a good deal, also, to be salvaged from demands for equal consideration. Two people, or two animals, or an animal and a person, make claims upon us.

18

Sanctity

Perhaps it is wrong to dismiss any of these claims outright, and, for example, always and immediately put a human being before a cat. And perhaps we should not only consider these claims but consider them equally carefully, giving to each of them equal attention. We might, in so doing, discover that there are salient differences between the claimants and so put the person frst, saving its life, and letting the cat die. In so doing we treat them unequally. But still there are issues. Singer is fond of saying that we should give claimants equal consideration and then deal with them, treat them, in accordance with their interests.26 So it would seem that if it is equally in the interests of monkey and a man to remain alive then, when both are under threat, we should perhaps toss a coin as to which to save. One worry here, and something to which in Chapter 4 I’ll return, is that many people generally, and many among sanctity believers in particular will insist we put people frst. But there’s a second worry. We might consider interests, and we might consider value. A shopgirl and a surgeon have equal interests in remaining alive. But the latter, someone might say, will make the greater contribution to society, and so, when there’s a confict, it is she, having the greater worth, who should be saved. One way to view this is overruling the claim about equal interests; another, and better, is taking the interests of third parties also into account. Affording people equal opportunities can similarly be defended. I might hold that everyone should have an opportunity, and indeed the same opportunity, to go to university, join the army, enter politics, or travel. Withholding such opportunities from some, but not others, on the basis of race, sex, class, income, and the like is disallowed. But though you can apply still you might not get in. Equal opportunities is one thing, equal abilities another.27 Nothing here suggests, then, that people, or persons, are of equal worth, even if there are, within limits, good reasons to treat them or consider them equally, or afford them, similarly within limits, equal opportunities. The upshot, then, is that the sanctity view’s puzzling claims about equality don’t get the help they might appear to be promised from their widespread secular counterparts. For these, or so I’ve claimed, suffer from very much the same diffculties. As lives differ in many important respects, so it may seem that they differ too in value. And even supposing all lives are valuable, it is hard to see how they can be equally valuable.

Religion Claims about sanctity generally, and about equal worth in particular, are, I’ve suggested, hard to understand. But several of these claims become more comprehensible if embedded in a religious account, and in particular in one of those Abrahamic faiths with which many of us are most familiar. I don’t want to say that these accounts, even in their own terms, are fully coherent. But in various respects they offer support to the sanctity view. First, consider those sanctity views that put a sharp line between human and other forms of life. In several ways, relating to beliefs in evolution, to how animals share with us many seemingly value-related properties, and to how human

Sanctity

19

beings, always at the beginning and too often near the end of life, lack these same properties, this apparent speciesism is hard to understand. But if we accept the stepwise nature of God’s creation, and that he made us not only last but expressly in his image, then this allegedly clear distinction gains its rationale. Second, then, there is little diffculty in understanding the injunction on the taking of human life. People often talk of life as being a gift from God, and it might be tempting to think that if this is so then it is up to us to do with it as we like. But construe it instead as a loan, and something that even now we don’t properly own, and then the argument against killing is strengthened. Taking a life, and destroying something that is still not fully ours, and in which God retains a profound interest, is never permitted. But it doesn’t follow that life is always good, and when circumstances are dire we can still hope for, pray for, even if we can’t demand, its ending. Suppose this is not forthcoming; believers can think that God must have good reason for allowing undeniable evils to continue. Third, equality claims can fnd support in religion. Believers will allow there are considerable and manifest differences between people. But they might insist that the importance of these differences is overrated. In key respects we are all of us the same. So these several and overt differences between us involve only some of our contingent and feeting properties, properties we enjoy only for a brief amount of time. Essentially we have, or indeed are, immortal souls. And these souls, and so we ourselves, are at least in their fundamental respects all of them, and unchangingly, the same. This soul view harmonizes too with the belief that we are essentially persons. For physicality is just a passing feature of our make-up; at core the human is a mental, or at least an immaterial thing. In too many cases this is hidden or disguised, but it is always there, or there at least from birth, and after death will be revealed again. A fnal point takes us back to Schweitzer’s slippage between life and nature, noted at the outset. Although it is common to think of life, lives, or some subset of lives as being sacred, it is, as we are seeing, hard to explain why this special value should be found just here. Contrast, instead, nature and artifce or, as we might say, the works of God and the works of man. This allows for a clearer distinction. And we might understand why someone should admire, revere, or stand in awe of all those things, living or not, whose existence doesn’t at all depend on him or others of his kind. God’s creation may have become more impressive as it went on, but it was impressive right from the start.28 As I say, there may be some tensions within the religious view. Nevertheless it can be rendered pretty much consistent, and it certainly helps make tolerable sense of key sanctity and equality claims, and a sense which otherwise they lack. Yet consistency doesn’t get us to truth. And the obvious objection to all this is that the religious view is false. There is no God. And so life doesn’t come from God, doesn’t belong to God, doesn’t have God-centred injunctions placed upon it. Nor are we immortal souls, and all of us, at core, of fxed and equal worth. If, as many of us hold, this is correct then any wholesale insistence on the wrongness of killing, even when this is restricted just to human life, will remain hard to defend.

20

Sanctity

Quality The sanctity view is often contrasted with the quality view.29 On the former, the value of life is unvarying. People are, all of them, equally valuable, and they are, each of them, equally valuable at different times and in different circumstances. On the latter, value varies as relevant qualities or properties vary. Suppose some lives are under threat. In deciding who to save we need to consider in some detail the constitutions of, and the prognoses for the candidates before us. The quality view will usually, but not always, have us saving the mother over the fetus, usually, but not always, ask us to put human life before animal life, on most occasions, but not every occasion, prioritize the young (but not the very young) over the old (and especially the very old).30 And it will permit a reckoning of numbers. The view needn’t insist we simply sum the available quality, but it can require us to factor this in when determining who to let die, or indeed to kill, so that others might live. Given a choice between sanctity views and quality views, many people, and especially those not captive to the religious perspective, will favour the latter. Attention to quality seems to allow for the discriminations between lives which, often, we want and think we ought to make. Yet it may be we have no need of making this choice. For it can appear that there is available a middle and compromise position, where quality plays a part, but some of the main tenets of the sanctity view remain in place. In some ways this middle position is intuitively appealing. In others, it is deeply problematic. Consider this: The inherent value of individual moral agents is to be understood as being conceptually distinct from the intrinsic value that attaches to the experiences they have (e.g. their pleasures or preference satisfactions), as not being reducible to values of this latter kind, and as being incommensurate with these values. To say that inherent value is not reducible to the intrinsic values of an individual’s experiences means that we cannot determine the inherent value of individual moral agents by totalising the intrinsic values of their experiences. Those who have a more pleasant or happier life do not therefore have greater inherent value than those whose lives are less pleasant or happy. Nor do those who have more ‘cultivated’ preferences (say, for arts and letters) therefore have greater inherent value. To say that the inherent value of individual moral agents is incommensurate with the intrinsic value of their (or anyone else’s) experiences means that the two kinds of value are not comparable and cannot be exchanged one for the other. Like proverbial apples and oranges, the two kinds of value do not fall within the same scale of comparison.31 Nothing about equality is made explicit here, but this is soon remedied: Two options present themselves concerning the possession by moral agents of inherent value. First, moral agents might be viewed as having this value to varying degrees, so that some may have more of it than others. Second,

Sanctity

21

moral agents might be viewed as having this value equally. The latter view is rationally preferable.32 The quality view seems to allow for a life having no value whatsoever. Worse, it might be of negative value. And then it would seem, discounting side effects, that it is unambiguously best if we are rid of this life. Still, there will be, in most even if not all cases, room for regret, not that something of value is being lost but that something that once had value has it no longer. But Tom Regan here appears to outline a different and more complex position, where value derives from separate components. The idea appears to be, then, that there is an important respect in which moral agents (and thus persons) have equal and unchanging worth, but there are further important respects – frst the amounts of pleasure and pain in their lives, second their contributions to other lives – in which they are unequal, with value varying between people and with circumstances. But as these two sorts of value are non-comparable, and cannot be summed, so then we can never reach a position where a life is of no value whatsoever – there might be more bad than good, but the bad cannot outweigh and cancel the good, and thus the good remains intact.33 Even so, given the differences, we cannot legitimately treat people in all important respects equally. This composite view is compatible with our making informed decisions about who should live and who should die, and seems to allow, too, that there are circumstances in which killing can be legitimate. But because all lives have what Regan calls inherent value then even if on balance death is to be preferred, still, on this composite account, something of value is then being lost. Elsewhere he makes a cup and content analogy; whereas utilitarians think there is only varying content – the shifting values of pleasures and pains, or experiences more generally – to take into account, on his view we need to consider also the fxed value of the cup or container, and thus the worth of the individual who has experiences.34 Even when experience is of null or negative value, and so on that score death is to be admitted or even preferred, the value of the individual remains. And, I want to suggest, something along the lines of this composite or twofold view has some natural appeal. This, however – the view simply that there are distinct sorts of values to be taken into account – is neither Regan’s view, nor one that is congenial to sanctity believers. What they want is an account wherein quality, or its absence, can never get the upper hand. But consider Regan’s own analogy. We can agree that apples are different from oranges. Yet in several respects – sweetness, calories, acidity, friendliness to Campari – they can certainly be compared. Circumstances can be such that we might rationally prefer three oranges to a pair of apples. If values are in any similar ways comparable, then we might decide a life is better ended – quality is low, and more than cancels the inherent worth – or is better saved – though quality is low, the inherent worth is high. We can do this, even while acknowledging the values are different in kind. Or – a more pronounced gap – we might think that saving a thousand from pain ranks higher than saving one from death. But if these values absolutely cannot be compared, are altogether incommensurate, then how are we to proceed? It isn’t at all clear now how we can hold that inherent values will always trump the competing claims for quality,

22

Sanctity

or, in Regan’s terms, intrinsic value. The concerns here emerge before we consider a further point. And that is that neither analogy appears friendly to ideas of equal worth. Apples and oranges not only differ from each other but differ within themselves. Cups, even supposing they are identical when they leave the factory, can become chipped and cracked. But suppose, in spite of this, that individuals are of equal value. Can’t these values be summed, even if they can’t be weighed against values of a different kind? But then can’t we, indeed shouldn’t we, kill one to save ten?35 There is a way forward. We can hold that this inherent value is always infnitely high, or, in Kantian terms, beyond price.36 This will explain how it is, as some have wanted to say, incalculable, and irreducible.37 Lives are then of equal worth in one sense by default – they are all off the scale rather than all having exactly the same amount of some fnite and, at least in principle, measurable value. And, of course, it will be then unsurprising that this value cannot be outweighed by any amount and value of quality, given only the assumption that this is not also infnitely high. And if each life is of infnite value it will be clear also how, when choosing between two lives we can only toss a coin, and clear also why one life won’t lose out to ten. Notice that a neutered version of the position here – priceless, incalculable in being not at all the kind of thing that has value – is hopeless for any viable sanctity view. Decisions about lives have to be made, and there is now only quality to be taken into account. But the robust alternative leads us into dark places. If the value of life is infnitely high then it seems there is no limit to the number of people we can, and endlessly, torture, in order to save one person from death. A fnal point about Regan. He talks often of our postulating that lives are of equal inherent worth, and certainly recommends this stance over its alternatives.38 What does he mean here? There seems to be an implicit contrast between discovering that lives have this value – here’s something we fnd out about the way the world is – and our stipulating that, or choosing to act as if, they have value of this kind – here’s a recommended way of going on. There might be a halfway house; what is known as inference to the best explanation operates by holding that if such and such were true this would account, better than anything else available, for why this, that, and the other is true. And these things, as we know, are true. So now we have reason to believe such and such is true. I don’t think Regan’s postulating works in this way. Rather, his view seems to be that going about as if there is equal worth will transpire to be the best way of going about; delivering not so much truth, as goodness. But this doesn’t give us any reason to think there actually is much to be said for equal worth. And, as I’ve argued, there are reasons for thinking there’s more to be said against. This postulating business will resurface towards the end of the next chapter.

Summary Accounts of life’s sanctity differ both in the range of objects they consider and in what they ask of us regarding those objects. In general, the wider the purview, the

Sanctity

23

less that is demanded, in properly acknowledging and responding to the sacred. But what in the West we are most familiar with, and which most often infltrate or challenge much of our ethical and political thinking, are those accounts that centre very much on human life, and tend often to leave animals and plants to fend for themselves. Such accounts, demanding, but not impossibly so, have been the main focus here. Almost all of us think that lives, or some lives, are valuable. Many sanctity believers hold that human lives are equally, and importantly, valuable. Almost all of us think that killing, or killing people, is often or usually wrong. Sanctity believers have it that at least the killing of the innocent is always wrong. Can these sharper and more extreme views be defended? I’ve expressed doubts. Or at least I’ve expressed doubts if we detach the sanctity view from the religious framework to which it is most often linked. That framework, I’ve claimed, underpins the sanctity believers’ best hopes for coherence. Without it, fssures begin to appear. The argument here, in contrast to several found elsewhere,39 is that a secularized sanctity view is not one that holds together. That argument isn’t yet complete. And we might want to consider a recent and important attempt to rehabilitate ideas of the sacred. Much of this I reserve for an appendix. But a key component within it, the suggestion that at the heart of sanctity views sits the notion of intrinsic value, is in more pressing need of further exploration. This comes in Chapter 3. But frst, some of the spadework, both for that, and for several of the chapters to follow.

Notes 1 Schweitzer (1923: part II). 2 The case, UK wide, involves relations between the NHS and a private waste disposal company. See www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-45750389 3 I use the familiar terms ‘sentience’ and ‘sentient’ here and later for convenience. But it is possible to question the relation between awareness of and/or reacting to the environment and ensuing pains and pleasures. Hence the neologism ‘painient’. See Ryder (2011) who also, and with more effect, coined ‘speciesism’. 4 I follow, more or less, the familiar Lockean sense, where a person is ‘a thinking intelligent Being, that has reason and refection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing in different times and places; which it does only by that consciousness, which is inseparable from thinking, and as it seems to me essential to it’. Essay Bk.2, ch.27, sec. 9. 5 The term ‘person’ is ambiguous. It can refer either to an individual of whatever kind who reveals what I’ve described as personhood, or to a single human being, whether or not this individual possesses personhood. Mostly I use it in the former sense, but context will make this clear. Throughout the book the plural term ‘persons’ is used explicitly to refer to some number of individuals each displaying what I’ve described as personhood. The plural term ‘people’ is used to refer to a number of human beings, some or all of whom may be persons. Context will, when needed, make clear roughly how much personhood these people enjoy. 6 On this matter of whether sanctity attaches to the person who has life, or to life itself see good discussion in Sumner (2011: 78–82). 7 See, for some reference to special value, Singer (1993: 84), McMahan (2002: 464), Rachels (1986: 24–27), Bayertz (1996), Harris (1999). There are in many places refer-

24

8 9 10

11 12 13 14

15 16

17 18

19

20 21

22 23

24 25

Sanctity ences to life’s ultimate, distinctive, or unique value also. Interestingly, Dworkin makes very little reference to special value, perhaps in part because he foregrounds intrinsic value more or less from the outset and perhaps also because contrasts between human, animal, and plant life are not ones he chooses to make. See e.g. Singer (2002: 90–91), Glover (1977: 45–46), Dworkin (1993: 71–73), McMahan (2002: 243–246). For an important discussion of respect see Darwall (1977). Examples of things sacred by association perhaps put a little pressure on this point. Suppose the fag is sacred. So we should respect it. This is not because we, or others alive now, care about the fag. Rather we should respect it in part because others earlier cared about it. Both within this chapter but then in more detail in Chapter 4. Schweitzer doesn’t appear to have been a vegetarian, for example. For an explanation of the current position, see www.catholic.com/tract/birth-control Just what nature, and the natural is, and what attitudes we should have to it can, of course, be discussed at some length. See, for a classic text, Mill (1874), and for something more recent, Belshaw (2001: ch.8). The key message in both is the view that what is natural is good is unsustainable. Singer (1993: 83). And there is a very similar version also in Singer (2002: 217). As there are questions, where animals are concerned, as to whether life is a property just of whole organisms, or also of organs and parts of organs – and see here Belshaw (2009: ch.2) – so we might ask whether a total ban on killing would, in fact, interfere with our eating eggs, fruits, nuts, and seeds. For a good and recent discussion of the doctrine of double effect, and its role here, see again Sumner (2011: 56–71). Clearly Kant believed in the legitimacy of, and often a requirement for, capital punishment. And it seems he held that in executing a murderer one was acknowledging and respecting his essential humanity, or taking him seriously as a person. See Kant (1797). Did he also believe that life is sacred? On most interpretations he holds to a secularized version of the doctrine. I consider in the next chapter whether this suggestion that a life might be best ended should be seen as best for the person involved, best for others, best for the universe. It may seem clear that the frst response should be favoured, but there are issues about valuing non-existence. Not everyone will agree, of course. See Taurek (1977) for a well-known dissenting opinion. There may be room for a qualifcation. No one thinks everything is equally sacred. Someone might think all living things are sacred, and equally so. It may appear to follow that we go wrong in putting a human life before a cow’s life. But there are two alternatives. On the frst, some kinds of lives – say human lives – are sacred, while other kinds are not. On the second, though all lives are sacred, we can put the human before the cow. Here there are degrees of sacred between but not within kinds. Is there room for a further view? On some secularized versions of the sanctity view, we might put persons before non-persons, even when the non-person is a human. We could, but so far haven’t, given such a right also to (some) animals and plants. Nor indeed have they, in this sense, any further rights, even though they have in other ways various legal protections. See, for an important contribution, Stone (1972). Though not as many as might be assumed. It fgures in the American Declaration of Independence but not in the Constitution. It sits squarely within the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but the famous motto of the French Revolution is concerned more with equality before the law than intrinsic worth. But see McMahan (2002: 243–265), Bognar and Kerstein (2010), Pojman (1992) and this encyclopedia entry for useful discussion: www.rep.routledge.com/articles/them atic/equality/v-1/sections/equality-of-moral-worth See Kant (1785, 1797), Korsgaard (1996).

Sanctity

25

26 Singer (1993: 21–26, 2002: 105–110). 27 There might be a time element to consider here. Those over a certain age are unable to apply for the army. But they were younger earlier, and had the opportunity then. Related, we can, legitimately, assess people not now but earlier. You just don’t have the qualifcations, and so don’t get in. But you had, even if you squandered, the opportunity to try for those qualifcations in years gone by. 28 It is easy, however, to exaggerate the extent of nature’s autonomy or otherness. It has for centuries been true that the continued existence, if not the coming into existence of icicles, oaks, hamsters has in some important ways depended on us. It is increasingly true that even from the outset the existence of living things is under our control. And we are fast approaching a time when any nature/artifce distinction will be further eroded with developments in machine life. 29 See, for example Singer (2002: 235–238), Kuhse (1987: ch.5). Or simply google ‘sanctity vs quality’. 30 Some will object – we shouldn’t put those in their 30s before those in their 70s in the health queue. Perhaps we shouldn’t. But this is to say the quality view in some respects needs modifcation. 31 Regan (2004: 235–236). Tom Regan is writing about animal rights, but the background, and what he is concerned with here, derives, as he allows, from this broadly Kantian picture, and its opposition to utilitarianism. 32 Regan (2004: 236). And the title of the section is ‘Individuals as Equal in Value’. He usefully elaborates in the following pages. 33 The points here are of considerable importance in much of what follows. See Chapters 5 and 7 for more on outweighing, cancelling, and compensating between good and bad. 34 Regan (2004: 236). And see, for a similar view, this curious passage: ‘There are elements which, if added to one’s experience, make life better; there are other elements which, if added to one’s experience, make life worse. But what remains when these are set aside is not merely neutral. It is emphatically positive. Therefore, life is worth living even when the bad elements of experience are plentiful, and the good ones too meagre to outweigh the bad ones on their own. The additional positive weight is supplied by experience itself, rather than by any of its contents’. Nagel (1979a: 2) Three points about this: frst, while Regan’s claim is that life itself has value, irrespective of its contents, the claim here is about experience itself, irrespective of the value of its contents. Second, it isn’t extreme. Nagel doesn’t say that life is worth living whatever its contents, but only that it can be worth living when overall the contents are of negative value. Third, what this implies, that we can weigh positive against negative experience, or simplifying, pleasures against pains, is something I need to question in later chapters. I might add here that I fnd neither Regan’s nor Nagel’s claim at all convincing. 35 It should be noted that on Regan’s view we can do this where, say, the ten are people and the one is a dog. So values are unequal, he thinks, between species. 36 See Kant (1785: 4:434). 37 See Kadish (1977: 72), Shershow (2014: 38). 38 Regan (2004: 247–248). 39 And in particular that given by Dworkin (1993). See Chapter 3 and Appendix 1.

2

Terms

The sanctity view insists that all life, or all human life, has some sort of special value. This value appears to impose some important constraints on how we deal with life and living things. And it seems to be dispersed equally across lives. The quality view also claims that life, or lives, have value. But not always. And not always to the same extent. Again, there are constraints, but they appear less rigid. Understanding more about value; its varieties, its origins, its implications, will help make sense of this. But this isn’t all we need to understand. There are several other terms, all of them related to this value talk, most of them familiar from everyday discourse, many already mentioned in passing, that we need to consider. Become clearer with these terms, and progress elsewhere will be aided. The chapter falls roughly into two halves, in the frst dealing with a series of value-related distinctions concerning both living things and non-living things fairly generally. Then, in the second half, the focus shifts much more to an express concern with life, with some of its distinctive contents, and with what a life’s going well might involve.

Goodness The terms, and pairs of terms that I discuss here are, in the main, very clearly related to one another. Thus good, better, beneft, and bad, worse, harm. The fnal section, in this frst half, deals with existence and non-existence. Questions about coming into and going out of existence relate to these value terms in complex and important ways. But are these value terms? A claim worth insisting on is that often they are not. And it is here, more or less, that I begin. Good and bad1 Many things, or sorts of things – ordinary physical objects, activities, events, states of affairs – can be good. In saying that such and such is good I am normally in some way or other commending or approving of that thing and giving it in some sense a high ranking. But there are many differences here, and much to unpack, regarding ‘in some way’ or ‘in some sense’.

Terms

27

Start with some ordinary physical objects. And include here artefacts – a knife or a tractor – and also living things – an oak, a cat.2 We can have good or bad knives, trees, and so on. Imagine some division – a line, break-even point, or zero level. Good knives come above this line, bad knives below. Perhaps some knives are neither good nor bad, but are rather indifferent, or middling. These, if we plot their whereabouts, will sit on, or near, the line. Good knives, I take it, have those properties or qualities that make a knife good. They have what a knife needs if it is to ft the bill as a knife, match the knife blueprint, do what knives are supposed to do, or be as knives are supposed to be. They will ft comfortably in the hand,3 be well balanced, cut easily, survive the dishwasher. We might say that good knives have the virtues or excellences of a knife. Similarly, good oaks have the virtues or excellences of oaks; they’re healthy, well-proportioned, tending to produce fertile acorns.4 Similarly again for cats, tractors, dishwashers, ferns, and more. One important case is more complex. And talk of a good human being, if it is to be assimilated here, should be understood in terms of health, happiness, meaning; and so a mix of physical and psychological properties, rather than moral goodness. Thus, a good life, rather than a good person. Consider now the locution good for. It crops up twice – such and such is good for a knife, and a knife is good for such and such. I might promote goodness in knives, or oaks, or again in tractors or cats, by taking some tractor or cat or what have you, and doing what is good for it.5 I might, for example, give the cat a balanced diet, or make sure I service and oil the tractor. But then, in turn, there are various things the knife or oak might be good for – good for me, good for slicing, for furniture making, providing a home for butterfies.6 Other physical objects, equally ordinary, need to be understood differently. First, there isn’t a way that rocks, clouds, bits of broken plastic, or icicles are supposed to be, no blueprint or paradigm they might match, no good condition they might or might not be in. In one sense, then, there are no good rocks. So, second, nothing we can do will be good for them, help them to fourish. But, as with knives, oak, cats, and so on, such things can be good for us, or for others; they can, properly used, help us, or others, to fourish. In another, somewhat strained sense, then, we might speak of a good rock – that which is exactly right for some building project, or a good cloud – the one that is aesthetically pleasing. Nothing is good or bad for a rotting tree stump, but it will, in certain conditions, provide a good home for insects. We might say, then, that it is only objects of just two species – artefacts and organisms – that can be good or bad examples of their kind, whose good can be promoted by judicious interference, which have a good of their own. But some will resist the bracketing here, and think that while there are cats, and good and bad cats, independently of people, nothing similar can be said for artefacts. Good knives are good for, of value to, maybe even valued by people, or they are no good at all. Similarly, there is no good or bad in tractors independently of what is good or bad for farmers, other tractor drivers, and the tractor preservation society. This is a mistake. Suppose there had never been any people. There would have been cats. And there wouldn’t have been tractors. But though it

28

Terms

was up to us to invent tractors in the frst place, and to make them ftted for certain tasks, it is no longer up to us to determine what counts as a tractor, or to decide what is, and what is not, good for a vehicle of this kind. Their excellences have broken free. Imagine we all die. Tractors continue to exist and there continue to be good ones and bad ones.7 We often use the further locution, good that. It’s good that there are knives, good that climate change is being taken seriously, good that veganism is on the up, good that Trump is leader of the free world. What follows good that is a proposition, which may of course be true or false.8 Now suppose I say it’s good that such and such. So, it’s good that veganism is on the up. Or, it’s good that the knives are sharpened. Or again, it’s good that you rescue cats from torturers. In making such claims I imply that we should hope to bring it about that such and such, or to welcome this such and such if it already obtains, or to sustain it if it is under threat. In this way, then, good that is normative; if it’s good that p then there is reason to want p. There is a marked contrast here with good for. I might agree that it is good for tractors to be oiled, and knives to be sharpened, but insist nevertheless that neither I nor anyone else has any reason to tend for these things. Nor is there any frm distinction between artefacts and living things here. I can agree that it is good for trees to be watered but still deny that there is any reason to water the self-planted oak sapling newly emerged in my garden. And the point here can be emphasized – the claim might be that there is no reason at all to look after this tree, rather than some reason which is nevertheless outweighed. The tree, I might say, just doesn’t matter. So then, and generally, the claim that such and such is good for some thing, or things, and also the claim that such things are good examples of their kind are evaluative only in some thin sense – I can properly rank these things, and actions regarding these things, against some standard or scale, without making any commitment to their importance or worth.9 Objections need to be noted and considered. But frst an interim summary. Goodness, I want to say, is heterogeneous. And contrary to what might be supposed, it has only a partial connection with value. So attend frst to facts. If it is good that some fact obtains – if it’s good that so and so – then, I claim, the goodness here matters. We’ve reason to care about, to value, such and such being the case. But contrast this with what are in an everyday sense familiar things. There might, then, be good inkstands, typewriters, slide rules, foxes, elms, pigeons. This sort of goodness needn’t matter. And a good such and such might have no value whatsoever. A complication is that the everyday notion of a thing is very wideranging, and might be thought to include facts, values, properties, relations as well as the living and non-living physical objects I’ve been concerned with here. Even so, it can still be maintained – and this is going to be of considerable importance in much of what follows – that having good things isn’t obviously, always, or even in general, a good thing. This is, then, a key contrast between good that and good for. Nevertheless, the two are closely linked. I say it’s good that veganism is on the up. Someone might ask, well, what’s good about it? I reply that this is good for us, will make us

Terms

29

healthier. Or, it’s good for the animals then able to live out their lives in peace. Or again, it’s good for vegetable production and so in turn for food supplies and so for people more generally. So then I am attempting to explain, at least in part, my good that by pointing to some or other good for. Yet more than this is needed. The claim that such and such is good for so and so doesn’t, in itself, give us any reason to want this such and such, and so doesn’t in itself support any good that claim. But clearly there often are reasons for doing or wanting such and such, and many good for claims are deserving of our support. What is needed, then, is to distinguish among the good for claims, and to explain why in some cases there is reason to do what is good for this thing, while in others there is not. There is more on this in the two chapters to come, but here are pointers. There is never reason to do what is good for knives, I’ll say, unless knives, and in particular good knives, are good for something else and, moreover, something else that matters. And the same for artefacts generally. More controversially, there is no reason to do what is good for trees unless, again, having trees, and in particular good trees, is good in turn for something else. In contrast, there is reason to do at least some of what is good for cats, just for the sake of the cats. There is reason, for example, to save cats from their torturers. What explains these distinctions? I’m going to say, but later, that the truth in hedonism is important here. Now the objections. First, some will say there are exceptions to this claim about artefacts. Consider, for example, great paintings. Whether or not they’re to our taste there is, it will often be said, straightforward reason to do what is good for them – clean them, check them for damage, protect them from damp. So at least some artefacts, the claim goes, do matter, just in themselves. A second objection, seemingly different, will turn out to be related. Someone might say that it is good, for example, that we keep our promises. And this continues to be good even when keeping promises is good for no one and for nothing.10 So then at least some good that claims must be allowed to stand, even though they are altogether detached from the good for, and so, in turn, from good things. A further objection appeals to a partial continuum. Nothing, I might say, is good for the environment as such. The environment matters rather as clouds or waterfalls might matter – various living things, some of which do, in themselves, matter, depend upon it. Similarly, nothing is good for the planet as such. Its being in this or that condition has, at best, instrumental value. But consider now the not unfamiliar claim that such and such is good for the universe.11 Attach this to some of its more plausible candidates – the existence of people, great art, or happiness – and it is surely clear that this is not literally true. Unlike good for us, or the biosphere, or the planet, it doesn’t even begin to make sense to suggest that the entire universe can be in a good or bad condition, that it can fourish or deteriorate, or that it has a good of its own. Nor should it be suggested – as might references to the environment’s or the planet’s good – that we should construe good for the universe in terms of what is good for us. Only hubris would support this. Rather, what uses of this phrase appear to mean, in contrast to other good fors, is that this such and such is just good, or good in itself, or good simpliciter, and not, as on the face of it the phrase suggests, good for something else, bigger, and intergalactic.

30

Terms

So then the three objections are linked. Some objects – and perhaps the Mona Lisa is among them – are good, and in a way that matters, just in themselves. The obtaining of some facts – that we keep our promises, say – is a good thing, just good, even if it is good for no one. And we don’t properly reinstate good for by appealing, in such cases, to what benefts the universe. This gives us just a different way of making the same point. And that point can be made in familiar terms. The objection, then, to my account of the relations between good for, good that and those items having a good of their own, is that it omits any reference to things being not only good, but also valuable, just in themselves. What is missing, then, is any reference to intrinsic value. What sense, and what use there is in this notion of intrinsic value – and in particular the extent to which it can throw light on questions regarding the value of life – is, of course, of profound importance in what is to follow. It’s an issue I foated towards the end of the previous chapter. And I consider the matter in some detail in the chapter to follow. Right now I want just to underscore the key contention made above. Even if many things are intrinsically valuable many other things are not. Still, many of these other things are good things, have a good of their own, are good examples of their kind. But the point remains – it doesn’t follow from this that these things matter, have any value at all, that we have reasons to care for their survival. Consider bad, and badness. Much of what might be said here involves similar constructions to the above. So we can talk of things, states, that are bad; bad things, bad for, bad that, and so on. But note a difference. Whereas there is often talk of such and such being not only a good thing but also, and more simply, a good – and then of course there is the plural form, goods – only infrequently, I think, will even philosophers talk of the bads, or of such and such being a bad.12 Better and worse Things are not equally good. Some tractors are better than others. Similarly, some terrorists are worse than others. But take two unequally good tractors and, as one will be better than the other, so one will be worse. And as a tractor might be good but worse than a second tractor, so it might be bad, but better than another bad tractor. Imagine the zero level again. While the good things are above, and bad things below this level, there are better and worse things on both of its sides.13 As with goodness, some talk about betterness might, if not qualifed, be misunderstood. I claim that drug X is better than drug Y. You appear puzzled. I explain, it is better for those with asthma. Or I present you with two books and insist the frst is better than the second. Quickly thumbing them through, you demur. I explain it is better as a doorstop. The terms ‘better’ and ‘worse’ are, I want to say, refexive: if A is better than B, then B is worse than A. Similarly with ‘better as’ and ‘better for’. Someone might think the claim here holds for straightforward situations, but is under tension in circumstances more complex. But I say it holds throughout. If A is a better drug than B for asthma sufferers, then B is a worse drug than A, again for those same

Terms

31

sufferers. If drug B is better than nothing for these people then nothing – getting no treatment – is worse for them than B. Similarly, in a more troubling case, and one I return to later, if existing is better for you than not existing, then not existing is worse for you than existing. This, I’ll say, is true. And if we have doubts about the consequent then we should have doubts about the antecedent also. I want to say, also, that ‘better’ and ‘worse’ are essentially comparative. A thing cannot just be better. It must be better than something. If A is better than B, then, it seems, either A and B refer to two things which can in this way be compared, or they refer to two states of the same thing. My knife might be better than yours, or it might be better now, after cleaning and sharpening, than it was yesterday. Here there are two states that the knife, at some time or other, is actually in. Alternatively, it might be better now, after cleaning and sharpening, than it would have been now, had I left it untouched. One state is actual, and the other counterfactual. It is dirty and blunt. It would have been better, had I cleaned and sharpened it, than it would have been had I only cleaned it. So I compare here two counterfactual states. In contrast, good and bad are only implicitly comparative. My good knife, as it’s good, is better than your bad knife. But my good knife is good even if there are no other knives in existence, and nothing than which it is better or worse. And note what is implied by this. A good knife is straightforwardly better than a bad knife. We can claim this just in virtue of knowing what knives are supposed to be like, and then comparing these examples. But comparisons elsewhere are not straightforward. Is a good knife better than an indifferent tomato? We perhaps need to have some end in mind – cutting or eating, for example – before we can come to a view. Similarly if I assert, or deny, that a good knife is better than nothing. Suppose you are tempted to deny this. Then, once again, you reveal yourself a friend of intrinsic value, of things being good simpliciter, or good for the universe. You might think that just having stuff is a good thing, or at least that having good stuff is a good thing, And, so either way, this stuff is better than nothing. Better for, and better as, are similarly essentially comparative. So then, this is better for you than that. Or, this is better as a such and such than is that. You must eat one of two sandwiches. One of them will be better for you than the other. But both, just the one, or neither might be good for you. Suppose you’re thin and need to eat. Both might be good for you, but the bigger one will be better for you. Suppose you’re fat and need to diet. Neither is good for you but the smaller one will be better (less bad) for you. It might be objected that in this situation both are worse for you. So neither is better. But there are different comparisons in play. The smaller sandwich is better for you than the bigger. But at the same time it is worse for you than simply passing on lunch. Having nothing is better for you than having this sandwich. I made some comment on good for earlier. But more might be said here in relation now to better for. First, shall we say of good for, as we said of good, that this is only implicitly comparative? Suppose there is just the one knife. So there is no knife than which this knife is better. And we may well demur from saying that a good knife is better than nothing. Suppose there is just the one sandwich.

32

Terms

If this sandwich is good for you, it is better for you than nothing. So good for, it seems, is friendlier to comparatives than is good. But then it is less friendly to absolutes. Though a sandwich which is good will be above the break-even point for sandwiches, a sandwich which is good for you might not put you above the break-even point for people.14 You are ill and remain ill, but slightly less so, after eating the sandwich. Suppose now that I clean and service the tractor. I do here something that is good for the tractor. It will be better for, improved by, beneft from a clean. But though it will now be in a better condition or state, it won’t necessarily be in a good condition or state. It might still be a bad tractor. Are we in danger, then, of losing here any distinction between better for and good for? There is a distinction. If a sandwich is good for you, it is better for you than nothing. If a sandwich is better for you it is better for you than something, perhaps another sandwich. But it might not be better for you, and might indeed be worse for you, than nothing. A fnal point here relates to the key distinction of the previous section. I can choose between doing A and doing B. If I do A, this will be better for some thing or other than if I do B. But still, there may be no reason for me to do A. And this, rather than some reason which is by further considerations outweighed. As I can do what is good for a thing but nevertheless have no reason to do what is good, so also for doing what is better. And it is worth saying now that the same point relates to the following section. As for better, so too for beneft. I might be well placed to beneft some thing, but still have no reason to produce this beneft. Beneft and harm The good chair is altered in some way, and becomes a better chair. Perhaps we recover it in a new fabric. Or we fx the wobbly leg. What we do to the chair, in making it better, or improving it, doing what is good for it, benefts the chair. Even a bad chair can be made better, and, even if it remains less than good, still it is benefted. The use of the term ‘beneft’ is wide-ranging; we can beneft, as well as artefacts, all of plants, animals, people, institutions, processes. Suppose we make the chair worse, do what is bad for it.15 Do we then harm it? And is that term similarly wide-ranging? There’s a further term, ‘damage’, which is more often used for artefacts, and often used too for trees, plants, and parts or features of organisms. So, you’ll damage, rather than harm, your back, or your health, for example. Both beneft and harm are widely used both as active and passive verbs and also as nouns. This can make for some complications. The doctor prescribes aspirin for your backache. You take these for a week, and then things start to get better. We can ask, when were you benefted? Or alternatively, when did he beneft you? We might give different answers. And it might help if we explain why we give the answers we give. Or you leave broken glass on the forest foor and six months later a young girl steps upon it. Suppose we ask, when did the harm occur? It can be useful here to distinguish between the harming event and the harmed state. You did what would harm her long before she received the harm.16

Terms

33

So then in one unpuzzling way someone might be harmed even when they don’t exist.17 Again, there’s more in the next section. Consider, however, a paradigm case of harm, where these timing complications don’t obtrude. Your child is harmed by tripping, falling, grazing her knee on her walk to school. And there are two important features of such a case. First, she exists both before and after the trip. And second, tripping makes her situation worse. The case, we might say, satisfes both a two-state requirement, and a worsening requirement for harms.18 But are these really thoroughgoing requirements, or just features of many of the most obvious cases in which harm occurs? What I’ve here labelled as the worsening requirement can be construed in two different ways. And the example points to the frst of these, and what has been called the Time Comparative Account of harm. The idea is clear – harm occurs when a thing’s state or condition becomes worse than previously it was. This can be refned a little – we might resist thinking that the natural deteriorations associated with ageing should be considered as harms, and want instead to point to some abnormality, some distinctive cause. So, we might say, some harming event – the trip – puts your daughter into a harmed state – suffering a painful knee. She is now worse off than she was. But as an alternative, consider the Counterfactual Comparative Account. Here the idea is that you might harm someone not by making their condition worse than it was, but rather worse than it would have been had you not intervened. So, for example, you harm someone by intercepting the letter advising them of their lottery win – you prevent them from becoming better off than they were – or, in another example, stopping the medical supplies from reaching the sick. Perhaps here you prevent them, not from getting better, but from having their decline, or worsening, slowed down. Some have suggested, as an alternative, the Bad State Account.19 Here to be harmed is to be in a bad state. What this account targets is something a little uncomfortable about its rivals, the idea that merely worsening is harming. I prevent a billionaire from acquiring an extra dollar. He is worse off than he would have been, fnancially. Yet talk of harm here seems strained. He remains, fnancially, in very good shape. The bad state account rejects, then, both the worsening requirement and the two-state requirement. But the account is not viable. In brief, benefting and harming sits more comfortably with the comparatives of better and worse than it does with the absolutes of good and bad. One concern is about the absence of a previous state. Certainly someone can come into existence in a bad state. But there is no need, and surely a little awkwardness, about describing this as a harmed state. Another concern is about the quality of a previous state. You have use of none of your limbs. The surgeon operates and gives you partial use of one arm. This is a different state, and better, yet it is still a bad state. But clearly the surgeon hasn’t harmed you. So it remains, I think, very hard to see how harming can be detached from worsening, and not easy to see how it can require your overall state to be bad.20 For notice here that the surgeon appears clearly to beneft you. But if you can be benefted without being put into a good state, surely you can be harmed without being put into a bad state. None of this is to deny that there is an evident and legitimate concern about the states that

34

Terms

people, and things, are in. Someone might be in a bad state, and there are usually reasons to regret and remedy that. But there is a similarly evident and legitimate concern for how we, and they, have arrived in these states, and what routes might be taken to get into different states. Thus bad states, and harmed states. And there is just no reason to collapse the distinctions here.21 Given the exit of the bad state account, which should we prefer of those remaining? We should prefer they are combined. The clearest cases of harm, those which are intuitively most compelling, are where someone is made both worse off than they were, and worse off than they would have been. And, we might add, where the worsening is more than trivial. Thus it is with your daughter when she falls and grazes her knee. Add further information – falling and grazing distracts her from the agony of her toothache, but at the same time prevents her from getting to the dentist; or, supposing that if she hadn’t fallen then she’d have been hit by a stray bullet in a drive-by shooting – and we need to complicate what we say. But rather than attempt to reach a verdict – harmed or not harmed – about these convoluted scenarios, we do better to remember that we’re considering everyday terms here, and we shouldn’t expect there always to be crisp necessary and suffcient conditions for their proper use. In explaining what is going on we can always qualify and augment what frst we are inclined to say, give a full account of the situation, and end it there.22 An important summary point can be made here about the argument so far. It is common in the literature to contrast, as is said, the evaluative and the normative. But use of any such phrase is, at best, misleading. I’ve insisted that goodness and value easily come apart – a good knife might have no value, and a valuable knife might not be any good. So then a better knife might also lack value, benefting it, and similarly harming it might make no difference to its value, and so on. In one sense, if I assess a knife, or tractor, or oak, or life, I evaluate it. That is fne, so long as we allow that such evaluations, even when a thing gets a high score, carry no implications for value. Existence and non-existence The ordinary everyday things that exist – physical objects – can continue to exist, even though they change. When, but not only when, they change for better or for worse, it is often appropriate to talk of their being benefted, or damaged, or harmed. These things that exist can also, and in time will, cease to exist. And all of such things, at some time or other, come into existence. Think of some everyday things you might encounter – a tree, a tractor, a platypus, a person. For each of these there was a very long period when the thing didn’t exist, there’s now a very short period when it does exist, and there will soon be a further long period when it exists no more. Suppose the existence of these things is within our remit. We can create and destroy. Suppose we bring these things into existence in a good condition. And then, after some time, we hasten their end, destroy the things, and take them out of existence. Suppose, had we not done this, they would have continued to be in a good condition. Various questions can now be asked.

Terms

35

If we destroy a thing and cause it, ahead of time, to cease to exist, do we damage or harm that thing? And if we bring a thing into existence, in a good condition, do we beneft that thing? We can ask here also, is what we do better for that thing, and again, is what we do good for that thing? Similarly, about endings, we can ask whether what we do is bad for, or worse for, the thing whose existence is terminated. Before saying anything at all about how these questions should be answered, I want to warn against a mistake which, in beginning upon answers, we might be tempted to make. There’s non-existence, existence, and then non-existence again. Someone might think the structure here indicates there should be some symmetry to our answers – if it can be, for example, bad for you to cease to exist, then surely it can be good for you to start to exist. If you can be harmed by death, you can be benefted by life, and so on. But, because of the direction of time, the assumption of symmetry should be resisted. Think about our options, say, where a tree is concerned. If we consider starting its life, then we either bring the tree into existence or we do nothing. In the frst scenario the tree exists for a while, while in the second it never exists.23 Consider now ending its life. We either destroy the tree ahead of time or we do nothing. But there isn’t an option of undoing the existence it’s already had. Here, in the frst scenario, the tree exists for a shorter period, in the second it exists for a longer period. And so something like the two-state requirement has re-emerged. Suppose we think that existing is a condition of a thing’s being in any state or condition whatsoever. So then if we altogether destroy a tree on Tuesday it is, it seems, certainly not in a harmed state on Wednesday. But still we can compare the longer and shorter life histories, note the tree is unambiguously an occupant of both, suppose that the former is better for the tree than the latter, and so claim that it is harmed by being destroyed, and benefted if that destruction should somehow be prevented. There are no good reasons, then, fatly to deny that death, or ceasing to be, can be a harm.24 In contrast, starting doesn’t obviously admit any of this. We might, for some reason or other, want to say it is good for the tree to come into existence, but this can’t be because it is in a better condition when it exists than when it never exists. A tree that never exists, it may well seem, just isn’t, ever, in any condition at all. So we should be wary about getting any help with the starting questions, simply by considering the business of ending.25 An important and infuential discussion of these matters occurs in an appendix to Reasons and Persons.26 Parft asks whether causing someone to exist can beneft that person. This, he says, is a question that has been ‘strangely neglected’.27 In working to an answer he suggests that although coming into existence isn’t better for a person (because we cannot compare the two states of not existing and existing, and claim that the former is worse for, the second better for the person), we might still say (on the assumption he has a good life) that it is good for him. Unlike better for, good for doesn’t, he says, imply a comparative. And from here he is happy to propose, though he doesn’t want to insist, that causing someone to exist does beneft them, even if this beneft is, as he says, of a peculiar kind.

36

Terms

There are, I think, grounds for reservations about all this. Three points. First, Parft says, very near the outset, that if a certain sort of life is good, it is better than nothing. Someone at all sympathetic to my remarks about good knives might have reservations about this. I return to it below. Second, a good deal of the discussion is built on the claim that there are important parallels between issues about starting, and about ending lives.28 But I’ve given reasons for doubting this. Third, even if it is in the end legitimate, the move from good for to beneft is perhaps underexplained. But we can consider briefy – for there will be more later – some of the detail. Let’s assume that Mark has a good life. Now suppose I say it was better for Mark to come into existence, or that he’s better off existing. It can be asked, better for him than, or better off than, what? The replies make a comparison with non-existence. And it seems to be then implied, as explained earlier, that it would have been worse for him, or he would have been worse off, if he’d never existed. Now one can be in a worse state without being in a bad state, so the concern here isn’t over the implausible claim that non-existence is intrinsically bad for someone. But still, it is perhaps hard to see how we can talk of Mark’s never existing being worse for him, or its making him worse off. Never existing, it might seem, makes you an improper candidate for occupying any state. Given the links between worse and better, this issues in doubts about better. This is a brief sketch of the argument’s early stages. And so far so good. But then Parft wants to make a further, and contrasting, claim: Causing someone to exist is a special case because the alternative would not have been worse for this person. We may admit that, for this reason, causing someone to exist cannot be better for this person. But it may be good for this person. In this move from ‘better’ to ‘good’ we admit that the Full Comparative Requirement is not met.29 A quibble. The use of italics here seems to permit the claim that we’ve moved here from better to good. But to be more accurate, the shift is from better for to good for. And while it can readily be agreed that Mark has a good life, we might hold back from allowing that this life is good for him. For, like better for, good for does, contrary to Parft’s claim, and as I’ve said, appear to sustain comparatives; if what I do is good for the tractor, I make the tractor better off, put it into better condition, than it was. Parft seems to think the use of good for in this context is perfectly proper, even if we then have to concede that talk of benefts is non-standard or peculiar. But perhaps he should allow that this use of good for is non-standard also. And if we go this far, then why not grant also that we can use better for similarly in a non-standard or peculiar way. At least then we preserve the intuitive connection between beneft and bettering. The alternative, of course, is to rule all three locutions out of court, leaving only good to describe a new life. And the alternative, I suggest, is to be preferred. There is an extraordinary omission in all this. Why should we spend all this time wondering whether causing can beneft a person, and think that to neglect

Terms

37

to do this is strange? The endeavours here are altogether justifed if benefting people matters, and is something we have reason to do. For if this matters then deciding whether we can beneft them in this way, by bringing them into existence, also matters. But it is just wrong, I’ve claimed, to assume we have reason to go around benefting things generally; knives, tractors, plants can often be left to fend for themselves. Perhaps people are different here. And often we do have reason to beneft people, and do what is good for them – save them from death, disease, disfgurement, for example. But often isn’t always, and the kinds of concerns we have for those in existence just aren’t present when existence is still to come. So even if causing does beneft, it won’t obviously follow that there is any reason to cause. Moreover, what should be the key question here – is there reason to create more people? – stands independently. There may be reason, whether or not causing benefts these new people. And causing might beneft, even though there is no reason for, and even if there is reason against, making new people. And there is, also, and related to this, an extraordinary claim. Go back to the frst reservation I noted above. Is a good life, as Parft contends, better than nothing? There is an ambiguity here. But he denies that coming into existence can be better for a person. So perhaps he means it is purely and simply better. I have an empty garage. It would be very odd to look around and think that having good tractors in there would be better than nothing, better than leaving it empty.30 But perhaps it is different with people. We might remember that God, allegedly, looked at the empty world and decided it would be better for the introduction of lives, with lives like ours as the icing on the cake. If Parft is serious in thinking that good lives are better than nothing, better simpliciter, better for the universe, he will surely think also that there is reason to create these lives.31 And there will be reason to do this whether or not this will be good for those living these lives. Having decided this, decided to create good lives, lives which will of course be found to be good by those living them, there doesn’t seem to be much point in, and little hanging on, the further question of whether creating these lives will actually beneft those living them.32

Life As with the frst half, there is both a theme, and an exception to that theme, here. The exception is the discussion of oughts and reasons, coming towards the chapter’s end. This connects, of course, with the identifcation of the goods that matter and with values. But I hope it will be clear why it is placed here. This apart, the theme is with important topics relating to life, or lives, and so with questions about whether we are living things; how far interests, well-being, moral status extend beyond living things; and with the importance, for certain living things, of pleasures and pains. Persons and animals The sanctity view, in what are for most of us its more familiar versions, insists on a sharp distinction between people and animals. We are the ones that count.

38

Terms

But it has to be remembered that we too are animals, even if there are deep and important differences, relating to our personhood, between us and other animals. Some will soften the distinction here, and claim that certain other animals are persons too. Others will want to sharpen it, holding that we (and probably we alone) are essentially persons. This view, and then its rival, need to be considered here. What we can call the person view doesn’t deny that there are human animals, and nor does it deny that our relationship to such animals is close. We have bodies that are biological organisms, we developed from within the animal kingdom, and when we cease to be so too, in many cases, does a human animal. But the view has it that these, even if glaring, are nevertheless accidental or contingent features of the things we are. So then, in two ways, persons and human animals can fail completely to overlap. First, a human animal might not be a person. As persons, we come into existence with the development of personhood. No one should deny that personhood develops in early infancy, but is never present at conception, during the development of the embryo, or at birth. So on this view we come into existence gradually, and later than normally we think. No one should deny, also, that personhood often disappears before the animal disappears, as a result of damage or disease to the brain. So often, and regrettably, we cease to exist earlier than we think. In fact, then, the lives of human animals can, at both margins, extend beyond those of persons.33 The second overlap failure is, thus far, merely speculative. But, it will be claimed, a person might not be an animal. Many will hold that if the head, or the brain, or the relevant parts of the brain can be sustained, in working order, in laboratory conditions, then we will have there a person, even while not having a human animal. In these examples, there are of course animal parts, but a seemingly small development of this view contends that we, as persons, can continue to survive if the contents of the brain can be transferred, perhaps frst just to a computer and then second to an artifcial but functioning body. This is the aim of those who want to transcend the limits of death, either then continuing forever or at least for a very long time. It is, we might think, a secularized version of the soul view. The other view, relatively new within philosophical circles, but perhaps more in tune with everyday thinking, is that we are essentially animals.34 So being a person is a contingent but important aspect or part of our lives. The views will agree on when and how personhood develops and declines, but on this animal view being a person is a phase we go through, somewhat akin to being a painter or a postman. There can be dispute about the details, but on this view we come into existence somewhere between conception and birth,35 and cease to exist either at death or with the body’s dissolution. Given that you are an animal then whatever scientists might thereafter succeed in doing with your detached brain or brain contents is irrelevant to your chances of survival, even if what happens to it, or them, is something you have reason to care about. But care or not, the view is that we, the likes of us, those we know, are essentially animals. It doesn’t say that persons are essentially animals, so it doesn’t deny that scientists might someday build from scratch a wholly artifcial person.

Terms

39

Which view is correct? I dislike them both. A better view respects common sense so far as is possible, and resists essentialist claims of both varieties. So we should hold that we in fact come into existence around conception and cease to exist at death or dissolution36 and yet at the same time agree that we could in principle continue to exist as a disembodied head, a brain in a vat, or even as a highly sophisticated computer programme. But should we want to exist in such a fashion? It may depend on who we are, what we are like, our interests and concerns. A philosopher, mathematician or chess player may prefer, and with reason, this attenuated existence to annihilation. For a dancer, actor, mountaineer, things may be different.37 What this opens up, then, is an area of complexity in thinking about the good, valuable, or meaningful life. We might decide, for example, that entering the experience machine could offer a good life to a person, but not to an animal. No animal, including a human animal, could be thought to prosper in circumstances like that. What the example might seem to suggest, however, is that whereas our continuing as an animal is something we might with reason forfeit, our being a person is not. Consider the life of someone who is brain dead. This is unlikely to be described as a good life, even by those unwilling to switch off life support. Consider a different case, one we might hope is only fctional. Someone young and beautiful but vain and air-headed accepts what the scientists say. They say that day-to-day living will take its toll. But the appearance of youth, and the reality of beauty, can be sustained under laboratory conditions in something like a persistent vegetative state. Choose this, abandon personhood, and you will be for decades admired. But this again, even if selected, isn’t a good life. We can make bad choices. We might think that for those who are persons the good life requires at least personhood. Interests and well-being A wide range of things can be in good or bad, better or worse conditions. But, I suggested, only living things can be harmed. Should we say, also, that only living things can have interests? It might be thought that this risks setting the bar too low: The capacity for suffering and enjoying things is a prerequisite for having interests at all, a condition that must be satisfed before we can speak of interests in a meaningful way. It would be nonsense to say that it was not in the interests of a stone to be kicked along the road by a schoolboy. A stone does not have interests because it cannot suffer. Nothing that we can do to it could possibly make a difference to its welfare.38 Schoolboys shouldn’t go around kicking things willy-nilly, but they do no harm, and nothing wrong, in kicking the odd stone. Kicking a mouse along the street is different. The mouse is sentient, can be harmed, and will feel pain if kicked. And it has interests in not being kicked. But does having interests derive from and

40

Terms

depend upon sentience?39 Singer says it does. But he is just wrong here. Living things have interests whether or not they are sentient. It is in the interests of a tree to be watered, not to have its roots cut off in order to lay pipes or cables, not to have us indifferent to climate change. That which undermines, or threatens to undermine, the tree’s fourishing is against the interests of the tree. And similarly for other living things, whether or not they are sentient. It is in the interests of oysters that the water they live in is not hopelessly polluted. What makes such claims true is that we regularly and coherently speak this way.40 Moreover, it surely seems that we speak the literal truth here – talking thus about the interests of non-sentient beings isn’t a metaphor, or an excusable extension. Do non-living things also have interests? I’ve distinguished between the works of nature and (as we used to say) the works of man. Many of the latter – knives, tractors, paintings, and more – can be in a good or bad, better or worse, state or condition. But it isn’t better for a rock or cloud to be large or small, rough or smooth, of a regular or irregular shape. This explains why it can’t have interests, and why, although it can be destroyed, it can’t be damaged. But if a painting can be damaged, and it’s bad for it to be damaged, and, further, as I’ve claimed, this is bad whether or not we care, does it then follow that it has interests in not being damaged? It doesn’t follow. Similarly, though it will be good for it to be regularly serviced, it doesn’t follow from this that a tractor has interests. But all that is at issue here is the question of how consistently and regularly we speak. There’s no principled objection to claiming that artefacts like these have interests, and that we can work for or against them. My sense of this, however, is that perhaps most people have reservations about extending interest talk this far. Yet this isn’t to say that we are mostly inclined to restrict such talk to the living. We often speak as if countries, organizations, governments, businesses do have interests. And it is probably no accident that the examples here, in contrast to rocks and paintings, are among the sorts of things that are said to have rights and duties, and are often treated, legally, as persons. The term ‘interest’ is, of course, ambiguous. As well as the things which are in our interests, which are good for us, there are also the things in which we take an interest, which we fnd interesting, which are of interest to us. Thus my interests in biking, beer, barbeques. The different senses – what captures my attention, and what is of beneft to me – can come apart. It might be in my interests to stop smoking even though I have no interest in this, and am happy to continue. I have a considerable interest in catching the last episodes of a TV box set, though many will say it’s against my interests to spend my time this way. I should be doing my piano practice, or working on the bibliography. And while, as I’ve claimed, living things generally have interests in the frst sense, only human beings, and perhaps some animals, can have interests in the second sense. It is a mistake, and perhaps one that Singer is making, not to distinguish between these two senses, or to think that only things having interests in the second sense – concerns, hobbies, projects – can have them in the frst sense. But any confusions here might in part be explained by noting that there is in fact a third locution falling between the other two. Thus, in all, interested in, has

Terms

41

an interest in, and in the interests of. I have no real need for more income, and am somewhat bored by the fnancial markets. But still, I have an interest in, some investment in, certain securities. People interested in the value of life will, many of them, be interested in wellbeing, and levels of well-being, also. So we can ask – what is well-being? What sorts of things have well-being? What does their well-being consist in? Talk of well-being is ubiquitous. There are almost always well-being sections in the few remaining bookshops. It often overlaps with spirituality and the fad for mindfulness. There are health and well-being clinics. Government departments busy themselves with its promotion. What these commonplace observations suggest is that well-being is of immediate and frst-person concern to human beings. And what this concern fastens on, obviously enough, is our being well. But now it fastens just as much on our feeling well – given the complex creatures we are then well-being, as does the good life, involves our psychological as well as our physiological states. So, it might be said, it connects with, and takes into account, not only our health, but also our happiness. But how close is the overlap? We might think you can have a good life – construed in terms of meaning, success, or morality – even when well-being levels are not particularly high. And, in contrast, it could be claimed that although no one can have a good life, they could nevertheless have high levels of well-being inside an experience machine. But many will think that well-being and the good life come together: you can have both, or neither, inside the machine. Is well-being restricted to human beings? Many of those who have written both at length and perceptively about well-being simply neglect to address this question,41 and proceed as if the fortunes only of human beings, or perhaps only persons, are at issue here. But it is hard to fnd an argument for this. And perhaps, again, there cannot be an argument. We can’t claim, for example, that as trees have no mental life so they have no level of well-being. For we could readily say that well-being is a measure of how well things are going for this or that, and then depending what this or that is, there will be different factors to take into account. All philosophers can do here, once again, is to track the terms we use and the manner in which we use them, pointing out, when appropriate, inconsistences. And, as a matter of fact, well-being talk, concerned with health and happiness, does tend to focus around human persons. Consider animals, however. Even if we doubt that a rabbit can in fact be happy – for happiness may be a psychological state of some complexity – it has, as a sentient creature, certain feelings with which we might be concerned. And unsurprisingly, many people want to extend well-being talk to at least many animals also.42 A related term here is welfare. Indeed, so closely is welfare related to wellbeing that there is no need to give it a separate treatment. This isn’t to say the terms are therefore straightforwardly interchangeable, but the differences are more of style than substance.43 And we might note that where animals are concerned, talk of welfare is markedly more common than talk of well-being. A number of suggestions, some of them tentative, can now be made concerning the relations between several of the terms discussed thus far. Both living

42

Terms

things and artefacts can be in a good or bad, better or worse, condition or state. Of at least living things – there may be doubts about artefacts – we can say, and often do say, that it is in their interests to be in a good or better condition or state. It is in their interests that their lives go well. And then of sentient things, we can also say, and often do say, that they have levels of well-being that can be higher or lower. We are less likely to say this of living things more generally. But now we can ask, of all this, about what here matters, and gives us reason to care. There is often reason to care about artefacts – reason to care, for example, that the bus is safe. But my concern here is with what matters for its own sake, and not with what matters for the sake of others. And an important point here is negative; I want to deny that a thing’s having interests, just in itself, gives us any reason to care for that thing. It is, for example, in the interests of trees to be watered, but often there is no reason not to let them die. When there is reason this is never simply because this is good for the tree. But, in contrast, it may seem that there is always a reason (though this can, of course, easily be overridden) to promote a thing’s well-being. And the reason can be, and often simply is, that this is good for that thing, and good in a way that matters.44 Sentience, then, is making a difference. Whether this is too crude, or whether the way it seems is in fact the way it is will, however, need some further probing. Pleasures and pains Human beings, and many other animals, are able to feel, and often do feel, in different combinations, pleasures and pains. These are undeniably important contributors to well-being. Pleasures are good, while pains are bad. What is more, they are, or so it may seem, respectively intrinsically good, and intrinsically bad.45 As we have reason to be concerned for well-being, so we have reason to be concerned about the pleasures and pains in a creature’s life. Pleasures and pains matter. Other things equal, the greater the pain, the worse the life is going, while the greater the pleasure, the better the life. This, so far, is surely uncontroversial. But now two further claims are often made, and these are controversial. The frst is that pleasures and pains are, as is insisted upon by hedonists, the only contributors to well-being. The second is that not only do pleasures and pains both matter, they matter equally. This is a contention of classical utilitarianism. Both claims need to be considered, the second at somewhat greater length. And, in relation to both claims, we need to think in some detail about what pleasures and pains are like, or their phenomenology. Start with pain, and start by understanding this in a narrow sense, where ‘pain’ refers to a particular kind of unwelcome bodily sensation – thus those connected with acute toothache, or a dislocated shoulder, or gout. There are other negative sensations – dull aches, itching, feeling somewhat too cold or too hot, dizziness. These can be distinguished from pains, at least in the narrow sense. Most of us have had some experience of pain – we know what it feels like. Pain in this sense counts against well-being. We have, it will seem, a corresponding understanding and experience of pleasure; this time a welcome bodily sensation – sex or ice

Terms

43

cream or feeling warm, rather than hot. Pleasure in this sense counts for wellbeing. But should we agree with the hedonist that nothing else counts? If we understand pleasures and pains in the narrow sense then hedonism is altogether implausible. The further negative sensations mentioned above – and of course there are others besides – also count against well-being. But there are more than sensations to take into account here. Suppose you go through life always fearful of burglars. Or you worry that there is no God. Or you spend, as you acknowledge, too much time watching breakfast television. Again, well-being is impacted. Someone might claim that it pains them to think about the amount of time they waste, but ‘pain’ here seems to be used in a very loose sense. And although hedonism might be reconstrued along such lines – all that matters are pleasures and pains generously understood – it is probably best replaced by a near neighbour – a mental state account of well-being. The claim here, then, is that all that really matters to you – and by implication all that we have direct reason to be concerned about – is how things seem to you, as it were, on the inside. The qualifers are important – it can matter to you, and I can have reason to care about your eyesight, or whether your sister is in work, or whether Venice can be saved. But this is because these things may well impact on your mental states. Were this not the case, then, the claim can be, these things wouldn’t matter. So this mental state account of well-being will hold that much that you think is important, bad for you, and best avoided – being betrayed behind your back, being slandered after your death, living inside an experience machine – isn’t really bad for you at all. Or at least such things don’t impact on our well-being. For it is, as I’ve said, possible to hold that in determining whether someone has lived, or is living a good life, there is more than well-being that needs to be taken into consideration. Either way, the mental state account of well-being puts pressure on a number of seemingly well-founded and certainly widely held beliefs about the things that matter when considering what makes for us a life worth living. Suppose we are neither hedonists nor supporters of the mental state account. We’ll still think that pleasures and pains matter. And we may well think they matter equally, that the reasons to increase pleasure have the same weight as the reasons to decrease pains. But there is considerable room for reservations about this. We frst need to understand what is being claimed here, and then, by looking further into the phenomenology of pleasures and pains, see why the claim is unlikely to be true. And I make two suggestions; frst, that pleasures and pains might not have equal weight, and second, that even if they do they still might not have equal value. Pains are bad, pleasures good. In this sense they are opposites. But what might be meant by claiming further that the disvalue of the one is equal to the value of the other? Peter is in pain. His well-being is below the break-even point. We can relieve him of the pain and raise his well-being to this point. Alternatively, we can give him pleasures which weigh against the pain and, by this different means, raise him to this same point. What cannot be meant, by the equal and opposite claim, is just that for some amount of pain, there is some amount of pleasure which will exactly balance the pain. For that is pretty much a truism. What must

44

Terms

be meant, rather, is that we can independently measure the amounts of pleasure and pains in play, and so determine from that alone whether the pleasures will equal and so balance against the pains. If Peter has ten units of pain to contend with, then ten units of pleasure are needed to weigh against this. And this has to be determined antecedently; we cannot frst discover how much pleasure is needed and then stipulate that whatever this amount is it counts as ten units. The claim then is twofold. We can frst measure the amounts of pleasure and pain in play. And then we can discover, via this measure, their value. When the amounts are the same, then values are the same. Suppose we can measure pleasures and pains. It would be an error to assume that equal measures have equal but opposite value. Consider an analogy. Ursula and Odette both have an ideal weight of 120 lbs. Ursula is 10 lbs. under this weight, while Odette is 10 lbs. over. They miss the ideal by equal amounts. Suppose we can assist one or the other to achieve her ideal weight. Is it then a matter of indifference which we choose? Obviously not. Perhaps being overweight, by a certain amount, is more important than being underweight, by that same amount. So then equal weights don’t have equal value independently of their location. Yet while it is clear that we can have equal weights, say, on either side of the balance, it is less clear that there is anything analogous that can properly be said of pleasures and pains. Much more than Regan’s apples and oranges, pleasures and pains are surely very different sorts of things. Here, briefy, and in no particular order, are some reasons for thinking this. We often readily locate pains in some particular part of the body, less often, or less readily with pleasures. The pain is in the knee, or the toe, or just behind the eyes. But we’re unlikely to locate the pleasure of ice cream in the mouth, or listening to music in the ears. There are many kinds of simple pains, perhaps fewer simple pleasures. My dog and I, halfway through a strenuous walk, take a break and lie down on a hillside, in the afternoon sun. Perhaps I think this is pleasant for both of us, in similar ways. But my pleasure is hardly simple, and is affected by my contrasting today’s weather with the rain and cold of the previous week; by refecting on the walk, and thinking this rest deserved; by a conscious delight in the natural world as opposed to city life; by counting myself lucky I can afford to take time off and do this; by my rather pretentious recollection of Hopkins, Wordsworth, even Petrarch having been in similar situations, and having felt similar pleasures. For my dog, there’s none of this. Not only are pleasures often complex, we talk often of their being higher or lower. But there are not, correspondingly, higher and lower pains.46 Pain can easily become intense, all-consuming, and thus very bad. It is perhaps less clear that there can be in a similar fashion intense and allconsuming pleasures. But suppose they can. We don’t think of them as very good. Unlike Descartes, we think that animals, and indeed many animals, can feel pain. But it is perhaps harder to imagine that all of these animals – for they will include pheasants, rabbits, fsh, toads – having much by way of pleasure. Nor need this be puzzling. Suppose we want to connect desires and aversions with pleasures and pains, and then consider their different roles in evolution. We might think that

Terms

45

an aversion to the pain of hunger will motivate rabbits to eat grass just as effectively as would a desire for pleasure. There will be a need for further discussion of pleasures and pains in several of the chapters to follow. The points made here, then, are preliminaries to those discussions. Oughts and reasons I’ve made already some important points about reasons. I’ve said that it doesn’t follow, from its being good for the tree that it is watered, that we have any reason to water the tree. Fail to water it, and it will frst be damaged, and then later die. I can agree that death is bad for the tree. It doesn’t follow that I have any reason to keep it alive. But now there is more to say, both in relation to life’s value and more broadly, about what we have reason to think, want, and do, and also about what we ought to think, want, and do. Suppose there are two worthwhile ends, or things you might do – visit your sick aunt or cheer on your kids in the school pantomime. But you cannot do both. It will seem to many, and I think correctly, that it makes no sense to say you ought to do both; even though it’s true, assuming there is no third thing making a comparable claim on your time, that you ought to do one or the other. Still, there is no obstacle to saying you’ve reasons to do both. In trying to decide what you should do, or ought to do, you are looking not for what you have reason to do, but rather what you have most reason to do. There is potential for confusion here, for while ‘some reason’ appears to contrast explicitly with ‘most reason’, talk of having reasons, or reason, or a reason can all of it fall somewhat indeterminately between these two. It will be safest, then, unless a contrary meaning is made clear, to adopt the more modest interpretation. So suppose you have reason to do X. It doesn’t follow that you ought to do X. You might easily have more reason to refrain from X. Nor does it follow, from your having no reason to do Y, that you ought not to do Y. What does follow, of course, is just that it’s not, or not true, that you ought to do Y. But suppose you ought to visit your aunt. Then it does follow you have reason, and indeed most reason, to visit her. Suppose you ought not to drown the kittens. Then you have reason, and again most reason, not to drown them.47 As well as people having reasons we often talk of there being reasons. And as well as ‘you ought’ we often say ‘it ought’. But at least several of these impersonal locutions involve loose talk. Someone might say there are reasons why dinosaurs died out, but they mean only that there was some cause of this, and that it can be explained. Similarly with ‘it ought to rain soon’ or ‘there ought to be a safe way off this mountain’. None of the standard links with obligation are in place here. But other locutions appear perfectly proper. There is surely nothing amiss in saying, for example, that there are reasons to help the poor, or that there ought to be given help to the poor. We can ask, are there reasons without reasoners? Or to put this a little differently, do humans bring reasons into the world? Of course, nothing has yet been

46

Terms

said about what reasons are. But it’s plausible to suppose they are an upshot of reasoning, and we can get a grip on that. So we reason when we weigh different considerations, think about the case for and the case against some course of action, try to decide what to do. Humans are reasoners, then, but we might think that some cleverer animals can reason, and so are reasoners also. Should we then think that a world without us, and without them, is a world without reasons? We could say that in reasoning we hope to discover certain reasons which independently of us, and so prior to our efforts, are already out there. Or we could instead hold that reasoning, though it operates under constraints, brings reasons into being. Perhaps this is to be preferred. So then ‘there are reasons’ when it is properly used, is elliptical – there are reasons for us, or some of us, to do, want, think, this or that or the other. Similarly with some uses, as in the example above, of ‘there ought’. How do reasons connect with truth? Suppose that Jane, wanting a good life, understands she has reason to care for her health. She believes, truly, that diet is a factor here. She has reasons to manage her diet. She believes also, and this time falsely, that astrology is a factor, and it is best to exercise when Mercury is in Sagittarius, or some such nonsense. But she doesn’t believe – even though in the future scientists, let us imagine, prove the contrary – that there is any reason to watch her apple intake. Does Jane, given her false beliefs, have reason to pattern her exercise to planetary movements? And does she, in spite of her non-culpable ignorance, have reason to count her apples? Tentatively, let me suggest that while knowledge is best, belief comes second, and truth a poor third. So, although we might want to point out where she goes wrong, Jane does have reason, reason to do with consistency, to take planetary motion into account. If she neglects to do this, she exhibits certain shortcomings as a reasoner. But although it would be good for her to pass on the second apple, nothing she believes, or has any reason to believe, gives her a reason to do this. So then there is no reason for her not to indulge.48 Moral status The things having moral status, I want to say, are those things that, directly, or for their own sake, matter morally. But by things, I mean ordinary physical objects. Giving money to charity might matter morally, but isn’t a thing having moral status. And by directly mattering morally I mean not simply that there are reasons, relating to morality, or relating to what we ought to do, for others’ sake, to care what happens to this thing, but that the reasons relate directly to this thing – we should care, for its sake, what happens to it. Medicines don’t have moral status, though there are reasons, relating to well-being, to care what happens to them. So the things – ordinary physical objects – having moral status will include human beings and those animals that can feel pleasure and pain. It won’t include, on my account, non-sentient animals, or trees and plants. For a thing’s having a good of its own won’t suffce for its having moral status.49 What about artefacts? Suppose we believe that what happens to great works of art matters,

Terms

47

and matters independently of their effects on people. It would be a bad thing, we say, if, after we are all dead, the paintings of Titian were to be destroyed. If we believe this, then we believe these paintings too have moral status. Several of those who talk about moral status will talk also of some things having a higher status than others. Suppose I think that people and paintings both have moral status, but that of people is higher. One thing this might mean is that whenever there is a one-to-one decision – save this person or this painting from destruction – then, setting aside side effects, the person comes frst. But another thing it might mean demands that we frst refne what we are to understand by mattering morally. If a thing matters morally then there are reasons to care about some of the things that happen to it. But we shouldn’t assume there are reasons relating to everything that might happen to it. If good paintings matter there are reasons not to destroy them. It doesn’t follow that there are reasons to exhibit them, or frame them, or even to clean them. More controversially, it doesn’t follow, from an animal’s having moral status, that there are reasons to prevent it from suffering a painless death.50 So now a second thing that might be meant by one thing’s having a higher moral status than another is that more of what can happen to it matters directly. Suppose we think that a painless death is bad for people, but not for animals. That will give us grounds for claiming that people have the higher status. The two accounts are in one respect in tension with one another. On the frst, higher status seems like a positive or good thing. We are higher, more important, superior to animals. Unsurprisingly, many will balk at this. On the second, these overtones are absent. More of what can happen to a thing demands a response from us. So here a higher status suggests weakness or vulnerability. Someone might suggest a further reason for a different ranking. Suppose I can save Janet or John from a painless death. John, if saved, will live for one year while Janet, if saved, will live for 30 years. Suppose I think this gives me reason to save Janet, rather than John. It might be claimed that if that is so, then Janet has the higher moral status. But, of course, her status will decline as she gets older. So then status varies between people on the basis of their different properties. And it varies too, within a person, as properties change. I’m not aware of anyone’s having made this suggestion in relation to something like this Janet and John case. But similar suggestions have, of course, often been made. Some people believe that an individual acquires status on the basis of just the kind of thing it is. Not only do Janet and John, but all human animals have, in spite of their differences, the same status. And so if some human beings have a status higher than that of any animal, then all human beings have this higher status. Others believe that status varies in relation to individual properties. So an anencephalic child will have a different status from a ‘normal’ adult. Because of this, then what we are required, or permitted to do regarding this child may well differ from what we are required, or permitted to do regarding the adult. It may be here that if we can save only the one life, then we should save that of the ‘normal’ adult. Further, on this view it may turn out that a human being has the same status as some non-human animal. And if that is possible then of course it may

48

Terms

turn out that it has a lower status. So perhaps assisting the animal comes before assisting the child. The positions here have on occasion been titled, on the one hand, the ‘nature of a kind’ view, and on the other, ‘moral individualism’. They resemble, respectively, the sanctity and quality views outlined in the previous chapter. My sympathies are, of course, with the latter.51 There are just two further points relating to moral status that should be made here. Both relate back to my discussion of Regan in the previous chapter. I noted there the question of whether we postulate, or discover, that some things have inherent worth. The latter view is, I believe, the better. Similarly, several writers want to claim that such status is something that we can give to a thing, or bestow upon it, ascribe to it, or stipulate that it has. An alternative, of course, is that this status is something we discover, or recognize that a thing has. And the alternative is, I believe, to be preferred. The second point concerns a term that Regan often uses, even within the passages I quoted. We can distinguish between moral agents and moral patients, hold that both have moral status but claim that that of agents – those who make decisions about what we ought to do – is higher than that of patients – those who are affected by these decisions, in ways that matter. The distinction here maps on to that between persons and animals. But this is a mistake. Moral patients matter and have moral status. Moral agents matter, have status only insofar as they are also patients. Imagine a machine that is capable of moral thinking, making decisions about what ought to happen, but which has neither feelings nor desires for its own survival. There are only indirect reasons to care what happens to this machine.

Summary The overall aim here has been to deal, in a stepwise fashion, with various of the topics that surface in discussions of value and meaning. Collect and at least introduce them now, and so make economies further on. But I don’t want to exaggerate what some may see as the fragmentary character of this chapter. For there is, as I noted earlier, frst a broad distinction between its two halves and then within those halves, intimacies between the topics. So discussions of good/bad, better/ worse, beneft/harm obviously sit together, and have a clear relevance beyond the sphere of life. Interests, well-being, moral status are similarly linked together and now, along of course with pleasures and pains, are more frmly connected to living things. The section on oughts and reasons is somewhat anomalous; it is certainly needed, but could have been placed elsewhere. A key concern, in the book’s early stages, is to prise apart two things, one of them discussed in some detail here, the other to be similarly treated in the next chapter. I can put this simply; value matters; goodness doesn’t. But this is, of course, too simple. Lots of good things matter enormously; it is important to identify, pursue, promote the good, we all, with reason, want the good life, and so on. Still, I insist on a pair of points. Some object can be good, a good example of its kind, and yet in no way be valuable. Conversely, things that are valuable might not be good at all. This central message of the chapter’s frst half then spills

Terms

49

over into the second. Suppose we now focus on living things. We can recognize that a thing has interests, that such and such would be in its interests, good for it. Moreover, we might, in doing what is good for it, be able to boost its well-being. But still, and contrary to what is often assumed, there might be no reason at all to do this. The critical distinction, then, is that between the goods that matter and those that don’t. In some cases we have reason to improve the situation, circumstances, or standing of something, in other cases there is no reason at all to do this, even though improvements are there to be made. We shouldn’t assume, then, that goodness is always good. It might be suggested that we constitute a special case here, and that there is always some reason to do what is good for, or of beneft to, people. Yet although that might at frst appear at least plausible, the argument of the chapter’s central section will generate doubts. I said there, frst, that we can resist claims that causing someone to exist might in some sense be good for them, and confer upon them some beneft. But suppose you allow this. Still there is a further question of whether there is reason to beneft them in this way. And in this case, surely, we can deny there is any intuitive linking in place. Though some bads, and some harms, matter even while others don’t, things are different, I’ve said, with pains. These always matter. One strand emerging from this chapter, then, is a leaning towards hedonism. But even if pleasures also matter, we might doubt they matter always, and doubt also that pains and pleasures matter equally, and also that different pains on the one hand, and different pleasures on the other, themselves matter equally. There is some way to go then, to get from hedonism to any version of the utilitarian calculus. Pains and pleasures come to those who exist. But we need to consider as well, and in contrast, those who don’t exist. Hence the section sitting roughly at the middle of the chapter. We’ll tend to think that ceasing to exist – dying – is often bad. This is an important topic in Chapter 4. Intuitions about starting to exist may be less clear. Is starting good? And is it good in a way that matters? Making progress on this is the focus in all of Chapters 5–7. Before that, we need more on value, and then more on those lives already under way.

Notes 1 Many of the points I make here have surfaced in various of my recent writings. See especially Belshaw (2016), but also Belshaw (2013). 2 I have little imagination. Knives are much discussed in Geach (1956), tractors in Johnson (1991), and (an illustration used later) sandwiches are much gone over, in various places, by Christian Piller. See, for example, his Piller (2014). 3 Normally this will be so. Imagine a knife only a half inch long. In some special context – perhaps a doll’s house – this might be a good knife. Otherwise not. 4 A case might be made that it is good for particular people if those particular people reproduce. We won’t want to make such a case for oaks. So it makes no difference to the oak what happens to its acorns. But reproduction may, of course, be good for the species. 5 My use of the term ‘goodness’ here should be seen as theory-lite. The well-established and long-running debate about predicative and attributive uses of ‘good’, or good-

50

6

7 8 9

10

11 12 13

14 15

16

Terms ness versus good for, taking in Moore (1903), Geach (1956), Thomson (2001), Kraut (2007, 2011), Piller (2014), and many others, certainly overlaps with but is nevertheless substantially distinct from my purposes here. We have to be alive to the various ambiguities which might arise. A substance which is claimed to be good for greenfy is probably in fact bad for greenfy, and good instead for roses. (And my local supermarket stocks various bacon and ham products under the label ‘Spoilt Pig’. They mean to imply the pigs have been well looked after, but someone might think that pigs are well and truly spoilt by being killed, cured, and sliced). And I might make the point here that once we have the idea of a good such and such, we can establish what would be good for that such and such. So good has priority over good for. Closely related to good that is good to. Thus, it’s good that you exercise, it’s good to exercise, etc. I must note some complications, relating to this good that, good for distinction. First, ‘that’ can disappear. ‘It’s good that you came to the party’ is equivalent to ‘It’s good you came to the party’. Second, and with greater potential for confusion, ‘that’ might be replaced by ‘for’. So consider the claim that it’s good for Jonny to have this life. There is ambiguity here. We might read it either as: good, for Jonny to have this life; or as: good for Jonny, to have this life. The frst of these is equivalent to the good that claim, while the second is more frmly a good for. So then some instances of good for as they appear in everyday discourse can generate reasons. We need to be sensitive to context. And note also how that can have different locations. Contrast ‘It’s good that the plants are watered’ with ‘It’s good for the plants that they are watered’. The frst, I say, implies we have reasons to water them while the second doesn’t imply this. What reasons? If I say simply that this is good for the plants, my alleged reason should be rejected. If I say instead that it’s good for your aunt, it will cheer her, my reasoning is sound. The major aim here is to point to an important distinction where the relation between goodness and reasons is concerned. This, rather than to insist that ordinary language always captures that distinction. Might someone object that it is good for the promise, if it is kept? This, I think, makes no sense. Unlike a tractor or a tree, a promise cannot be in a good or bad condition. What about the institution of promise keeping? Does keeping promises help it fourish? Even this, I think, is somewhat strained. But either way, nothing much will hang on it. This turn of phrase is perhaps especially associated with Sidgwick (1874) but, along with ‘good for the world’, surfaces repeatedly in discussions of impartial or impersonal perspectives. Similarly, we might note that while there is talk both of value and (though less often) of disvalue, there is, in contrast to talk of someone’s values, no talk (or none I’m aware of) of someone’s disvalues. I neither assert nor deny that in all cases admitting of ranking there is a zero level or break-even point. But as I’m agnostic on this I do deny that goodness reduces to betterness. See the essay on this very topic, in Broome (1999). So then I make no claims about goodness being logically prior to betterness, or vice versa. And, of course, a sandwich that is good for you might not be above the break-even point for sandwiches. We should distinguish making things better/worse from doing what is better/worse. If I make things better for you I beneft you, and vice versa. Making things better is, implicitly, making them better than they were. But doing what is better is different. An evil person orders me to cut off your fnger or your hand. It is better for you – less bad – if I cut off your fnger. But I don’t beneft you, rather I harm you, in doing this. Parft (1984: 356–357). In his example the time interval is a hundred years. So the girl doesn’t exist when the glass is dropped. And he wants to claim – surely correctly – that

Terms

17

18

19 20

21

22

23

24

25

26 27

51

this makes no difference to whether he harms her. An exaggeration of these circumstances allows for posthumous killings. And notice – a further complication – that we might identify both the dropping of the glass, and her stepping on it, as a harming event. We might refer to this as a pre-natal harm. And it is unpuzzling because the harming event can precede the harmed state. So called post-mortem harms are more puzzling. These appear to require backward causation. So before you exist is one thing, after you exist another. I discussed this in Belshaw (2009). It might be said that in one of two ways there is a two-state requirement in place also for betterness. Either one thing is interfered with and its state or condition improved, or one thing, presumably in some state, is better than another thing, again presumably in some state. See McMahan (2013), Hanser (2008, 2011), Thomson (2011) for good discussion of all three accounts. And see, in particular, Harman (2004) and Shiffrin (1999) for sustained advocacy of the Bad State Account. I interpret this Bad State Account as holding that being in a bad state is necessary and suffcient for having been harmed. An alternative and more plausible interpretation might hold this is necessary, but not suffcient. More plausible, I agree, but not plausible enough. Harman (2004) both a) defends the Bad State Account and also b) makes a number of claims about, or closely related to, the so-called Non-Identity Problem. As I read it, none of these claims, whether they are ultimately defensible or not, depend on her account of harm going through. All of them can be adequately described and discussed while remaining neutral on harms. We might note what appears to be an asymmetry between harm and beneft. You fy often from London to Los Angeles. As you hope, regular safety checks are carried out on the aircraft. Are you benefted by these checks? Are you harmed if they’re neglected? Certainly you’ll be harmed if, as a result of this neglect, the plane crashes into the ocean. But it may be tempting to say that unless some such thing happens you’ve not actually been harmed, even though you’ve been at risk of harm, by this neglect. Imagine there’s a terrorist on the plane. He is aiming at harm. But fortunately his bomb fails to detonate, and everyone enjoys an uninterrupted journey. It sounds odd, I think, to say that his mere presence, given his plan, harmed the passengers, even though they were close to harm and very lucky not to be harmed. Yet we might say it’s to everyone’s beneft that safety checks are carried out, even though as result of these checks no one is better off than they were, or would have been. There is, I think, something of a puzzle here. I am going to assume that we can talk of, refer to, make true and false claims about things that do exist – for example, Australia; did exist – Napoleon; never existed – my sister. This isn’t to deny that, of the third category in particular, much will be speculative. Unless these are that this underplays death’s importance: ‘Harmed him? Hell, no, I killed him outright!’ Feinberg (1984: 80). Suppose, however, it is said we cease to exist with death. Then the objection might be that there is here a violation of harm’s two-state requirement. As I’ve said in the text, this wouldn’t be a good objection. Because of this asymmetry between starting and ending lives, we should view one of McMahan’s proposals as ill-advised. He suggests (2012: 8) that we should refer not to procreative, but to existential benefts and harms. But these terms, along with existential threats, crises, challenges etc., are more often used in relation to ceasing, rather than beginning to exist. And questions about starting lives are the ones McMahan is focusing on here. Parft (1984: 487–490). Parft (1984: 487).

52

Terms

28 ‘I have considered three things: never existing, starting to exist, and ceasing to exist. I have suggested that, of these, starting to exist should be classed with ceasing to exist. Unlike never existing, starting to exist and ceasing to exist both happen to actual people. This is why we can claim they can be either good or bad for these people. The contrary claim is that starting to exist should be classed with never existing, and that neither can be either good or bad for people’ (1984: 489). Two questions about this: doesn’t coming into existence happen to people in, at best, a non-standard or peculiar sense of ‘happens to’; and second, why should we want to class starting to exist with either never existing or ceasing to exist? There’s no obvious reason why it shouldn’t be viewed as sui generis. 29 Parft has earlier (1984: 487) glossed the Two State-Requirement thus: ‘We beneft someone only if we cause him to be better off than he would otherwise at that time have been’. This contrasts somewhat with the Full Comparative Requirement: ‘We beneft someone only if we do what will be better for him’ (1984: 488). In wanting to claim that starting benefts he rejects both. Though I deny that starting benefts I endorse neither of these formulations. 30 Odd but not impossible. I fear squatters. Filling the place with tractors might deter them. 31 One way to interpret all this, then, is as Parft answering here the question which in the previous paragraph I identifed as key, and said that he fails to answer. But I doubt that is the correct interpretation. These remarks about the good life being better than nothing are pretty much throwaway, and not explained or defended at any length. And certainly the main focus of this appendix, starting with its title, is on the question of whether causing benefts. 32 A good deal of what Parft says in this Appendix is endorsed pretty much wholesale by McMahan (2013), also Harman (2004). It is worth further discussion. We can start with some ordinary language. People will say many things, including (a) ‘It would have been better if I’d never been born’, (b) ‘I’d be better off dead’, (c) ‘I’m glad to be alive’, and similar. Does any of this have awkward implications for what, on fuller refection, we want to say about coming into existence? If we are attentive to fner distinctions, then, I say, no. Consider (a). It makes perfect sense for Tim to say it would have been overall better – perhaps better for his family, or social services, or the victims of his – had he not been born. He might say that the total sum of goodness, or per capita average goodness, would have been higher without him. What is at least suspect is (a*) ‘It would have been better for me if I’d never been born’. Consider (b). Even while she doesn’t think she would, having ceased to exist, be in a good state, Thalia can, assuming she has some not implausible views about weighing pleasures against pains, correctly believe that her life as a whole goes better if it ends at 60 than if it continues to 80. In that sense, not existing now is better for her than existing now. But ‘I’d be better off dead’ is one thing while (b*) ‘I’d be better off never having lived’ is another. Terry has a good life. He is glad to be living it. He can imagine and compare it with some alternative, and perhaps shorter life and with reason believe this suits him better. Hence gladness. So then (c) is fne. But (c*) ‘I am glad to have been born’ might give us pause. It isn’t easy to see how this life can suit him better than no life at all. Can it, as Parft and McMahan believe, be good for someone to have been caused to exist? Because I hold to the relations between good, better, beneft, as outlined above, I don’t at all see how coming into existence can be good for someone. If it is good for Terry to come into existence it is better than nothing. So not coming into existence would be worse for him. He would be worse off never having existed. As this makes no sense, so there is no sense also in claiming he is better off in, made better off by, is benefted by, coming into existence. And so it makes no sense to suggest coming into existence is good for him. But we can instead make the different claim that it was good that he came into existence. His existence might bring great benefts to others.

Terms

33

34 35 36 37 38

39

40 41 42 43 44

53

And it will add to the universe’s sum of goodness. Both of these claims are true. On my view, the frst but not the second can give us a reason to bring him into existence. Yet both are distinct from the claim that it good for him that he came into existence. That, I say, is false. So it gives us no reason to bring him into existence. Yet there is some complexity here, attaching to causation talk. I say that in causing someone to exist, who has then a good life, I don’t thereby and immediately beneft this person. But suppose this person does, uncontroversially, acquire certain benefts later within his life. My causing him to exist is certainly a necessary condition of his getting these benefts. But it is nothing like a suffcient condition. Because ordinary talk of causing something to happen typically contains at least implications of the cause being suffcient for the effect (see Mackie (1974) for much more on this), then it is reasonable to deny that allowing the necessary condition is enough to allow that causing benefts. So, again, and even with this, I deny that causing benefts. This assumes, of course, that persons have lives. Consider the view that a person need not be an animal. On one version a person is never an animal, even if sometimes existing alongside one. On another, even while not essentially an animal, a person might nevertheless be an animal for some of its career. Suppose that only biological organisms are literally alive. Then only if persons are for some of the time animals are they for any of the time literally alive. See Belshaw (2009: ch.2) and Feldman (1992: chs.2, 3) for discussion. See, essentially Olson (1997) for discussion. Facts relating to twinning count strongly against accepting the earlier event. I favour latter. See Belshaw (2009: 10–12) and Feldman (1992: 95). For all that, the alternative view, often referred to as the termination thesis, is perhaps more popular. But see Appendix 2 for some qualifcations. Singer (1993: 57). And Dworkin has a similar view: ‘Not everything that can be destroyed has an interest in not being destroyed, of course…. Nor is it enough, for something to have interests, that it be alive and in the process of developing into something more mature – it is not against the interests of a baby carrot that it be picked early and brought to the table as a delicacy – nor even that something that will naturally develop into something different and more marvellous: a butterfy is much more beautiful than a caterpillar, but it is not better for the caterpillar to become one…. It makes no sense to suppose that something has interests of its own – as distinct from its being important what happens to it – unless it has, or had, some form of consciousness: some mental as well as physical life’ (1993: 16). Below I identify an ambiguity in the notion of an interest, and suggest Singer may be overlooking this. Dworkin is open to the same charge. There is, however, a question of whether the interests of sentient things depend on sentience. We might, that is, say that someone in PVS, as they no longer have any possibility of living a good life, no longer has any interests. This is a reason, but it is some way, I think, from being a good reason. For confrmation, if needed, check this out on Google. Unless I’ve overlooked something, such neglect is apparent in, to give some examples, Griffn (1986), Bradley (2009), Kagan (1992), and Hooker (2015). The entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia makes just passing reference to animals and plants. And much of the focus will be on higher mammals. But see, for an exception. This: https://wellbeeing.org/en/home/ See, for some detail: www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-social-policy/article/ well-being-and-welfare-a-psychosocial-analysis-of-being-well-and-doing-well-enough /1DC3750BDC6EE43C50C9149B0614FF6F You are perhaps most likely to agree with this if you think well-being is restricted to people. But, I claim, you should agree with it also if you allow that it is, further, a property of animals.

54

Terms

45 I stress I am talking here of how things may seem. Detailed discussion of intrinsic goodness/badness, and value/disvalue is on hold until the next chapter. Even so, a less detailed point can be made here. That pain is often instrumentally good – it warns of harms, and more pain to come – afford us no reason to deny it is intrinsically bad. See my discussion of Callicot in Belshaw (2001). 46 We can, of course, distinguish psychological from physical pains, and perhaps claim that only those with a higher form of being – persons and just some animals – can feel pains of the frst kind. But even someone prepared to go this far is still unlikely to suggest that these psychological pains are more important, count for more, are the ones we should frst hope to relieve. 47 It would be bad to drown the kittens but worse to drown your children. Unfortunately, some drowning has to occur. So then you ought now to drown the kittens. And this even though you still have reason not to drown them. 48 Two clarifcations or complications. I assume Jane is somewhat remiss in believing in astrology. She is, in this respect, irrational. But given her belief, then she should take planetary positions into account. Grant that a half millennium ago it wasn’t irrational to believe in astrology. So similar behaviour then escapes criticism. Also, I stress the bad news about apples is not yet known. Jane isn’t remiss here. If she were, then we might say she does have reason to watch her intake, as she is remiss in not having got the news. Parft, it seems, will disagree on both points. Comment in an early section of On What Matters, sharply distinguishing between reasons and rationality, implies that Jane, given her beliefs, is rational in adjusting her behaviour in light of astrological reports. I think there is something not a little awkward in saying that she is irrational in having these beliefs, but then rational in acting on them. Talk of consistency smooths this out. There is disagreement, too, about ought: Suppose that, while walking in some desert, you have disturbed and angered a poisonous snake. You believe that, to save your life, you must run away. In fact you must stand still, since this snake will attack only moving targets. Given your false belief, it would be irrational for you to stand still. You ought rationally to run away. But that is not what you ought to do in the decisive-reason-implying sense. You have no reason to run away, and a decisive reason not to run away. You ought to stand still, since that is your only way to save your life (2011: 34). There are two concerns about this. First, ‘ought rationally to run away’ is at least misleading. Second, though I agree that you ought to stand still, I disagree that you have reason to do this. The former term sustains ambiguity in a way that latter doesn’t. Replace yourself with a rabbit. It would have been better for the rabbit to stand still, but surely strange to say it had reason to stand still. 49 Paul Taylor (1986) in a classic of environmental philosophy seems to go wrong – and importantly wrong – in assuming there is linking here. 50 And Harman (2004) seems to go wrong here. 51 See, for an account of the differences, and then a tough-minded defence of moral individualism, McMahan (2005).

3

Value

The sanctity view holds that life has some sort of special value attached to it. It is because it is valuable in this distinctive way that there are fairly comprehensive bans on ending it, injunctions in all circumstances to respect it, encouragements often to promote or begin it. But what is this special value? Is it, as has been suggested, intrinsic value? What is value anyway? And what is intrinsic value in particular? I address these questions here. Several of the terms and distinctions considered in the previous chapter will feed into the discussion. I’ll want to conclude, of course, that life, or lives, will have a certain sort of value at least under certain conditions – this is surely implied by the quality view – but I’ll deny that we are engaging here with intrinsic value. More generally, I’ll at least suggest that it is unclear whether there is anything that is in this way valuable. So do intrinsic value and ideas of the sacred want to stand but in fact fall together? I’ll deny also that intrinsic value is a good candidate for being the special value at the heart of the sanctity view.

Words Talk of values, valuing, the valuable is ubiquitous. How is this talk to be understood? What needs to be noted is that the concern here is, in the frst place, with some ordinary terms that have a wide and common currency. Their meanings are unlikely to be clearly specifed, their uses not always consistent. We might, having surveyed the feld, attempt to tighten things up, but we should be wary of overdoing this. Respect, then, for words as they are. So to begin: X is valued. This is less than frequently encountered, but it has a simplicity that makes it a good starting point. If something is valued it is, it seems, wanted or desired. And being valued implies a valuer – someone or something values, wants, or desires this thing. What about needs? Trees often need water, but don’t value it. Nor do they want it in any but a thin metaphorical sense. Animals also have needs, but at least where higher animals are concerned they have wants also. The dog wants to go for a walk, wants its master to come home. Shall we say that wanting implies valuing, and that the dog values his master’s return? This sounds a little strained. Perhaps valuing is something that is in some ways done consciously. So valuers are a subset of wanters, desirers, and needers,1 those that

56

Value

can think about and refect on value. And then valuers can draw distinctions. I can acknowledge there are things I want or desire but still deny that I value these things. I want, maybe need alcohol, but perhaps I don’t value it. Yet it might be objected; I deny that I value alcohol, but evidently I do value it – look at the way I behave, the amount I drink. It isn’t clear then that we will be able to draw any sharp line between a valuer’s wanting a thing and her valuing it. If I value a thing then I care about it; it matters to me. And a sign of my wanting, valuing something is my willingness to pay a price in order to acquire it. I dig out my credit card in order to secure some painting, swap my vinyl collection for a home cinema, forfeit time on the beach to improve my golf. My claim to value something should be met with suspicion if I am not prepared to make any sacrifce, give up anything, and indeed something else I value, in order to get that thing. I assume here there is some price I could pay. I want my team to win in their forthcoming match. I could bribe the referee, but I want them to win fair and square. What I want is something it isn’t my place to try to get. But then we can look to the aftermath. They lose. If, on learning this, I show no sign of disappointment or regret, then it can be doubted that I wanted them to win, valued their winning, after all. X is valuable. Here are three suggestions for how this most common phrase is to be understood; X is valued, X is able to be valued, X ought to be valued. None of them are entirely satisfactory. First, it surely makes at least sense for me to say I value something, but don’t think it is really valuable. If I value it, it is valued, but ‘valuable’ suggests something more, an appropriateness to my valuing. Someone suggests a compromise; if A values X then X is valuable to or for A. We open a can of worms here – the alleged distinction between subjective and objective value. I say more on the matter below. But, to anticipate, this isn’t going to prove a useful suggestion. I can value something that isn’t, as even I might acknowledge, truly valuable. And there can be things that are valuable but are not in fact valued. The democratic process is, perhaps, not as valued as it should be. So ‘valuable’ and ‘being valued’ can in this way come apart when we, the valuers, are not up to the mark. That ‘valuable’ means ‘able to be valued’ is a suggestion that might be made by those who are too literal-minded, and who take the construction of the word too much as it stands: breakable – able to be broken, combustible – able to be burned, and so on.2 But there’s an overlooking, too, of plenty of other words that can’t be so treated, or where boundaries are loose. So desirable, enjoyable, admirable, like valuable don’t survive this analysis. For one reason, the list of things that are able to be valued, desired, admired, enjoyed is surely near endless. Our intention, though, in talk of the valuable, and similarly for the further terms here, is to draw some sort of line between one set of things and another larger and more disparate set. Are the valuable things, then, those that ought to be valued? Enjoyable things are simply those that are enjoyed, but those that are admirable ought to be admired. ‘Valuable’ appears to operate in a similar fashion. But there is room for reservations – we might think, for example, that some really valuable pieces of

Value

57

modern art don’t at all deserve the praise lavished on them. But perhaps there are failures here to make requisite distinctions. So long as they have a high monetary value then in some ways they ought to be valued – it would be remiss not to see that they can be sold off and the money spent on hospitals. And this is, of course, consistent with doubts as to whether they are aesthetically valuable, or ought to be valued aesthetically. Where there is evident delusion through and through then we’ll say that the things are in fact valued but deny both that they ought to be valued and also that they are valuable. Two contrasts can usefully be noted. If a thing is valuable, I say, then it ought to be valued. And so we can bring in reasons here – we have reason to value it, to care about it, to want it, to think it matters. But consider the reverse. If I want, or care about a thing, then I’ll have reasons to take steps to acquire or preserve that thing. More generally, reasons to take the means to my end. Yet clearly I can want or care about something that isn’t in fact valuable. And now consider a harder case. Suppose I want a thing and, further, have reasons to want it. Does it now follow that this thing is valuable? I might, as I’ve said, need and want alcohol – and my needing gives reasons for wanting – without thinking that alcohol is valuable. X is a value. Ask one group of people what they value and another what are their values and the answers are likely to differ markedly, with a long and varied list in the frst case, and something considerably shorter and more coherent in the second. Suggestions as to values will tend to focus on character traits – honesty, sincerity; and abstractions – justice, fairness, human rights.3 There’s something elevated here, something akin to principles. People are unlikely to include their friends, favourite shoes, gym membership, a good night’s sleep, or cats on this list. I might hold the freedom to consume alcohol is a value while, though valuing it, deny that alcohol itself is a value. But two things might be noted. First, a value – say, racial purity – might not be valuable. Second, a value – say justice – even though held as some sort of principle, need not be seen (here anticipating a little) as intrinsically valuable. We might think justice oils the wheels of society. Notions of values and of things valued are both familiar within ordinary discourse. Ordinary too might be the question of where these values come from. And then we might provide some genetic account of why it should have happened that justice, fairness, equality, and the like are such common features of social and political discourse. But the superfcially similar ‘where does value come from?’ is, for most people, a slightly unfamiliar question. Equally unfamiliar (and I intend here echoes of earlier comments on ‘goods’ and ‘a good’) is explicit talk of such and such being a value. What we might call the reifcation of value, then, is a feature much more of academic philosophy than everyday conversation.4 Consider now the claim ‘Humans bring value into the world’.5 Is this true or false? Well, in line with the discussion thus far the suggestion has to be that humans are, so far as we know, the only conscious valuers. Without us nothing is valued. Nevertheless, there are, quite independently of humans, better and worse conditions for certain occupants of the world, animals and plants in particular, to be in. Moreover, it might appear a good thing, desirable, with respect to some of

58

Value

these conditions, that they obtain. It would be good, in this world, if animals can avoid unnecessary pain. Is there then value in this? We might doubt this question has a simple and straightforward answer.

Things Even if value isn’t itself a thing, certainly there are things that have value, or are valuable. What sorts of things? We can give a long list, or we can sort somewhat. Do this, and there are three candidates. Most obviously, there are ordinary and familiar three-dimensional objects – particular paintings, gold coins, a prize bull. But some will think that value is to be found in properties; so contrast the beautiful painting with the property of being beautiful, or on the one hand the tiger or the rhinoceros, and on the other these animals being rare. Finally, here it can be suggested that events, or states of affairs, are where value is to be found. So perhaps there’s value in the paintings being on show in the museum, or in Peter’s ongoing relationship with Mary, or with Paul. A minor complication here; as well as ordinary physical objects there are, it might be said, abstract objects to be taken into account – friendship, justice, courage. Is there an important difference between the object courage, and the property of being courageous? I suggest not. Nor, perhaps, is there much of a difference, where attributions of value are concerned, between the property of being courageous, and a state of affairs – Peter’s courageous grappling with a tiger, in defence of Mary – in which courage is exemplifed, or made manifest. Should we now hold that there are just different sorts of things that might then in similar ways be valuable, or are some of these categories really, the others only seemingly, where value is to be found? I don’t see any reason for denying, as surely seems to be the case, that they are on par. But not altogether on a par. A beautiful painting, especially if abused or neglected, might lose some or all of its beauty. If it is valuable because it is beautiful then it might correspondingly lose some or all of its value. It is at best a contingent fact about the painting that it is valuable. In contrast, it may seem that if value attaches to properties, abstract objects, or states of affairs it necessarily so attaches – if beauty or rarity is valuable, then it is always and everywhere valuable. Some of the distinctions drawn and discussed here surfaced in the frst chapter. I asked whether the sanctity view holds that it is particular living things, or life itself that is in some special way valuable. And we can reframe the question in terms of value. We might think that living things are valuable whether or not they are currently alive. Or we might, in contrast, think that when life is gone so too is value. Certainly, where people are concerned our ways of dealing with the dead suggest the former response is to be favoured.

Kinds Are there different kinds or types of value that need now to be taken into account? We may think there are. And two very familiar distinctions now come into play.

Value

59

First, people speak often of values being subjective or objective. And then they speak also of their being intrinsic or instrumental. Both distinctions need to be unpacked. I start here with a brief comment and then consider them more fully in relation to a pair of important and infuential discussions. People ask, is beauty in the mind of the beholder? It looks as if it might be out there in the world, in the fowers, the sunset, or our young friend’s body. But perhaps instead it is in us – we enjoy these things, react in certain ways, call them beautiful. Is it in the mind, then, or in the objects?6 One way of understanding the subjective/objective distinction is in terms of location – where exactly is beauty, or value to be found, within the perceiving subject or in the object perceived? And an answer might be that it falls some way between. Take magnifcence. I’ve heard environmentalists go on about magnifcent trees. But imagine a world without people. Magnifcence is at least something to do with scale relative to us – bonsai, whatever else is to be said about them, won’t be magnifcent. (Perhaps it is to do, also, though to a lesser extent, with scale relative to other living things, or to things in a relevant comparison group. But could there be any magnifcent insects?) So, are any trees magnifcent in a world without people? What we can say is that in this world some trees are such that if there were people to view them then some at least would judge them to be magnifcent. Similarly, in the people-less world, the fowers (in terms of size, complexity, symmetry, colouring) are such that some of us would judge them to be beautiful. The bifurcatory question, subject or object, should then be resisted. But the distinction can be understood in a second way. Some of us judge the fowers to be beautiful. It can be asked, should we so judge them? Is there a fact of the matter as to whether they are beautiful, or is there nothing beyond individual and varying reactions to consider? Even if the fowers wouldn’t be beautiful in a world without people, even if beauty isn’t a straightforward property of the fowers, it might be, as we can say, that they are human-beautiful, the sorts of things that we have reason to think beautiful. Our question about value, then, is whether there can be cases where it is an objective fact, and not just a subjective opinion, that such and such is valuable.7 I’ll suggest that there can.8 The second familiar and widely used distinction is between instrumental and intrinsic value. Some things are valuable as a means to an end. Our valuing of spanners, umbrellas, kettles is mostly of this kind. But to say we value the kettle as a way of heating the water is to say more than that there’s some causal connection in place here, and that the kettle can be used to heat water. Its being valued for this implies that heating the water is something we want, or desire to do, something else that is valued. But is it likely that simply heating the water is something we’re after just for its own sake, something we value as an end? Surely on most occasions we’re looking for hot water on route to something else, washing, a cup of tea, shifting ice from the windscreen. Maybe the middle item here is something we value as an end, for its own sake, but setting aside perversions, the other two again will be valued for some further end. The causal chains can be of varying lengths, but it’s going to seem that when we set out on our activities, our valuings, there is somewhere we want to go, an end point that we’re aiming for.

60

Value

And this end point is something we value not instrumentally, but, as is often said, for its own sake, or intrinsically. One question here is about the sorts of things that might count as ends. A familiar claim is that all our strivings are pointing in the one direction – we want the cup of tea not for its own sake but for the pleasure it produces. And neither misers nor normal people value money for itself, even though the miser has a shorter and more direct route between money and pleasure than most. Is it plausible to suppose that all we really value as an end is pleasure? On refection this might be better – we want many things for their own sake, and getting these things produces pleasure as a side effect. But it is the things we want.9 A second question concerns this seemingly straightforward and exhaustive instrumental/intrinsic distinction, with items of value all aimed at either as a means or as an end. Is this as straightforwardly exhaustive as it might appear? There are reasons for thinking that neither term is as clear as initially it seems. First, there are what I might call quasi-instrumental values. Look at all carefully and you’ll note that an otherwise dull and sober painting – the Thames on a foggy evening – is brought to life by a spot of gentian in the lower left corner. It’s been suggested we might talk of contributory value here – the blob of paint isn’t intrinsically valuable, it’s nothing out of context, but nor is it being used, as an instrument or tool, to some further and separate end. It’s a part of the whole, and important only in the context of the whole. A different example: wanting to explain the patient’s symptoms, the doctor has recourse to an MRI scan of her brain. Again, a limitation to the instrumental/intrinsic distinction leaves something out. And it has been suggested that the data here is better described as having evidential value.10 I call these quasi-instrumental values as they usefully refne and qualify a more broad brush approach. But their relation to instrumental values more narrowly construed is, if not intimate, nevertheless close. And now we can similarly reconsider the second part of the divide. Are all the things that are valued neither instrumentally nor quasi-instrumentally, the things that – let’s agree – are valued as ends, properly described as having intrinsic value? This isn’t, I’ll argue, the right term to use here. We need frst to distinguish between the things that happen to be and those that ought to be valued as ends. Of the frst, the most that might be claimed is that they are intrinsically valued. But then there’s a need for a second distinction, this time between, on the one hand, the things that are valuable, or ought to be valued, just for themselves, and not for what they can do, and, on the other, those valuable, that ought to be valued, just in themselves. If there is a distinction here, then surely all talk of what is intrinsically valuable is better attached to the second, rather than the frst, category. The very term ‘intrinsic’ points the way. The suggestion, then, is that the simple distinction between instrumental and intrinsic values is too coarse grained to do what is needed. There are reasons, frst, to discriminate within the broadly construed category of things that are valued for what they can deliver, or that don’t have value independently of their relation to valued ends, and then there are reasons similarly to distinguish between the

Value

61

things that are not only valued, but are also valuable as ends.11 Yet all this needs considerably more exploration. And a way in is via Ronald Dworkin’s account of these matters. Dworkin and values The account of value I want to consider here is in large part motivated by a desire to make some progress on various apparently intractable end of life disputes, particularly as they are played out in the United States, and particularly as they concern abortion. Dworkin wants to argue that both sides – pro-life and pro-choice – in fact agree that life is sacred. For they agree that life, and most obviously human life, is, and in a special way, intrinsically valuable. All that is needed to ameliorate the dispute is for us to see that the key terms here ought to be understood somewhat more broadly than pro-lifers, in particular, would have it. More detail on this I reserve for an appendix. The task here is to work through the contours of Dworkin’s discussion, identify certain shortcomings, and show how the argument for life having, at its core, some distinctive variety of intrinsic value should fail to persuade. But the account of special value emerges from a discussion of values more generally. And this is the place to begin: Something is instrumentally important if its value depends on its usefulness, its capacity to help people get something else they want. Money and medicine, for example, are only instrumentally valuable: no one thinks that money has value beyond its power to purchase things that people want or need, or that medicine has value beyond its ability to cure. Something is subjectively valuable only to people who happen to desire it. Scotch whiskey, watching football games, and lying in the sun are only valuable to people, like me, who happen to enjoy them. I do not think others who detest them are making any kind of mistake or failing to show respect for what is truly valuable. They just happen not to like or want what I do. Something is intrinsically valuable, on the contrary, if its value is independent of what people happen to enjoy or want or need or what is good for them.12 But what appears here to be a threefold division of value is in several ways problematic. Although it’s a minor point, Dworkin is surely wrong to overlook the fact that some people do appear to value money for its own sake. More important, the second category here would appear to require some fuller discussion of the subjective/objective distinction. That isn’t provided. And then what he says about intrinsic value, piggy-backing on the earlier contentions, but overlooking certain key distinctions, delivers much less than is needed. The upshot, as I’ll explain, is that Dworkin makes it too easy to arrive at, and fnd scope for, this distinctive kind of value. And to begin on this, more can be said about subjective value.

62

Value

I have on my shelf a memento from a long-dead relationship, some cheap and glitzy bauble we picked up at the Eiffel Tower. I say memento, but I don’t in fact need it or use it to remember things. Rather I value it just for its own sake. I’d hesitate to say it’s valuable, however, and wouldn’t expect anyone else to fnd anything attractive or interesting in it. It is valued by me alone. And so it is, I might say, subjectively valued. Dworkin’s examples are in one way different. Perhaps millions enjoy whisky, while billions follow football. Yet even ardent fans will hesitate to say that others ought to share their tastes, or to suggest that such drinks, such games, are objectively valuable. We might talk, then, of intersubjective value here. But now consider a different case. You value the rather feeble drawings your young child manages to produce. You stick them on the door of the fridge, point them out proudly to visitors. What sort of value do these drawings possess? They are surely not intrinsically valuable. Suppose your whole family is wiped out. No one will have reason to preserve these scribbles. Nor, typically, will they be instrumentally valuable. We can imagine cases where parents threaten to rip them up in order to coax good behaviour from their kids, but only a few would be so mean. So are these too of subjective value, things you happen to value, for their own sake? There is a difference. We might say here that such drawings ought to be valued. For something has gone wrong, and there is now some failing, if you are not interested in, welcoming of, delighted by, your child’s efforts.13 So subjectively valuable, and not merely subjectively valued, perhaps. Consider fnally an example much used by Dworkin. As with whisky and football, many of us value great art. The works of Leonardo, Tintoretto, Rembrandt, Poussin are admired and enjoyed pretty much the world over, and have been for centuries. And Dworkin suggests that such artworks, along with human cultures more generally, languages, biological species, and more besides, are intrinsically valuable.14 But here there’s need for caution. Again, it seems best to say we value these paintings, and art pieces more generally, for their own sake, as an end, rather than instrumentally, as a means to pleasure. But do we just happen to value them? As with the pictures on the fridge door, a case can be made that we ought to value them, whether or not we do. So this art, we might say, is objectively valuable. Does it then follow that it is intrinsically valuable? We can, and with good reason, resist this. Consider again the distinction I drew earlier. It’s one thing to say they are valued, indeed ought to be valued, for themselves, and another that they are valuable (and so then ought be valued) just in themselves. What is the difference? If paintings are valuable just in themselves then they have value, as Dworkin suggests, independently of whether we happen to enjoy them, and independently also of whether encounters with them are in any way good for us. Their value stands altogether free of human concerns. But to say they ought to be valued for themselves allows for a weaker and more plausible claim; they are valuable whether or not we happen to enjoy them, but their value derives from their relation to the lives we lead, how they stem from, represent, and illuminate those lives. So we ought to value them, but Martians can pass them by. They are, as it might be said, human-valuable. And a case for their being intrinsically valuable is still to be made. The point, then, is that this notion of what is good for us

Value

63

is ambiguous. Certainly art has value even when it is not good for us in a narrow sense. It has more than instrumental value. But consider a wider sense. We can, I suggest, plausibly doubt that art has value when it altogether fails to speak to the human condition, fails to cast light on our lives, fails to fgure as a component within the good life. Even if art is most often valued for its own sake, it can have instrumental value also. Dealers make a living through it. And money itself, as I’ve said, can be valued as a means or as an end. Human life, on Dworkin’s account, can exemplify all three kinds of values. So, for example: We treat a person’s life as subjectively valuable when we measure its value to him, that is, in terms of how much he wants to be alive or how much being alive is good for him. So if we say that life has lost its value to someone who is miserable or in great pain, we are treating that life in a subjective way.15 Life, too, then, may be something we happen to value or enjoy. But Dworkin points out that a life might also be of instrumental value – he gives the examples of Mozart and Pasteur as people who have made life better for the rest of us – and so might be something that is useful, or good for us. This isn’t the end of the matter, however. For he wants to insist that life is valuable in a third way, independently of those identifed thus far. And as it will have value even when instrumental and subjective values are set aside, so then life is intrinsically valuable, valuable just in itself.16 Again, we can resist this. For here too we can legitimately expand on Dworkin’s second category of value in ways that undercut any alleged reasons for moving on to the third. So set aside both how much it might be useful to others and how much someone happens to value their own life. We can agree that a life might have value nevertheless. But we can disagree that it is therefore intrinsically valuable. In the passage above he links the subjective value of someone’s life with ‘how much he wants to be alive, or how much being alive is good for him’. But is Dworkin here making one point in two ways, or two distinct points? A version of the ambiguity I noted above, relating to ‘good for us’, is also in play here. We can ask about someone’s attitude to their own life, what they would give to preserve and extend it, how much they want or value it. And we can ask also the further, and separate, question of how well their life is going, or how good a life they have, and so how much they should value it. We can ask, then, about both its subjective and objective value. And, of course, the answers can differ. Someone can cling to life when it would be better – and better for them – if they were to die. Conversely, and often tragically, someone might end their life when there is much to live for and when, had they continued, they’d have found this to be true. If we suppose Dworkin means only to attend to the subjective side – what we just happen to want – then certainly there is something left out. But we can, as I’ve explained, wonder if this is intrinsic value. If we take the points about objective value serious then it’s far from clear that anything is left out. So, suppose that living your life is, in fact, neither good for you nor others, and suppose, further, you

64

Value

have no desire to live it. Then it’s surely not clear that this life is valuable, or that there’s any reason to continue living it.17 There’s just one more point to be made here. Not long after his initial threefold distinction, Dworkin introduces a further term: Let us call the subjective value a life has for the person whose life it is its personal value. It is personal value we have in mind when we say that normally a person’s life is the most important thing he or she has.18 This doesn’t play any prominent role in the argument – hereafter subjective, as applied to lives, and personal are used more or less interchangeably. Yet we might nevertheless question the identifcation, and prefer to use personal more widely than this, holding that the various things we value for their own sake – wedding rings, teddy bears, favourite shoes, bottles of Scotch, are all of personal value. Dworkin will probably allow this. But then we might suggest also that football, opera, or art are similarly of personal value, valued by and seen as good for, some persons and not by others. So then both things that have only subjective value, where taste prevails, and those that are objectively valuable, and so ought to be valued, can be of personal value. And I mention this here in part because this notion of personal value will re-emerge, then demanding more attention, in a later chapter. Dworkin’s claims about intrinsic value might appear more plausible if we attend to a further distinction he wants to make. This value, he says, comes in two kinds. There are things that are incrementally valuable – more is better. He gives the example of knowledge. Let’s grant, for the sake of argument, that knowledge is a good thing, and that this is so even when it is not of practical use, when it lacks instrumental value. But now the more we know then, allegedly, and other things equal, the better it is. There is no limit to how much knowledge it will be good for us to have. And there are, also, things that lack incremental value – it’s not that more is better – even though these things, when they exist, are intrinsically valuable nevertheless. Human life, art, the American fag, and animal species are offered as examples here. And these are things that, according to Dworkin, we treat as sacred or inviolable. He explains: The hallmark of the sacred as distinct from the incrementally valuable is that the sacred is intrinsically valuable because – and therefore only once – it exists. It is inviolable because of what it represents or embodies. It is not important that there be more people. But once a human life is begun, it is very important that it fourish and not be wasted.19 This distinction promises to make Dworkin’s account and illustration of intrinsic value, and along with that his account of sanctity, considerably more palatable. Few of us are inclined to think that the more people, fags, Tintorettos, or kinds of beetle there are in existence the better things will be. If we can persist with this, and yet hold that these things are intrinsically valuable then this, from Dworkin’s

Value

65

perspective, is all to the good. But is the position here tenable? If fags or paintings really are valuable just in themselves, why wouldn’t it be that, other things equal, having more of them is better? The qualifcation is important, of course. We are not going to want to add to the number of people if there aren’t the resources needed to sustain them. But setting such practical concerns aside, it is perhaps hard to see why intrinsic value doesn’t carry the idea of incrementality along with it. And as there is a puzzle about this, so there’s some reason to fall back on the earlier account, where things might be valued for their own sake rather than for what they can do, but where nevertheless their being valued depend on reason, rather than merely taste. So it might be said that Americans ought to respect their fag, we ought to give art a try, and see whether it can enhance our lives, and people everywhere ought to have a respect for the natural world and its many inhabitants, and not ride roughshod through it, and them, in the name of commerce. And now, in more intimately connecting the objects valued with our valuings, it becomes evident why we should deny that more is better. Flags are not good for us in ways similar to tents, or blankets, – they are not just instrumentally valuable – but even so they fnd their place in symbolising the nation, get used in ceremonies and institutions, adorn public buildings, and so on. There are only so many fags we need for this. And there are only so many Tintorettos we can take in, only so many galleries we can hope to visit, and – looking at this from the other side – only so many, and so many kinds of, human experiences worth putting into paint. Matters are different, but not deeply different, with human lives. Yet here too, or so I’ll argue, intuitions against incrementality hook up with suspicions that there are more appropriate ways of thinking of such lives than in terms of intrinsic value. But if we do think in these terms then, I say, the more is better view will follow closely behind. In sum, although Dworkin begins to explore some of the middle ground between instrumental and intrinsic value, he neglects to take this anything like as far as he might. He might persuade us that art, for example, is something we should value for its own sake, and also that we shouldn’t think that more art is better. But we can accept all this without any commitment to intrinsic value. He might, in contrast, insist that art has a value wholly independent of us and our concerns. This may be intrinsic value. But we can doubt that art is valuable in this way. And we can insist that if it is, then more art is better. Either way, a defensible claim that there are things having intrinsic value of a non-incremental kind – and this sits at the centre of his account of the sacred – has thus far failed to emerge. Moore and intrinsic value What does it mean to say something is intrinsically valuable? And what things – objects, or properties, or states of affairs – have this value? We’ve not yet made much progress with this. Dworkin, I’ve argued, falls prey to the temptation too quickly to identify intrinsic value as what remains when some other forms of value are set to one side. Better to go at it more directly. And in the early decades

66

Value

of the last century G.E. Moore made serious and sustained attempts at this. He has important and infuential things to say about this value in Principia Ethica, his best-known work, but the more thorough and more infuential engagement comes in later writings, in both Ethics of 1912 and ‘The Conception of Intrinsic Value’ from a decade later.20 Evidently he found it not easy to be done with the topic. In the book he says that if something is intrinsically valuable then it would hold on to that value even if it survived in isolation. If a painting is intrinsically valuable it would be valuable even supposing it were alone in the universe. In the later paper the idea is put forward that intrinsic value derives from, or supervenes on, a thing’s intrinsic properties. Its further properties – how it stands in relation to, or the effects it has on other things – don’t themselves infuence this value. Both points appear, intuitively, to be on the right lines, and to mark this off as a distinctive kind of value. And they appear, also, to be connected with one another. Both, however, need expansion and qualifcation. We can’t push the point about isolation too far. Maybe we can imagine the Venus de Milo foating around alone in the universe. But consider some other candidates for having intrinsic value. A tiger wouldn’t last long in isolation – nothing to eat or drink, no air to breathe. But then, of course, its intrinsic properties would be changed, and with that, a change in its value. So perhaps we need to imagine isolation only insofar as is needed to keep the intrinsic and allegedly value-conferring properties in place. But then though we have in existence both the tiger and its support system, the value of the tiger is internal or intrinsic to it – it needs oxygen, and more, in order to exist, but thereafter its value comes from within.21 A second point here – we should presumably consider a thing’s existing in isolation right now, rather than its always having so existed. There could be no Venus de Milo now without there having been at some earlier time human beings, with both beautiful women and talented sculptors among them. There’s a need to be similarly generous or fexible regarding intrinsic properties. Is it an intrinsic property of some piece of marble that it was shaped by human intervention, in Greece, around the time of Plato? The claim that the sculpture is intrinsically valuable, if it is to have any plausibility at all, needs to take certain facts about its origin into account. And this, of course, impacts on claims about the intrinsic value of art far more generally. Most art, at least in part, is valued for its representational qualities broadly construed – what it pictures, what it is about, what it evokes or suggests; and these most obviously for painting, literature, music, in that order. Hard work is involved in maintaining that it can do much of this in virtue of intrinsic properties alone. Consider some abstract painting. The distinction between primary and secondary qualities makes for some diffculty in claiming that the vibrancy of the colours here, the unnerving clashes between orange and purple, are down to intrinsic properties alone. Suppose we give the Moorean contentions some leeway. Suppose we can imagine a painting, a fag, some exotic animal, a human fetus, whatever their origins, each of them now existing pretty much alone in the universe, and certainly without any of us, as valuers, or onlookers. Suppose we can get a decent hold on the suggestion that these things are pretty much recognisable in virtue of intrinsic

Value

67

properties alone. Are we able now to make much sense of the claim that such things, so construed, are intrinsically valuable? I’ll add a further example. It is often said that pleasure is intrinsically valuable. We can’t make much sense of the idea that there should be free-foating experiences of pleasure just dotted about in the universe; as with tigers, there’ll need to be a support system, in this case in the frst instance someone or some thing to have the experience – perhaps it can be a tiger – and then, second, whatever is necessary to keep this thing in existence and, presumably, in a state where it is susceptible to pleasure. And now of all fve examples we might ask, can we understand the suggestion that it should be a good thing, good just in itself, that this such and such should exist? It is diffcult to make much sense of this. Moore’s account of what intrinsic value would be seems to be highly plausible – it centres, as surely it should, on internal, nonrelational properties – but, unfortunately, has the consequence that anything’s having such value is hard to make out. Suppose, though, it is thought that there is something nevertheless correct at the core of this. Dworkin’s account needs more. It needs us to suppose that while it might be good if all the actual Tintorettos are foating around in space, it wouldn’t be better if there had been more of them.22

Sanctity and intrinsic value Central to the sanctity view is the contention that life has some special value. And, as I noted, it’s often thought that intrinsic value is a strong candidate for this. Suppose we are persuaded to agree, some things might be intrinsically valuable in the sense that they are good or valuable just in themselves, would be good or valuable were none of us ever to have existed, and indeed would be good or valuable were nothing else ever to have existed. How far will a broadly Moorean account of intrinsic value buttress the case for life’s sanctity? Not very far. Not only are there diffculties in feshing out such an account, there are various problems in locking its upshots into the sorts of claims that sanctity believers want to make. First, there are both epistemological and motivational problems. How are we to identify, separate out, those things having intrinsic value? This isn’t a question for value generally. There is no especial diffculty in uncovering the things having instrumental or personal value. Given that you want to put your house in order, there is unproblematically value in shelving, cleaners, fling systems, and the like. And given my penchant for scary movies I just sit through a series of flms and note those which pump up my heart rate. But attention to our own, or indeed others, needs and preferences can hardly point to what would be valuable in a world where we, and they, don’t exist. Is rarity a thing of value, or is fecundity? Should we value change or stasis? Why should trees be more valuable, just in themselves, than rocks? Is this because there is some intrinsic value to complexity? And even supposing we do know what is valuable just in itself, why should we care? It seems, as I noted earlier, that if something is valuable then we’ve some reason to protect or promote that thing. And this is perfectly plausible when the thing engages with our, or others’ lives, when it works as an instrument for our

68

Value

valued ends, or when it is itself something we value for its own sake, and so itself fgures as an end. But if its value is altogether detached from such concerns then it will make little impression on us. Set these problems aside. Suppose that certain things are intrinsically valuable. Suppose that great paintings and happy people are among these things. There are problems in squaring this with the sort of special value implied by the sanctity view. On the Moorean account being considered here, value derives from properties. So we shouldn’t expect either these paintings, or these people, to be equally valuable. For as their value-conferring properties will differ, in degree or in kind, so too will their value levels. Nor will they be unconditionally or necessarily valuable. The painting continues to exist even though, because of damage to its surface, it has lost much of its value. The happy person, through a variety of circumstances, is happy no longer.23 Value changes. Nor should this intrinsic value be seen as the supreme or ultimate value, or a value that trumps all others. I could sell off my collection of Dylan bootlegs and thereby fnance the restoration of one great painting. Not only is it diffcult to see what will persuade me to do this – the motivational problem – but it is diffcult also to see how this can, in all such cases, be something I ought to do. Some amount of intrinsic value might outweigh some amount of personal or instrumental value, but there is no evident reason why this value should always come frst. Suppose human life is intrinsically valuable. It won’t follow that we should always try to save a life. For there may be more of value that we can achieve for the same or a lesser cost. Nor will it follow that there is a ban on killing. There may be gains made by killing someone that outweigh the losses to the one who dies. The gains may be expressible in terms of intrinsic value, or they might imply values of another kind. And the gains may be enjoyed by other people or things, or they might, if, say, life is bad, be visited on the one who dies. So even supposing life is intrinsically valuable, this gives sanctity believers almost nothing of what they want.

Value and goodness There is a small number of further points that still need to be made, relating the main topic here to certain of the distinctions outlined in the previous chapter. Although, as indicated, I am sceptical about whether a strong case can be made for intrinsic value, things are different with intrinsic disvalue. Compare pleasures and pains. Suppose it is insisted that pleasure is intrinsically valuable. This goes beyond the plausible claims that pleasure is, for those lucky enough to get it, a good thing, that we have some reason to increase a person’s pleasure, make things better for him. For it appears to imply that there are reasons, too, to increase the sum of pleasure in the universe, even when the way to do this is to bring new lives (and these need not be human lives) into existence. And this is less than wholly intuitive.24 But consider pain. Pain is bad. And other things equal, the less pain the better. So there is always some reason to reduce someone’s, or some thing’s, pain. These reasons persist, even when the only way of

Value

69

doing that is to end a life. But not only might we end lives, in order to limit pain, we might also prevent their beginning. And arguably we should do this. The claims here, even if in the end there are arguments against them, and in contrast to corresponding claims about pleasure, have some intuitive appeal. Is there, however, another route to intrinsic value? We might agree both that water is good for trees and (though a little more controversial) that encounters with the natural world are good for people. But, I’ve argued, we have no reason, just because it’s good, to do what is good for trees, even though we do have reason to do what is good for people. It is good that what is good for people should occur, while not similarly good that what is good for trees should occur. (Not similarly good – it might, of course, in other ways be good.) But how are we to understand this ‘good that’? Doing what is good for people might have instrumental value – it might be a means to my promotion at work, or to fnding favour with someone I care about. But nothing like this is the source of the reason here. It might, in two ways, have personal value. It will be good for, and valued by, this person if I do what is good for them. And promoting the good of other people might, because I care about it, be good for, valued by me. But the idea here is that we all have reason, whether or not we care, to help others, and to help these others, often, whether or not they care. Should we say, then, that doing what is good for others is intrinsically good? And, as we are thus far at least required only to improve and not also to start lives, should we perhaps think that Dworkin’s notion of non-incremental intrinsic value is now reinstated? We might adopt here a strategy I’ve suggested can be usefully employed elsewhere. We can give a full account of the features of such cases – what occurs, and what ought to occur – without recourse to talk of intrinsic value. And because of the common texture of such talk – good just in itself, good for the universe, good when alone in the universe – its employment here is at least somewhat awkward, and might easily mislead. We are asked, is giving your children a fun day out intrinsically valuable, yes or no? I suggest we can decline to answer such a question. We can say, it’s good for them, and in a way that matters. The reservations here have been about intrinsic value, not about intrinsic goodness. Suppose we have, as I’ve said we can have, a good daffodil, or rabbit, or tractor. These things are good in virtue of their intrinsic properties, and would continue to be good even if they were alone in the universe. I see no reason not to think they are intrinsically good. Pleasure is intrinsically good – good just because of the feeling it is, and not because of effects it has. And as, generally, we can distinguish between things that are good and things that are valuable so too here. So then we can make these claims about a thing’s being intrinsically good without it following that it is intrinsically valuable, or indeed valuable in any way at all. But recall the distinction between a good such and such, and good that. As it continues to hold here, so there isn’t a worthwhile distinction between its being intrinsically good that there are, say, happy people and this state of affairs being intrinsically valuable. Talk of intrinsic goodness is, then, ambiguous, and needs some careful handling.25

70

Value

Summary The notion of value is not easily grasped or explained. As before, I’ve wanted to take as a guide many of the things we ordinarily say in talking about what value is, what it is to value something, what sorts of things have value. And I’ve wanted similarly to be guided by everyday discourse in distinguishing between the different kinds of value that things might have. As our ordinary talk is often unclear and at odds with itself, our attempts to make good sense of this talk have obstacles to overcome. A particular diffculty here, of course, is that intrinsic value is itself among the terms frequently encountered. And many people appear to fnd common uses of this term unproblematic. But as I’ve wanted seriously to question this, then it seems my procedure is somewhat cast into doubt. I am at the same time wanting to respect, and also to challenge, ordinary language. The way to resolve the tension here is not to think we’ll have to assume, as some have suggested, that a term with a widespread use must often be correctly used,26 but rather to hold that errors can be understood and explained. At the centre of confusions about intrinsic value, I’ve claimed, is a failure adequately to fully distinguish between the different ways in which a thing might be valued, or indeed be valuable. For what is certainly a useful twofold distinction – means versus ends – admits of, indeed demands, further fnessing. We can, frst, tease out various ways in which a thing might be said to have instrumental value, or have use as a means. But more important here is to distinguish, where ends are concerned, between a thing’s being valuable for itself, on the one hand, and being valuable in itself, on the other. The former is unproblematic. We can and do value many things – paintings, pens, cars, kittens – just for what they are, rather than for what they can do, or do for us. And it remains unproblematic even if we then want to distinguish, within these things, between those we merely happen to value and those we ought to value. But the contrasting notion, in itself, is problematic. If something is valuable just in itself then it persists in being valuable even when valuers and would-be valuers are alike taken from the picture. That anything should be valuable in this way is, I’ve claimed, hard to understand. The things we value for themselves can usefully be described, I’ve said, as having personal value. And I mean by this the value for, rather than of, a person.27 So then the more challenging notion of something’s being valuable just in itself is now able to be attached to talk of intrinsic value. Doing otherwise makes ineffcient and misleading use of the various terms available. This, I’ve said, matters. Even if we agree that intrinsic value doesn’t trump all other values, still it claims to do some work. If life, or even just human life, is intrinsically valuable then there is some reason, even if this is outweighed by other considerations, always to save life. But that view should strike us as unwarranted. If human lives, or even just good human lives, are intrinsically valuable then there is always some reason to bring new lives into existence. That view, and I’ll argue this later, is similarly unwarranted. As the view has this array of unwelcome implications, so it loses its appeal.

Value

71

Notes 1 See Harman (2000: chs.6–8) for much useful discussion on the relations here, and in particular the relation between values and second-order desires. 2 Holmes Rolston (1994: 16), (2012: 63). 3 These are examples offered by my students in the class of 2018. 4 And perhaps not always a useful feature, see Williams’ comments on Raz’s views in Raz (2003). 5 See, for discussion if not yet endorsement, Rolston (2012: 134), and for something very similar, but frmer, Korsgaard (1983: 195). 6 For the classic discussion and presentation of the subjective account see Hume (1757). 7 See the discussion of these matters offered by Susan Wolf (2010) in an important text I consider in some detail in Chapter 8. 8 So there is here a close correspondence with a familiar account of secondary qualities. Are the beautiful roses actually red? Again, we can say (and say not much more than) they are such as to appear red to normal observers under normal conditions. But there is an important difference. What we value, where sight is concerned, is the ability to make a fair number of useful discriminations. It matters if we become unable to distinguish red and green, but matters less if we see red as green and vice versa. In contrast, it is hard to believe that some corresponding reversal in our judgements not only about beauty, but about matters of value more generally, would not signal a change for the worse. Something is amiss where we delight in cruelty to animals,and weep when they thrive. This strengthens the case for objectivity. 9 And, I claim, we talk in ways that appear to support this. So, asked why we like golf, or Beethoven, or city breaks we are, if good explanations elude us, more likely to give up – ‘I just do!’ than claim it is because they please us. Yet more may be needed here. She says, ‘Go to the game. You’ll enjoy it!’ Doesn’t this suggest pleasure is the reason for going? Even in such a case it is not something undifferentiated we are after but the particular pleasure to be gained from this particular experience. Shall we say then that we are using the game as a means to experience – and to enjoy the experience – of the game? This still sounds wrong. But given that I earlier voiced some sympathy for hedonism or the mental state account of where value resides I ought perhaps feel pressure to say more. This is, however, a pressure I’ll resist. (I’ll resist too any urging to make clearer where mental states ft among the things that have value.) 10 See again Harman (2000). Though having foated the idea of such value in Chapter 6, Harman has second thoughts in Chapter 8. 11 Further terms need to be considered. I want to insist that it doesn’t follow, from a thing’s being valued as an end, or for its own sake, or for itself or again from that thing’s having fnal value that it has intrinsic value. That value sits happily with (just) in itself, and perhaps also with the idea of value simpliciter. See Korsgaard (1983) and Kagan (1998) for infuential discussions advancing contrasting views. And see footnote 26 below. 12 Dworkin (1993: 71). It would be a mistake, however, to think, as the examples here might suggest, that different things will be valuable in different ways. Dworkin very soon goes on to claim that life – and there are several other instances – is valuable in all three ways. But the argument for this is fawed, with some of its diffculties appearing here. 13 And we might, in this sort of case, talk of agent-centred value. 14 Dworkin (1993: 72–75). 15 Dworkin (1993: 72–73). 16 It ought to be noted, however, that Dworkin’s discussion here – much of it framed within the abortion debate – is oftentimes cagey. Thus: ‘If we think that the life of any human organism, including a fetus, has intrinsic value whether or not it also has instrumental or personal value – if we treat any form of human life as something we

72

17

18 19 20 21

22

23

24

25

26

Value should respect and protect and honor as marvellous in itself – then abortion remains morally problematical’ (1993: 73). This is correct, of course. But implicit here, and again disguised by Dworkin’s rhetoric, is the contention that we should think in this way. The two examples differ in an important respect. Dworkin focuses on great art. We’ll be more sympathetic to the claim that this art has some special value than if we consider also the millions of average and abysmal artworks that surround us. Similarly, claims about life’s intrinsic value gain traction if restricted to the great or even the good lives. But typically they are not. It is most often claimed that life has this intrinsic value regardless of its quality. That makes the view harder to sustain. Dworkin (1993: 73). Dworkin (1993: 73–74). See Moore, and respectively (1903), (1912), and (1922). It is worth mentioning here the not infrequently encountered and confused thought that tigers are intrinsically valuable, and this in part because they are rare. But rarity is a relational property of tigers. This tiger’s intrinsic properties, and so its intrinsic value, remain unaltered whether or not there are other tigers in existence. Suppose, however, that it is instead held that rarity itself is intrinsically valuable, and that the more instances of rarity there are the better. So then the solitary tiger is a component in or contributor to some one off, and so intrinsically valuable, state of affairs. See O’Neill (1992) and Bradley (2001) for good discussion. Suppose a Tintoretto, alone in the universe, is intrinsically valuable. And then a second painting, with the same intrinsic properties, pops into existence, a galaxy’s distance away. This surely has the same value. And it can’t affect the value of the frst. But unless we issue some blanket denial that value is additive – and what grounds for that could there be? – then surely two paintings (on the assumption that we are claiming, as intrinsic value views have it, that it is good that the frst painting exists, and not merely that it is a good painting) is better than one. Of course, value is not always additive – it is not better to take fve doses of some valuable medicine when all you need is one. The focus here is on the kinds of examples Dworkin offers. But suppose that pleasure, or beauty, or knowledge is intrinsically valuable. In contrast to paintings, or lives, these might be unconditionally valuable. Objects such as paintings might lose their beauty, but in so doing they lose what gives them value. Properties, or abstractions are, and remain, what they are. So this point about pleasure sits tangentially to Dworkin’s claim about non-incremental values. More is better for those who exist. But more isn’t better generally. The point relates, then, to Narveson’s (1967) question, and of course answers to that question, about whether we should be concerned to make people happy or to make happy people. I say considerably more about this especially in Chapters 5–7 below. See especially Feldman (1998) for a good and curious account. Good, as Feldman makes very many important points, drawing on a range of historical and contemporary texts, about confusions, unclarities, and inconsistencies regarding the topic. Curious, as although the title refers to intrinsic value, most of the content centres on intrinsic goodness. Neither the shift nor the distinction is acknowledged or explained. Kagan (1998) advances what, to me, is an uncontroversial claim that we can value something as an end or for its own sake in part in virtue of its instrumental or historical properties. He gives various convincing examples, including sports cars and old pens. What is controversial is that we should construe such value as intrinsic. For that lead to the seemingly paradoxical view that an object can be intrinsic valuable in virtue of its non-intrinsic properties. He anticipates the objection that the seemingly intuitive link between intrinsic value and intrinsic properties should be maintained, but wants to resist this on the grounds that there may be no instances of such value.

Value

73

The idea seems to be that we have this well-worn term ‘intrinsic value’ so might as well fnd it employment somewhere. That is surely akin to our thinking that even if there is no grey-bearded old man in the sky, listening out for our prayers, we shouldn’t deny that God exists, but use that name as an equivalent to love, or order in the universe, or some such thing. 27 Though in one non-trivial sense a thing might be of personal value also to an animal.

4

Lives

Living things can be in a good or bad, better or worse, state or condition. We can ask, when do we have reason to improve their condition, make it better than it would otherwise be? We can ask, also, when do we have reason to save living things from death? It is worth thinking in terms of adding frst to the quality, second to the quantity of life. But there’s room for an assumption here – we’ll add quantity only when what we add is of quality. Whether that assumption should be made can be considered later. Another way to add quantity is to start new lives. And so then we can ask, further, when do we have reason to bring living things into existence? The last of these questions is the business of this book’s second part, and so Chapters 5–7. The other two are addressed here. But all three might frst be refned. Many living things, and also many non-living things, have instrumental value. We, and other animals, use plants for food, shelter, and more. We, and other animals, eat animals. We can look to people, indeed use them, as farmers, builders, doctors, and so on. But the concern now is not with instrumental value. I’m not asking when we might have reason to improve, extend, start a life for our beneft, or the beneft of others. Questions of instrumental value can here be set aside. And nor is the concern with intrinsic value. This cannot altogether be set aside and, in what follows, will need more than passing mention. But I’ve expressed doubts as to whether lives can be considered to have intrinsic value, and those doubts at least linger. So I’m not asking whether we should improve, extend, or start in order to add to the universe’s sum of goodness. The concern, instead, is with what has been called personal value, the kind of value my life will have for me. But as I’ve said, that term might be misleading. So, perhaps better expressed, the concern is with improving, saving, and starting lives for the sake of the one whose life it is. When do we have reason to do any of that?

Improving Consider frst trees and plants. I’ve said already that even if plants have a good of their own, and can be in better and worse conditions, we have no reason, just for their sake, to aim at this good. Although it might be good for the plant, in its interests, perhaps contribute to its well-being, if it is watered, still there is no

Lives

75

reason for us, in virtue simply of these considerations, to water it. But not only do we have no reason, for their sake, to beneft them, and improve their condition, we’ve no reason, also, and again for their sake, not to harm them. Though we harm the plant, do what is bad for it, by neglecting to water it, we don’t thereby do anything wrong. And this, I’ve again claimed, is because they lack sentience, awareness, feeling. They have no mental life. This isn’t to say, of course, that there is no criticism to be made of those who fail to beneft, or who actively harm plants. First, plants are often valued, and rightly so, by others. Second, someone who sets out deliberately to harm plants might be said to reveal certain character defects.1 Animals Animals can also be in a better or worse condition. And at least many of them are sentient. These animals have, as I’ve said, moral status and, in contrast to plants, at least some of what we do to them matters, for their sake. But what? Most obviously, pain matters, and there are reasons to reduce pain in animals. Yet, as outlined earlier, we should acknowledge the variety here. Those animals most often alleged to be persons – apes, elephants, dogs, whales – probably experience a greater array of psychological pains than do others. Those that lack motion – oysters, corals, and the like – probably feel little or no pain. What would be the point? And we shouldn’t assume that pains accompany needs throughout the animal world. An animal might be hungry, and need food, without feeling the pains of hunger, be cold without feeling cold, and so on. We have to understand more of all this in order to gauge the legitimacy of our dealings with animals.2 But certainly there is pain, it’s bad for those animals that feel it, and there are reasons to aim at its reduction. These reasons can, of course, be outweighed, and not only by benefts elsewhere but also by benefts for the animal itself. Pain now, as it alerts to danger, may prevent greater pain from starting later. Still, other things equal, the less pain the better. Are there reasons, similarly, to add to an animal’s pleasure? If there are, then there might be another reason to tolerate, or even to cause it pain. We might thereby allow it, or cause it, outweighing pleasure. But frst, and as with pain, it isn’t clear how much, and what kinds of pleasure, non-human animals can enjoy. It may be that so-called higher pleasures – enjoying art or a landscape, refecting on the past, or knowingly overcoming some obstacle – cannot be theirs at all. And we might exaggerate their capacities for simpler or lower pleasures. Though some animals – most notably pet dogs – appear to get enormous pleasure from life, and certain others – kittens, lambs – seem for a short time to link discovery with play, most, through most of their lives, evince little more than an endless struggle to survive. And signs apparently of enjoyment might be misinterpreted. Do animals gain pleasure or stave off pain through eating? Or is eating simply something they do? Years of living close to felds full of sheep and cows suggest the latter – mindless day-long chomping.3 Second, there are questions as to whether an animal’s pleasure matters. Suppose tests show that a rabbit prefers clover to

76

Lives

sorrel. Still, it gets some sort of pleasure from eating the latter. On Tuesday morning it will be eating one or the other. And what it eats will make no difference to further sensations, or to its overall health, its fecundity, or its lifespan. Are there reasons to provide it clover, and so give it the greater pleasure? I think this is far from clear. One view will be that animal pleasure doesn’t matter at all. Another, less extreme, is that beyond a certain small amount, more doesn’t matter. Suppose there is a break-even point, where life is barely worth living. Perhaps there are reasons to raise an animal above this point, to where it has a degree of contentment with its lot, but no reasons to generate further pleasures beyond that. A reminder: the concern here is with improving the lives of those who exist, rather than extending those lives. And we might think there are reasons, given an animal is alive at a certain time, to give it pleasure at that time, without thinking there are any reasons to keep it alive for longer, and so add future pleasures. Whether there are such reasons stands as a different question. So then, and as I suggested earlier,4 it seems there are certain asymmetries between pains and pleasures. Pain, I’ve claimed, is both unwanted by and bad for animals. It will affect them, and in a way that matters, for the worse. Because it feels bad and is bad, so we have reason, other things equal, to aim at, and for their sake, its elimination. Optimum pain is minimum pain. Let’s grant that pleasure is wanted, and that it feels good. Still we can doubt that there is reason to give animals more than modest amounts of pleasure. And, certainly, optimum pleasure isn’t maximum pleasure. Sensations matter. Do other things matter? Are there other ways we might better or improve an animal’s life? We might make it healthier, or increase its reproductive capacity. Let’s assume these represent improvements. Are there reasons to make these improvements? I’ve said about plants that there is no reason, discounting side effects, to be concerned for their fourishing. And I can’t see that this is altogether different with animals. If successful mating causes a pig pleasure, and if pleasure matters, then there is reason, for its sake, to facilitate this. But otherwise not. And as well as improving a life, we may, in contrast, and as I said earlier, damage, harm, or worsen it. I cut down a healthy tree and fashion it into a hedge, or tightly manicured shrub, or so that it can later be coppiced. I damage, rather than destroy it. But there are no reasons, for the sake of the tree, not to do this. Is it similar with animals? A vivisectionist, in the course of her work, removes more and more parts of a cat’s body until only the head remains. But assume, even if fancifully, that there is no effect here on its pleasures or pains.5 Is what she does bad for the cat, and bad in a way that matters? This living cat head is now certainly less of a cat. Some may doubt that it continues, in fact, to be a cat at all, and think it now no more than a detached cat part. Are there reasons, for their sake, to want cats to be fully-fedged cats when, if they are not, there is no difference to the mental states they experience? The committed hedonist will say no. Others will say yes. But if we lack reasons for wanting trees to be trees, rather than hedges, then it becomes hard to see how there can be contrasting reasons here.

Lives

77

These questions can be put in terms of well-being. Suppose well-being takes in more than sensations. We might then think that there just aren’t reasons, other things equal, to maximize an animal’s well-being. But suppose being well is just a matter of feeling well. Even so, there still might not be reasons to maximize well-being. Though we should, other things equal, minimize pain, it is harder, I’ve said, to form and defend a clear view regarding pleasure. People Much of what has been said about animals applies also to people. But there are several differences to be noted. As some of the points needed here have already been made, while others will be developed in later sections, I can be brief. People matter. And there are obviously reasons to reduce the pain that we endure. But, in contrast to at least most animals, we can, as well as ordinary bodily hurts, suffer also from more complex psychological pain. So consider some examples – say, grief, loneliness, jealousy, or a fear of death. Should we think the more we can avoid such pain the better? Again, we can say that other things equal this is true. But, in contrast to animals, there may be several reasons to venture beyond this. We might think that some measure of such pains is a part of what is needed to give us a rich and valuable mental life, and that someone who altogether escapes suffering is not as fortunate as might frst appear. And, to anticipate the concerns of later chapters, we might think a wholly pain-free life will be lacking in meaning. Even ordinary physical pain can play a role here, and offer to the sufferer opportunities for stoicism, while onlookers can reveal themselves as sympathetic. Still, there are often reasons to want, for ourselves and others, a reduction in pain. Are there reasons also to increase our pleasures? The answer will need to take into account the many different kinds of pleasures we can enjoy. But if we deny there are reasons to maximize simple pleasures in animals, we will probably want to say the same regarding people. One video game will amuse your children quite enough to occupy them for an afternoon. A second game, somewhat more expensive, will amuse them to a somewhat greater degree, over the same period. I doubt there are reasons, discounting side effects, to incur the greater cost and opt for the second game. One claim might be that it isn’t better for us to have the greater pleasure. But we might claim instead that even though it is better for us, this isn’t something that matters. Again, optimum pleasure isn’t maximum pleasure. And, as with animals, it may be that we should aim at a sustainable contentment, rather than the brief candle of ecstasy. Yet certain of the peculiarities of the human condition suggest we probably need a more complex account here. First, there are so-called higher pleasures to consider. A musician gets profound satisfaction from her various encounters – playing, listening, analyzing – with the Beethoven Quartets. Can she get too much of this? We might fear that this unbalances her life, with other legitimate concerns (including concerns for other, different, higher pleasures) being neglected. But even setting this aside it might be thought she can still have too much of a good thing. Still, with higher

78

Lives

pleasures there’s arguably more reason to tolerate excess than with those further down the scale. Second, we might ask about the placing of our mental states. Suppose an animal has 50 units of pain in its life. There might be moderate pain over a longer period or a more intense pain over a shorter period. We might think one of these distributions is preferable to the other, even believing that pain can be spread so thinly as to become negligible. But there is a further issue concerning the one pain’s temporal location. Suppose it is short and intense. Perhaps it doesn’t matter just where this comes in the animal’s life. But with a person this might matter. Suppose the pain isn’t associated with illness or injury that then has lasting effects. Still, we might remember the pain and fear its reoccurrence. So then the later it comes the better. Yet if it is felt early enough in childhood it might be instantly forgotten. With pleasures too, and then with mental states more generally, it may seem that distribution matters, with a life that in various ways gets better as it unfolds being preferable to one where, though the totals of good and bad states are the same, there is something of a decline.6 Third, and as implied by both points, there are questions as to preferences. We might think desires and benefts are fairly closely aligned with animals, but, because of our more complex psychologies, less so with people. So then do we have reason to give someone good experiences, good mental states, indeed a good life, when they themselves are indifferent to this? And is there reason to give people what they want when what they want is bad for them? I’ll give quick replies. It can be legitimate to encourage people to try new things if there’s reason to believe this will later bring rewards. With younger people this encouragement can take a sterner form. And there is some reason to indulge people, and cause them some pleasure now, even if later there will be pain. There is no formula for decision making here. We need fne judgements on a case-by-case basis. Consider now, as we did with animals, whether there are reasons to be concerned about anything other than mental states. Does anything matter to us, apart from how things feel from the inside?7 We have many beliefs. Is it better for us if our beliefs are true? Of course there is very often instrumental value to be noted here; if the helicopter is unsafe, it is better to believe this rather than that all is fne and dandy. You’ll feel better if you avoid a crash. But we need a case where believing truly makes no difference, now or later, to our mental states. My life, let us suppose, goes exactly the same way, and so feels the same, whether I believe Neptune or Uranus is closer to Saturn. So is it in any way good for me that I have here the true belief? It is hard to uncover reasons for thinking this. And consider beliefs about pleasures. I believe I’m eating and enjoying ice cream. Does it matter, is it in any way bad for me if, assuming I never discover this, and it makes no further difference to me either way, I’m not in fact eating ice cream, but something else which, for me, is equally pleasurable? Or consider our desires. Get what you want and it generates, typically, some feelings of satisfaction. Set these feelings aside. Is it nevertheless good for you that your desires are satisfed? You want the tiger to be saved, and, after your death, again to fourish. The satisfaction of your desire here will cause you no feeling. And it is hard to see why

Lives

79

it should be good for you if tigers eventually fourish. Is it important that you are a human being? This isn’t important to everyone. Transhumanists look forward to the day when we will be free of the shackles of biology, no longer prone to illness, diseases, or ageing. They are not wedded to the body. But many of us will have reservations about this. Much that is good about life depends, it seems, on our having, and being comfortable with, a properly functioning human body. You can improve someone’s life by helping them take care of this body. Still, we might on refection wonder whether transhumanists are on to something. I enjoy playing tennis. But my pleasures might be exactly the same whether or not I play tennis, so long as I believe I’m playing. So it may be that believing I am a human being matters, while actually being a human being is wholly unimportant. Consider the experience machine. It is often said that few of us would choose to enter such a machine, and that this demonstrates the falsity of hedonism, or the mental state view. For if nothing matters other than how things are going, or feeling, on the inside then there should be no objection to being inside such a machine. It doesn’t matter, given it has no effect on feeling, whether our beliefs are true, whether desires are satisfed, whether we really are human beings. But our reluctance to opt for this machine shows that these things do matter. The argument here isn’t strong. First, more of us would enter a machine than is commonly supposed.8 Second, reluctance here is not quite the point. Consider death. You might believe that death isn’t bad for the one who dies, and yet still be reluctant to kill yourself. And though you won’t volunteer for machine life, you might nevertheless believe that if, against your knowledge you’re given this life, nothing bad will have happened to you. Or imagine a second person. Karin is in a coma after a bad car crash. Doctors can either patch her up, bring her round, make her aware of her life-long and seriously incapacitating injuries – she is paralyzed from the neck down – or they can, post patching, give her the semblance of her old life by putting her into an experience machine. Set aside the interests of third parties. On the mental state view, there is no objection here to the doctors making, on her behalf, the second choice. Moreover, there are reasons to make this choice. I am tempted to believe the mental state view is correct. Nothing matters other than how things are going for us on the inside. But, as this has little bearing on anything in the chapters to come, I reserve for an appendix any detailed defence of machine life. All I’ll do here is identify, and then sketch counters to, the major objections to such life. The frst I’ve just discussed. Even if no one will choose for themselves a machine life, it might nevertheless be that this is just as good as, and just because from the inside indistinguishable from, the one they would choose. Second, the sorts of lives the machine disallows might not matter. You want to be a successful architect. But a condition of this is that you design structures which are actually built. And this you can’t do inside a machine. Hence you believe that machine life cannot be, at least in your case, a good life. But the hedonist can say here that while beliefs in and feelings of success, or greatness, or achievement might matter, the corresponding realities, so far as your having a good life is concerned, don’t.9 And to anticipate a little, even if we allow you can’t have a

80

Lives

genuinely meaningful life within a machine, you can have one that appears to be meaningful. Similarly for happiness. Third, an important instance of this second point. We might agree that you cannot live a good life, qua human animal, wired up in some scientist’s laboratory. But things might be different here for you, qua human person. Suppose I think I am essentially a person, and only inessentially an animal. Then I can have a good life in the machine. But suppose I think I am an animal. I might think nevertheless that what matters in an animal’s life concerns only its mental states. Then that an animal can’t have a good life in a machine, if this life has no impact on its mental states, doesn’t matter. I can qua animal, have all the good that matters. Acknowledge all this, and machine life takes on a better hue.

Saving We can ask, when is death bad for the one who dies? But that isn’t the right question. We should ask instead, when is death bad, in the way that matters, for the one who dies. For what we want to know is when, in what circumstances, we have reason (and for the sake of the one under threat) to save someone, or something from death. Focusing just on the frst question won’t get us to this. Rather than let my answer to this gradually emerge, I’ll state it here. Death is bad, in the way that matters, when and only when it cuts off an ongoing good life that the one who dies wants to live.10 This, unsurprisingly, will need explanation, refnement, and defence. But key ideas can be identifed now. The lives we have reason to save will, in some sense or other, be good lives. There’s no reason to go about saving lives willy nilly, regardless of their quality. But though life will be good the one living this life might, and for various reasons, have no interest in, or desire for its continuation. And in that case there must at least be questions as to whether the life is, for their sake, worth saving. We might say, then, that there are subjective and objective conditions of death’s badness. Finally, the suggestion is that this life must in some sense already be underway. Suppose a completely new life is on offer. And you claim to want this life. As it replaces, rather than runs alongside your current life, so I deny there are reasons to give it you. Start now with Jane. She is having, and will continue to have, a good life. We can consider later whether there might ever be reasons to extend her life for as long as possible. But right now we can think just about a premature ending. You can save Jane, at 40, from a sudden, unanticipated, and painless death. Are there reasons to do so? Epicureans say no. As hedonists, they insist that only pleasure and pain matter. When dead, we feel no sensations either way. And so death is not bad for us.11 But a mistake is made here. We can agree that there is nothing intrinsically bad about being dead, while yet doubting whether there is nothing bad about becoming dead. Jane loses out on both pains and pleasures through dying early. Let’s assume that had she not died she would, in the time to come, have experienced considerably more pleasures than pains. Death deprives her of this overall good experience. That is what is bad about it.

Lives

81

This Deprivation Account of death’s badness has both considerable appeal and many supporters.12 It can, as here, be given a narrow interpretation, focusing on mental states, and linking death’s badness to a loss of good experiences, good sensations, or pleasure. But it can, as well, be both more simply and more broadly construed – death is bad when it deprives the one who dies of a good life. And the more of this life is lost, the worse death is. Those who reject hedonism, and think, for example, that the good life requires some inside/outside matching, may well endorse the account when it is given this wider form. But, unfortunately, its merits are considerably less than at frst they seem. And I’ll argue that this Deprivation Account needs considerable amending before it can satisfactorily contribute to a grasp of death’s badness. Think frst about the account under a broad construal. The sapling I cut down would, qua tree, otherwise have had a good life. I might think that death is in these circumstances bad for the tree. But I can think this, and agree that the tree has been deprived of a good life, while denying that its death matters. So the Deprivation Account, if it is to successfully challenge Epicureanism, needs more. It needs to attend, not simply to the loss of some good, but further, to a good that matters. The Epicureans hold that pain matters, but deny, rightly, that this is visited upon us on death. They appear to overlook that death causes us also a loss of pleasure. Can it be argued now that this also matters, and so gives us reason to avoid, fear, or regret death, and to look upon it, contrary to the Epicurean contention, as a misfortune? Though I’ll agree it can, still there’s work to be done in order to explain when and why. Consider a human embryo. Is death, say from a miscarriage, bad for an embryo? Suppose that had this not occurred the embryo would have developed, as normal, into a healthy and happy human being. The baby would have been called Sam. And Sam would have had a good life. We might, in this life, emphasize pleasures – Sam would have had years of enjoying both ice cream and Beethoven – or we might focus on achievements, meaning, truth – Sam, after years of struggle, would have found the cure for cancer. Suppose we think death is bad for Sam, and in a way that matters. Should we then think that it is similarly bad for the embryo? Not yet. If we hold that the embryo is one thing and the human being or Sam, another, then it doesn’t at all follow that there is any reason to regret, for the latter’s sake, the former’s demise. This will prevent Sam from existing. But the embryo itself never had a chance of a worthwhile life. So death hasn’t deprived it of this life. Suppose we deny there are two things in existence here. There is just one thing, a human organism, that starts as an embryo and then develops in familiar ways, becoming, in turn, a fetus, a baby, an adult and also, along the way, a person. Imagine this person – again we’ll call him Sam – at 15. He is having now a good life, and, though he cannot be certain of this, has more of the same good life ahead of him. He has interests in and desires for this future life. We will almost all agree – very few of us are Epicureans – that death at 15 is bad for Sam. Moreover, it is bad in a way that matters. We have reasons, when he is 15, to save him from death. Do we similarly have reasons to save him from death earlier, when he is still an embryo? We should allow now that death deprives the embryo of a good

82

Lives

life, and so is in one way bad for the embryo, but still deny that this death matters. Even if we agree that it is in the interests of the embryo to remain alive, it has neither interests in nor desires for this future life. The life that matters, the one that will be worth living, that we’ll have reason, for its sake, to save, is not yet properly under way. Consider a different case. Susie is a squirrel. She is two years old, and can be expected to have another four or fve years ahead of her. Hers is, and will be, at least for a squirrel, a good life. And, in contrast to the embryo, she is already well into her life. But she has, as I’ll soon enough explain, no desire to continue living it. For this reason, I’ll deny that death now is, in the way that matters, bad for her. There’s a second contrast with the embryo. While that will develop into Sam, and, as I’ve claimed, death at 15 will be bad for Sam, death will never be bad for Susie. She will never have the requisite desires, and her life, no matter how good, will never be one that matters, never be one that, for her sake, we have reason to save. The Deprivation Account appears to imply, assuming a bright future, that the earlier the death, the worse it is. For then more good life is lost. There may be resistance to this in the case of the tree. Many will think it worse to cut down a magnifcent oak than uproot a young sapling. But there will be more, and deeper resistance concerning human beings. Isn’t it a far greater tragedy when a teenager or young adult dies than when a fetus or newborn child dies? But we shouldn’t think that our desire for the good life that matters is an all-or-nothing affair. Isn’t it often worse to lose someone of 30 than someone of three, even if we allow that in both cases there is interest in, and desire for at least some of the life ahead? What we might say here is that the earlier the death the more good life is lost, but that death matters more, and the loss counts for more, when the life is substantially under way. So the amount of the good lost is one thing, the value of the good lost another. What is needed, then, in properly assessing death’s badness, is to attend not only to the quality and quantity of life lost but also to the degree of interest in and commitment to that life. And the Deprivation Account, at least in standard forms, fails to do that.13 The view I’ll argue for, with such needs in mind, might be called the Desire Account of death’s badness. Neither the plant, nor the embryo, nor the squirrel wants to live the future life that death will deprive them of. So, even when this future life is in some way or other a good life, still its loss is not bad, in the way that matters, for the one who dies. And so we have, for their sake, no reason to stand in death’s way. But, of course, there is no restriction to these particular examples. And I’ll argue that although there are many things that might be deprived of good life, only where persons are concerned can this loss matter. For only persons can appropriately desire the life ahead. What is needed, then, is a fuller account of desires and their importance. Williams and desires This Desire Account bears obvious affnities to Bernard Williams’ well-known distinction, and his claims for consequences of that distinction, between

Lives

83

categorical and conditional desires.14 But his discussion of this isn’t altogether clear, and where it is clear is sometimes at odds with what I’m suggesting here. Williams says: Many of the things I want, I want only on the assumption that I am going to be alive; and some people, for instance some of the old, desperately want certain things when nevertheless they would much rather that they and their wants were dead. It might be suggested that not just these special cases, but really all wants were conditional on being alive…. But surely the claim that all desires are in this sense conditional must be wrong. For consider the idea of a rational forward-looking calculation of suicide…. In such a calculation, a man might consider what lay before him, and decide whether he did or did not want to undergo it. If he does decide to undergo it, then some desire propels him on into the future, and that desire at least is not one that operates conditionally on his being alive, since it itself resolves the question of whether he is going to be alive. He has an unconditional, or (as I shall say) a categorical desire.15 A simple example. It is Friday. Jack plans to buy a bike on Saturday in order to commute more easily to work. Given that he anticipates remaining both alive and in employment, a bike will be useful to him. Jill plans to buy a bike in order to set out on a lifetime project of cycling across Australia. She hopes to remain alive so as to do this. Hers is a categorical desire. Williams warns against any suggestion that all desires are conditional. But there is ambiguity here. The having of a desire is conditional on being alive – death puts an end to desiring. But the object of the desire – what one wants – obviously isn’t in this way conditional. I can want men to get Mars eventually, want the government to fall now, want, long ago, the Romans to have been kind to the Britons. Very many of my desires are other-regarding, and have no need of me within their object. And some of those that are self-regarding still have no need of my remaining alive. I can want my reputation in the future to be spotless, whether I am alive or dead, and can want the talk I gave last week to have been well-received, regardless of my existence. I can want, also, that my life should end. Still, the kinds of desires Williams has us focus on – Jill’s is a good example – are, in both their formulation and realization, conditional on being alive. Dead people neither think nor bike. Moreover, it may seem that all our desires are in some way or other conditional. I don’t want an end to this government, Jill doesn’t want her bike trip, you don’t want to see Venice, whatever it takes, whatever the circumstances, and whatever the results – our desirings assume and operate within many fxed points. And there are limits to what we will give, or permit, in order that they might be satisfed. But now in another sense surely relatively few are conditional. What we say or think to ourselves, in having some desire, very rarely involves any spelling out of its conditions. Jack probably thinks to himself simply that he needs a bike. It might be thought that the distinction between categorical and conditional desires is easily made. But, as it now appears, there’s detail to attend to. It might

84

Lives

be supposed that the distinction is exhaustive and exclusive. Certainly, we can pick out desires of some specifed kind, and lump all the rest together. But there is room for doubt that we can do this in a way that respects the implicit meaning of this pair of terms. In light of such diffculties, Ben Bradley has suggested that the distinction Williams has in mind might be better expressed by contrasting intrinsic and extrinsic desires.16 But though he complains that Williams isn’t clear, these terms, in turn, are not well explained. I take it the idea is that some of the things that we are after we want for their own sake, as an end, and others for what they can do or assist with, or as a means. I want to learn to play the tuba – this is for me intrinsically or categorically desirable; I want some medicines – these are things I want only insofar as they enable me to pursue what I value intrinsically. One immediate consequence of putting things this way is that animals and babies will appear better able to have categorical, rather than conditional desires. Seeing, and articulating to oneself how things ft together, how one thing might lead to, or depend on, another involves considerable sophistication. They can’t do this. But they can want things, as we might say, on their behalf, as ends. That, however, is a reason for thinking Bradley’s suggestion (as too the suggestion above that conditional desires have the greater complexity) distorts rather than clarifes what Williams was after. His idea is that categorical desires, desires that propel us into the future, involve more than a sprinkling of self-consciousness, and involve a particular kind of wanting, and seeing oneself in, a different time. Any account which presents them as a default or norm gets this wrong. Jill, we might say, has plans and projects for her future which, it seems, give her reasons (though these might be outweighed) to take certain steps – buying a bike, exercising, studying the maps – necessary for the realization of those plans. She will need money in order to do this. And, more obviously, she will need to remain alive. In what is probably too stark a contrast, Jack, we can assume, has no such plans. If he remains alive, then he needs a bike – being stuck in traffc is bad for him. But he has no particular reason for, or interest in, staying alive. Death is not bad for him. This is the critical distinction we’re after here. I said above that death is bad only when it prevents some individual from living a good life that he or she wants to live. This claim is to some degree in tension with Williams’ view in two ways. He suggests that merely wanting to live on doesn’t really count as a categorical desire – this is perhaps too thin to be considered a plan or project. I can concede this. And my talk of wanting to live, or wanting to live the good life, might be seen as a placeholder for wanting something more specifc. More important, Williams appears to suggest that categorical desires, in his sense, are suffcient for death’s being bad for us. In contrast, I claim only that such desires are necessary. He says: To want something… is to that extent to have reason for resisting what excludes having that thing: and death certainly does that, for a very large range of things that one wants. If that is right then for any of those things, wanting something itself gives one a reason for avoiding death. Even though

Lives

85

if I do not succeed, I will not know that, nor what I am missing, from the perspective of the wanting agent it is rational to aim for states of affairs in which his want is satisfed, and hence to regard death as something to be avoided; that is to regard it as an evil.17 Almost all of us, on Williams’ account, have categorical desires, and so reason to avoid death. This is quite enough, it may seem, to show that death is bad for us – it is bad just because it thwarts our categorical desires. But we should distinguish between consistency and truth. Given that I want some future life, I’ve reason to avoid death. But this future may be one I have no reason to want, and even have reason not to want. I don’t believe the doctors, and insist on sinking everything into some prolonged and debilitating quack cure. I might have more reason to want death now than to want for myself this future. The safer claim, then, is that death isn’t bad for us unless we want, for some reason or other, to live on. Given that these are good reasons – what we want is worth having – and given also that I won’t in other ways be prevented from getting what I want,18 then we might make the further claim that death is bad for us. Whether that claim, in the end, goes through is considered later. First, we can ask whether animals might also have, in the requisite sense, these categorical desires. Animals Do animals have desires at all? Let’s agree that they can have, as we might say, wants simpliciter – they might want to eat, mate, sleep – but, I’ve said, these are just not the sorts of desires at issue here. Bradley, in developing his account of categorical desires, makes the further, and different claim that animals can want things in the future: ‘Wouldn’t the cow who sees some grass over on the hill, and walks over to the hill to eat the grass, have a desire to eat grass in the future that explains why it walks over to the hill?’19 But there is no need to attribute to the cow anything more than ‘I want grass’ and then to acknowledge that it takes time for this desire to be satisfed. Squirrels might appear to do better with deferred pleasures, with ‘not now, but later’ in storing, rather than eating the nuts they collect. But we should think this is something they do instinctively rather than with any attention to their future well-being. Similarly for other complex behaviours such as nest building, migration, making honey. And even if the squirrel did have some such thought, theirs might just as easily be in Williams’ sense a conditional desire: ‘given I’m likely to survive into the winter I’d better make sure there’s food in the house’. Can animals want for themselves a future existence? Can they, as can we, elect to suffer present pain as a means of acquiring future pleasures? This is an important indicator of something’s having the relevant desires. A fox, caught in a trap, gnaws at its leg and eventually escapes. We might think it does this either because it prefers freedom now to captivity now, or because it prefers life tomorrow to death tomorrow. The frst explanation is the simpler, and the one to be preferred. I don’t insist that animals are altogether incapable of having, in Williams’ sense, categorical desires. The key claim is merely that death is

86

Lives

bad only for those creatures that want for themselves a future existence. It is an empirical matter as to which animals, if any, can entertain such a desire. But I suspect that the more convincing cases will relate to those higher mammals about which personhood claims have some plausibility. And if this is right then almost all animals, we can believe, are wholly incapable of forming the requisite desires. One fnal point here: Bradley ends his discussion with the confdent, and deathrelated assertion that turning happy cows into hamburgers is bad for them. Indeed it is, but then it’s similarly bad for trees to be turned into pencils. The important question, relating to life’s value, is whether, in light of this badness, we have reason to avoid killing cows. And Bradley concedes that for all he’s said, cows might lack moral status, and their deaths not matter morally.20 McMahan – Connections, interest, and pleasures Can the position I’ve outlined here – excepting a few cases, a painless death just isn’t bad for animals – really be sustained? Jeff McMahan has consistently and repeatedly argued that many animals do have lives which, for their sake, are best not ended.21 But, although death is bad for them, and in a way that matters, it is typically much less bad for animals to die than it is for human beings. The claim here, attributing to the death of both cows and cowboys a similar kind but different degree of badness, is going to fnd for itself considerably more support than my contention that animal death is only very rarely bad at all. But the argument is unpersuasive, and at several critical junctures is insuffciently clear. In explaining this, and identifying these shortcomings, I’ll be able at the same time to offer more support for my own contrasting account. Start with a key claim, which here, in a recent piece, fnds altogether succinct expression: … the extent to which death is a misfortune for an individual is a function primarily of two independent factors: (1) the amount of good life of which the individual is deprived by death and (2) the extent to which the individual at the time of death would have been psychologically connected to himself at those times in the future when the good things in his life would have occurred.22 The concern is with the overall quality of life lost. Hans might lose more good life than Helga, but if he loses bad life also, his death might, on balance, be the less bad. McMahan presumably means us to think of net good. There’s considerably more that might be said about psychological connectedness, but only a few points are needed here. Animals, unlike plants, have some of what is needed for psychological connectedness – namely a psychology. Suppose Kiri the cow has a psychology that is not wholly fragmented. First, she has certain ongoing dispositions or character traits; she tends always to be timid, to follow the herd, to scratch herself on a particular tree in the feld. Second, let’s suppose Kiri is alive

Lives

87

in all of 2018, 2020, and 2022. In 2020 she remembers various of her activities in 2018, and anticipates performing further activities in 2022. This is probably most unlikely, for a cow, but allow it for the sake of argument. And then suppose, further, that she has desires for, and wants to perform, these future activities. In light of all this, we might say there are fairly strong psychological connections between Kiri now and her past and future selves.23 Let’s add that she will live until 2024, and that her life will, by cow standards, be overall good. McMahan’s claim is that death now is bad for Kiri, and that it is bad mainly because of, and in proportion to, these two factors – the better the life to come, the worse death is, and the more strongly connected to the future, again the worse it is. Is he right? An important question here is whether, on this account, death is to some degree bad, in virtue of one of these factors alone. Are both necessary, or is either suffcient? Suppose Kiri is strongly connected to her future self, but her life to come will, as she realizes, be a catalogue of evils. Surely death now is not bad for her. Or at least, it is better for her to die than to live. But suppose that although the life to be lost will be good, there are no psychological connections between its different parts. Here things are perhaps less straightforward. Some will insist that death is bad, in a way that matters, and for the one who dies, whenever it brings to an end a good life. But, as I’ve said, this seems implausible. It isn’t at all clear we have any reason to regret, for their sake, the death of plants. And that an animal, with death, can be cut off from a string of pleasant sensations doesn’t obviously appear to make any difference here. Of course, it might be said that the existence of such sensations is intrinsically good, or just a good thing, but even supposing this is so, our concern right now is not with the universe, or good simpliciter, but with Kiri the cow. Why should it be bad for her, supposing her psychology is wholly fragmented, if she happens to die? McMahan doesn’t make it altogether clear where he stands on this. Let’s agree, to begin, that the deaths that matter involve loss, somewhere, of pleasant sensations. So we can set aside plants and attend only to beings that are at some or other time conscious. Now suppose conception is close, but is thwarted. If it had gone ahead a good life would have been lived. So there is, because of thwarting, a substantial loss of future good. There will be, in existence, fewer pleasant sensations (located, of course, in some organism) than would otherwise have been the case. This is bad, if at all, for no one. Most people think this sort of badness doesn’t matter. And McMahan appears to concur.24 Suppose conception occurs, but the fetus dies. Now the one who dies is identical with the one who would, absenting this death, have enjoyed these future goods. McMahan believes – surely correctly – that death isn’t very bad, in such a case. But, at least on occasion, he seems to think that identity has made some difference, and that it is to some degree bad for the fetus, and in a way that matters, that it has died. So there is some degree of badness to contend with even before psychological connectedness is taken into account. So far as I can tell, this isn’t anywhere explained, and seems to get what support it has just from an appeal to intuition.25 But elsewhere he takes a different line:

88

Lives the painless killing of wholly unconnected animals is relevantly like preventing animals with comparable prospects from coming into existence, which few believe would be wrong.26

So the claim here is that identity – that a particular and currently existing thing has lost out on its future good – doesn’t in itself make a difference. And, no matter how good the future, death isn’t bad at all for unconnected animals. Let’s assume that this – surely a plausible position – is both correct, and McMahan’s view. So then both conditions are necessary. But are they, as McMahan claims, jointly suffcient? I say no. But we need more now on psychological connectedness. Suppose Kiri exhibits, as I suggested, strong connections between her mental states in this century’s early years. How might she be, in contrast, unconnected? An unconnected animal, McMahan says, ‘lacks any degree of self-consciousness’, is disconnected from itself ‘beyond the immediate future’,27 and so lacks ‘desires or intentions or ambitions for the future that would be frustrated by death’.28 A connected animal, in contrast, is self-conscious to some degree, and is ‘psychologically related to itself in the future’.29 Let’s suppose this means that it has, as does Kiri in 2020, some memories of the past, and some anticipation of the future. The greater their number, and the further their reach, so then the stronger, we might say, these connections are. Perhaps we can suppose, also, that McMahan is right in his ranking of animals: I suspect only the really lower forms of animal are wholly unconnected. Most of the animals that could be humanely reared for food consumption are connected to varying degrees: pigs more than cows, and cows more than chickens.30 Grant all this. Should we then think that death is to some degree bad for all connected animals and that the stronger the connections, the worse it is? Recall Susie the squirrel. Even supposing that she can anticipate the coming winter and wants very much to make sure there’s food in place, this is still only a conditional desire. She might be indifferent to whether she lives or dies, and yet hope to ensure that, if she lives, she won’t go hungry. For death to be bad, and in a way that matters, we need not only psychological connections, of whatever strength, but connections of the right kind. And these, I continue to say, involve categorical desires. So then connections may well be necessary for death’s badness, but, even when coupled with the promise of a future good life, won’t be suffcient. These claims about connectedness sit at the centre of what McMahan calls his Time-Relative Interest Account (TRIA) of death’s badness. This, a view that McMahan has stood by for many years, has provoked considerable debate. I won’t attempt here to get into details but will say that though it has a good degree of initial plausibility TRIA cannot, unless it is given some particular precision, be for long sustained. Suppose someone is connected to her future via categorical desires. Magda, who is 30 and will live an overall good life to 80, wants at some point to see

Lives

89

Venice. In virtue of this, (and presumably much more besides) dying now is to some degree bad for her. Suppose she is deciding whether to make this trip at 40, or, alternatively, at 60. It will be equally rewarding either way. McMahan believes that dying now is (other things equal) worse for her (and in a way that matters) if she would have travelled at 40, than it would be had she planned to wait until 60. In assessing badness, we have, to some degree, to discount for time. This, even if it is unlikely to command immediate and universal assent, is a defensible claim. At least I’ve no reason here to pursue it further. But I’ve presented the example in terms of categorical desires. What if, in line with TRIA, we change this to interests? Under one construal, interests connect closely with desires. If I’m interested in, or take, or have, an interest in going to Venice then, it seems, I’ll want to get there. But, as I noted earlier, talk of interests is often ambiguous. Construed as a promoter of well-being – it is in her interests to exercise – any such connection absent. Which of these senses is relevant to TRIA? McMahan makes no explicit appeal to this distinction, but wants to claim that the strength of a thing’s interest in some future event tracks the extent to which it is rational to care, for that thing’s sake, whether this event should occur.31 Presumably, then, if it is not at all rational to care, then the thing has no interest in the event. This, frst, points to an account of interests which is different from both of those just sketched above – in a nutshell, interests always matter – and, second, does nothing in itself to support the claim that animals have such interests.32 Rather, their having an interest in avoiding death depends on whether we would be rational in caring whether or not they die. And yet this is the point at issue. So what McMahan needs here is to make good on his claims that animals do have an interest in their future life, and that we have reason to help them satisfy such interests. Deliver on these, and then TRIA is able to kick in. Can he do this? Certainly he believes so. And in the end it appears he thinks that something like the Deprivation Account is on the right lines after all, with robust construals of connectedness, interests, and desires all falling out of the picture. For consider this, a small part of which I quoted earlier: Because [animals] are not self-conscious, or are self-conscious only to a rudimentary degree, they are incapable of contemplating or caring about anything more than the immediate future. They do not, therefore, have desires or intentions or ambitions for the future that would be frustrated by death.33 The reference here is to all animals. And it seems now that even connected animals cannot be strongly connected to their future. Moreover, they lack future directed desires. You might think that arguments for their death’s being bad for them should now be abandoned, but far from it: Yet the lives of animals must matter to some extent – that is, animals must have an interest in living to experience the goods that lie in prospect for them. In particular, the goods that an animal’s future life could contain must

90

Lives matter enough to justify allowing the animal to endure a certain, even considerable amount of suffering. For if an animal’s avoidance of suffering were signifcantly more important than its living to experience the goods that its future life could contain, then it would be better for the animal to be painlessly killed before it could undergo any suffering at all. But this is implausible. It can be better for an animal to endure a certain amount of suffering if the good experiences it might have afterwards would be suffcient to outweigh the suffering. We all acknowledge this when we submit out pets – just as we submit ourselves – to painful but life-saving medical treatments.34

The idea here is that pain counts against an animal’s continuing to live. But as we don’t end the lives of those animals that will suffer pain, so clearly pleasure must weigh against the pain and count for something. So when there is more pleasure than pain in times to come, then it is bad for the animal to die. And it is bad, on this reckoning, whether or not they are connected, or self-conscious, or wanting to live. The argument for this, offered in the last sentence of the passage above, is weak. Little can be clearer than that we are prone to massively irrational behaviours where our pets are concerned, and, as evidenced by what we feed them, how we dress them, the way we fuss over them, the limitations we put on their normal behaviour, only rarely do we put their well-being frst. Subjecting pets to painful operations in order to extend their life is often at odds with disinterested medical advice. And in many cases those doing this will acknowledge that their own needs for companionship are much more the motivator than any beliefs about what is good for the animal.35 Nor should we be at all persuaded by McMahan’s further claim, made in the subsequent paragraph. He allows that because of differences in the quality of goods lost, human deaths typically matter more. Nevertheless ... the goods of an animal’s life weigh against the evils in the same way that goods and evils weigh against one another in the life of a person.36 But we should doubt this. No animal can elect for present pain as a route to future pleasure – none of them can, as Williams puts it, perform any rational forward-looking calculation. This is what we do when considering the life-saving operation. And we can do it on behalf of others. Though, after her stroke, Jane is unconscious, unable to say what she wants, we can have good reason to believe she would want, even at some cost, to carry on. We can’t similarly believe that an animal would want to pay some price in order to live. What is important here is not only that goods outweigh evils but also that they compensate for them. I return to this in Chapters 5 and 7. Though I’ve been critical here of McMahan, it is worth again saying that I don’t insist death is never bad for animals. Perhaps a few animals, or animals of a few kinds, can enjoy lives which are somewhat like ours. And so death can be bad

Lives

91

for these animals, and in the way that matters. We can have reason, then, to save them from death. What of the rest? Suppose a cow can want to stay alive long enough to eat the grass it sees in the next feld, or a hamster can want lunch frst and then another spin in its wheel. Then death now is bad for these animals, and in a way that matters. But animal psychologies are rudimentary compared to ours. And we might, perhaps, reasonably suppose that neither their memories nor their anticipations can survive or extend beyond a night’s sleep. The same, then, for their desires. I suggested above that Kiri might want to scratch on the tree tomorrow. We ought, I think, to fnd it incredible that a cow should have any such thought. Nor should we suppose the dog might think his master will be home not tonight but perhaps in the morning.37 Nor again, but from a different perspective, that a cat should hope the mouse it was chasing yesterday might reappear later today. But now if this is right and sleep represents a critical juncture, then death during the night cannot be bad for animals like these. And death during the day is at best minimally bad. There isn’t much that most animals can want. And they can’t much want it, nor want it for long.38 Human animals If, as I claim, categorical desires are key here then there are many human beings, unable to form such desires, for whom death is not bad at all. The anencephalic child never forms desires. Most embryos, fetuses, and newborn babies lack these desires now even though they will, if all goes to plan, form them later. Those with severe Alzheimer’s, in a persistent vegetative state, or who are brain dead had such desires, but are without them now, and will never have them again. In none of these cases is there reason, if we think only of the one who will otherwise die, to save the life. Consider just the most contentious case. Of course, there are many reasons to save the lives of babies, and of course, also, it is a good thing that we are disposed to save the lives of babies even without looking for reasons. Even so, the fact that the baby will grow into a person, or has the potential to do this, or is a thing whose nature is to develop in this way; none of this provides such a reason, or indicates that death now would, for this baby, and in the way that matters, be bad. Suppose there were reason to regret the death of babies, and regret this just on their behalf. Then there would be reason too to regret spontaneous abortions or miscarriages, even when pregnancy is not discovered or desired. And there would be reason to object to so-called morning after pills. But not many believe there is reason to regret death in these cases.39 Contrast these sorts of cases with those where the absence of desire comes in the middle of life. Someone in a reversible coma has neither desires nor the ability to form desires right now, but did earlier, and will soon again. We might say of someone who is deep asleep either that they presently lack desires, or that they have them but in a latent, rather than occurrent, form. Or consider Alice, a depressed teenager – fully conscious but thinking only of suicide. In all such cases, I’ll say, death is normally to be prevented. So then it’s not true either that having categorical desires at some time or other is suffcient for death’s badness,

92

Lives

or that having them right now is necessary. But what matters is that we have them round about now. What does this mean? As with all of us, the comatose, the sleeping, the temporarily depressed have had such desires in the past and will, if all goes well, have similar desires in the future. My claim at the outset was that death is bad when and only when it ends the good life that you want to live. But what needs clarifcation concerns the time of this wanting. Suppose death comes on Wednesday. If, supposing you’d lived, there’d have been occasions both before and after Wednesday when with good reason, you would have wanted to continue with your life, then death is bad on Wednesday. And this, even if you lack such desires on Wednesday. Even this needs further refning. So consider some special cases, helping to fll in the gaps. Xan, because of illnesses, has never had a good life. But she has had a life, and one involving categorical desires, most of which, until now, have been frustrated. Medical procedures just introduced offer her a good future, and more hope for the satisfaction of her desires. Until very recently death wouldn’t have been bad for her, so wretched was her existence, but it will be bad for her if it comes now. Yanni, like Alice, is a depressed teenager. But unlike her, he will never recover, and never again want to live. Death, I want to say, is not bad for him. What is bad for him is suffering in this way. Zak’s life is good now. But he is developing a disease which, if untreated, will in a relatively short time kill him. Doctors offer a new therapy which will remove the threat of death. However, the treatment will cause him to suffer profound and irreversible amnesia, realign his tastes and inclinations, and have considerable effects on his character. So, no matter how good it is, Zak’s new life will bear little relation to the old. Discontinuities here imply the new life offers him no more than death, even if some might think, and he might think, it would be better for the universe were he to accept the treatment. So even if he wants, with reason, to live now, and will want, again with reason, to live later, there is no reason now for him to want, for his sake, the later life, and so no reason either, given what is on offer, for him to want to be alive at that later time.40

Competing claims The central concern here is with questions of value, and with what we have reason to do or want. But there are, of course, many important questions about what we have most reason to do. And then, often, we are getting into ethics. We can touch on some of this here, and so consider certain questions about what we should do when there are two things we have reason to do, but we can’t do both. Is there reason to put your child before some other child? We will say yes. But it doesn’t follow that your child is more valuable. So this is an agent-relative reason.41 Your special relationship with your own child explains and justifes your putting her well-being before that of strangers. Even while doing this, you can concede that from an agent-neutral perspective – consider some impartial observer who has no particular interest in either child – the right thing might be to toss a coin.

Lives

93

Is there reason to put people before animals? Many, while concerned about speciesism, will say yes. But many will deny this is an agent-relative reason. They will say that Martians too should put people frst. People, they will say, are just more valuable, or are superior, or count for more.42 I deny we should put people frst. But the distinction between pain and death is important. We shouldn’t rank human pain over animal pain. A horse and its rider are both injured, and, though neither will suffer any lasting effects, both have a need for painkillers right now. If their needs are equal you might toss a coin. If the horse’s need is greater – it is in more pain, or is more distressed by the pain – then it should come frst. Not to recognize this is speciesist. But matters are different where death is concerned. The injuries this time are more severe, with both under threat of death. The horse, if it lives, will have ten good years to come, while its rider, as she is already terminally ill, only one. Suppose, as I’ve argued, that death isn’t bad for animals. Then we should save the rider. But this isn’t because even though she loses less, people always come frst. Rather, her loss matters – matters to her – while the horse’s loss doesn’t matter. There is nothing speciesist in this.43 The assumption here is that we are, in all this, discounting side effects, or reasons elsewhere. There can be many reasons to save an animal from death. Should we say, even so, if there’s a choice between deaths, we should save people? No. We shouldn’t always rank human life above human pleasure. So we might save the tiger, rather than the person, because of how, with reason, we value this animal’s life. This ought not to appear too controversial. We shouldn’t think that almost everything we do with our money is morally suspect, so long as it could be used to save people from death. There is more to life than life. A more challenging question is in the offng here. It is surely legitimate, in some cases, to put human pain before human life. And, as I’ve just suggested, it can be legitimate also to put human pleasure before human life. Animal pleasure, I’ve earlier suggested, isn’t that important. Not so with animal pain. Horse and rider both fall. He is obviously in considerable pain. She is unconscious and needing urgent medical attention if she is to live. In this case surely we put the rider frst. But numbers, and intensities, both count.44 And it appears to follow, from claims made thus far, that there is some amount of animal pain, the relief of which is more important than saving a human life. If that is at all counterintuitive it is, I think, only superfcially so.

Summary We can improve lives. Should we? The answer will depend on the kinds and conditions of the lives in question, the nature and recipients of any benefts, the other demands on our time. So I ask frst a simpler question – do we have any reason to improve lives, for the sake of those living these lives? And my answer here – no, for plants; often yes, for animals. Much of the frst and shorter half of the chapter is relatively uncontroversial. Though it is often and easily outweighed, there is reason always to reduce an

94

Lives

animal’s pain, and there is often reason also to increase its pleasure. Because pains and pleasures differ, it shouldn’t be too surprising if there’s less to say about the former than the latter. Even so, certain of my suggestions about the relative unimportance of pleasure will, as I imagine, not always command assent. Does anything matter to an animal other than its pleasures and pains, or its mental states more broadly construed? I’ve tried to further the case for some form of hedonism. This, of course, is controversial. But, as I’ve said, not much that follows hereafter depends on this case being made. And so sceptics about my claims here can stay on board. Most of the chapter is concerned with a second question – is there reason to save lives, when death threatens? I reject the Epicurean contention that death is never bad for the one who dies, but reject too its well-known rival, the Deprivation Account. In its place I advance a Desire Account, linking death’s badness with its preventing the satisfaction of certain sorts of future-directed desires. There is considerable sympathy here for – though, as I argue, need also for refnement of – Williams’ account of categorical desires, and their relation to death’s badness. And so two questions get asked: what sorts of things can have these desires? And, are these desires necessary, or suffcient, or both, for death’s being bad? Obviously, plants cannot have these desires. So then there isn’t reason, for the plant’s sake, to save a plant from death. I can again put the same point in a different manner; death isn’t bad, in the way that matters, for plants. But what about animals? Perhaps some animals are persons. The others – and this is the vast majority, both in numbers and kinds – are not. But, I argue, only persons can have categorical desires. And so, perhaps with just a few exceptions, death isn’t bad, again in the way that matters, for animals. Both claims are controversial. Acknowledging this, some consideration is then given to McMahan’s discussions of value in animal lives. But, I argue, no good defence of the view that animal death matters is here made out. Many human beings, or human animals, are also not persons. So it follows, on my view, that death is not bad for some of our kind also. Not a few will be disposed to accept this where certain diseases, declines, or disabilities are concerned. But the argument applies also to those who are not yet, but who later will be, persons. It applies then, to normal healthy babies. This is controversial. Focusing now on the second of the above questions, the position argued for here is that categorical desires are necessary, but not suffcient for death’s badness. And I claim that we need as well, frst, that failing death, these desires will be satisfed and, second, that their satisfaction will be good for you. One clarifcation – though such desires are necessary, it isn’t necessary that they are occurrent precisely when death threatens. In the fnal section, I plot the argument’s relation to speciesism. Should we put people frst? Assuming my arguments are sound then we’re involved in no suspect practices if, where death is concerned, we put people frst. But consider instead pain. People and animals should here be on an equal footing.

Lives

95

Notes 1 The so-called last man argument in environmental philosophy appeals to the intuition that a sole survivor of, say, a nuclear holocaust does wrong if he wilfully, and for no good reason, scythes down the daffodils. No one is harmed by this. We are to conclude that daffodils have intrinsic value. But we can say instead that this man harms himself, or reveals himself as already harmed. See Routley and Routley (1980) and, for useful discussion, Benson (2000). 2 See, for relevant discussion, Hauser (2000), Rollin (1998), and Bekoff (2002). 3 McMahan (2008: 6) disagrees. ‘Yet anyone who has ever lived with dogs, horses or other animals knows that many animals also take great pleasure in eating. There is a reason why eating is often referred to as an animal pleasure’. What is odd here is lumping all animals into the same boat. Living with dogs will suggest one thing, living with goldfsh another. 4 See back to Chapter 2. 5 Suppose the cat used to get pleasure in chasing mice. Then the head is subject to simulated mouse chasing, and this in such a way that similar pleasure results. 6 It may seem the example is misleading. If a pain causes fear then that too has to be taken into account, added to the sum of pains. So a preference for one location over another is unmysteriously explained. But see Bradley (2009: ch.4), Kamm (1993: vol.1 67–71), Temkin (2011: 108–113). 7 I allude here, of course, to Nozick’s discussion of the experience machine in Anarchy, State and Utopia. See Nozick (1974: 42–44), and see also Nozick (1989). And for more see Belshaw (2014), and also Appendix 2 below. 8 Nozick says that on refection we fnd we wouldn’t enter. Perhaps times have changed. Talk to students, for example, and you’ll fnd a lot of enthusiasm for such adventures. 9 See Bradley (2009) for an excellent discussion of correspondence views and a defence of hedonism. See also Crisp (2006). 10 I gave a version of the argument to follow in Belshaw (2013). 11 I don’t say that the simple view outlined here represents the position of the historical Epicurus. See Epicurus (1926), and for good discussion Warren (2004). 12 See, for some examples, Williams (1973), Nagel (1979a), McMahan (1988, 2002), Feldman (1992), Bradley (2009), (Fischer 2009), and Sumner (2011). 13 So badness that matters, where death is concerned, involves a loss of good life and a desire for that life. Both conditions are needed. I insist on a parallel point in relation to McMahan’s discussion of animal death later in this chapter. 14 Williams (1973). And I return to this, and then discuss it in some detail, in Chapter 9 below. 15 Williams (1973: 85–86). 16 Bradley (2016: 55–56). See also Bradley and McDaniel (2013) for a considerably more detailed discussion of these matters. 17 Williams (1973: 85). 18 So contrast the claims death is bad when it prevents me from rescuing people from the war zone, with death is bad when I desire to rescue people from the war zone. If this desire is for other reasons unrealizable, then we’ve as yet no reason to believe death is bad in this case. Williams would agree with this. 19 Bradley (2016: 56). 20 He says, ‘An important question that I have not discussed at all is whether cows have moral status, or moral rights. It is consistent with what I have said here that although death is bad for cows, cows lack moral status, so that the badness of their death does not matter morally’ Bradley (2016: 63). Strictly speaking, this is correct. But it is worth noting how sharply the view here contrasts with mine. I claim (see back to Chapter 2) that as torturing cows is wrong, so they do have moral status. It doesn’t

96

21 22 23

24 25

26

27 28 29 30

31

32

33 34 35 36 37 38

Lives follow from this that killing them is wrong, or that their deaths, in contrast to their pains, matter morally. See especially McMahan (2008, 2016). But see also the discussions in McMahan (2002). McMahan (2016: 70). See also McMahan (2008: 5) for the same claim, but here connected not to the badness of death but an interest in continued life. Should we add, as seems plausible, that the strength of the connections between two dates is enhanced if they are reciprocal? I remember fair bits of my childhood. But are the connections here relatively weak given that, as a child, I didn’t look forward to or anticipate much at all of my life now? McMahan (2002: 170–171). Why might it be thought to make a difference? Someone might claim that once an embryo is formed, we have in existence a being with the potential for a valuable life, and, moreover potential matters. This isn’t the case when we have only the wherewithal to make an embryo. McMahan (2016: 84). This quotation might be thought misleading. For the sentence begins ‘If TRIA is correct…’. However, McMahan is the inventor and staunch defender of TRIA, and does believe it correct. What TRIA amounts to is, in part, explained below. McMahan (2016: 75). McMahan (2008: 2). McMahan (2016: 75, 78). McMahan (2016: 85). And it should be noted that animals that can be humanely reared include rabbits, other kinds of birds, various species of fsh, shellfsh, etc. A case for vegetarianism has to take these animals, and their capacities, into account. Note also that I don’t suggest these are humanely reared. The case for a halfway house of pescatarianism fails dismally, given the conditions of fsh farms. ‘The strength of an individual’s time relative interest in continuing to live is, in effect, the extent to which it matters, for his sake now or from his present point of view, that he should continue to live’ McMahan (2002: 105). And ‘the strength of an individual’s present interest in some possible event refects the degree to which it is rational to care for the individual’s own sake now whether that event will continue’ McMahan (2016: 71). I paraphrase, then. Though this linking of interests with reasons to care is certainly a dominant theme, some of McMahan’s comments point in a different direction. So when he talks of the human interest in eating meat (2008: 5) he clearly has in mind simply our desire, and in this case not one that matters. Weighing this against an animal’s interest in continued life – where this is explicitly not a desire – is then a fawed procedure. McMahan (2008: 2). McMahan (2008: 2). Contrast these cases, where sentiment can make us reluctant to do what is best for our pet or companion, with those involving farm or working animals, where economic considerations will often sway things in the opposite direction. McMahan (2008: 2). See Wittgenstein (1953: 174) ‘A dog hopes his master is at the door. But can it hope that his master is at the door tomorrow? Instinctively not’. It is worth noting, however, one further attempt to show that death is, and fairly generally, bad for animals, and in a way that matters. Martha Nussbaum (2004) in a closing contribution to a volume she has edited, aims to extend her capabilities approach beyond the human species, arguing that most animals, and so many for which no plausible personhood claim can be made, ought to be allowed to live out their lives, and in a dignifed manner. The basic idea is that, like us, animals are capable of fourishing, fourishing is good

Lives

39

40 41 42

97

for them and, at least other things equal, we do wrong in impeding that fourishing. And so we wrong them, act unjustly, when we infict on them even a painless death. Only one move here is suspect, but I think fatally so. Nussbaum doesn’t want to say that all impediments to all fourishings are wrong; she doesn’t have an objection to killing plants. So what is it about animals in particular? Sentience plays a key role: ‘it seems plausible to consider sentience a threshold condition for membership in the community of beings who have entitlements based on justice. Thus, killing a sponge does not seem to be a matter of basic justice’ (2004: 309). But we can wrong a sentient creature without causing it any pain, distress, or felt frustration. And under the capabilities approach ‘animals are entitled to continue their lives, whether or not they have such a conscious interest’ (2004: 314). This is confdently asserted, but not at all explained. Until it is, we might meet this approach with some suspicion. Why are they, any more than plants, entitled to something which they care not about, and which, if denied them, will cause them no hardship? Nussbaum doesn’t say. This isn’t to deny that Nussbaum’s account (a) has merit and (b) raises some important questions. It has, as she says, advantages over both contractarianism – it gets animals directly into the moral frame – and also utilitarianism – it voices suspicions about aggregating moves (2004: 306–307). But we can agree with this while still holding that elsewhere the utilitarian approach is sound. The questions are about moral individualism. Nussbaum insists there are important differences between a mentally disabled child and a chimpanzee, even when their capacities are comparable. Things could have been better for the child, and that they aren’t is a matter for regret. The chimpanzee, in much the same situation, is faring as well as is possible. These differences lead to differences in treatment; we should make big efforts to improve the lot of the child, while similar efforts directed at the ape are inappropriate. (This is, I believe, a fair summary of some less than sharply focused comments on p.310. There are issues here which, in another place and on a different occasion, could usefully be explored.) But defenders of moral individualism, as I read them, might agree with all this. Their claim is that we need to assess things on a case-by-case basis – we cannot simply say that because a creature, whatever its condition, is a member of some species, it therefore has the same status as normal members of the species. But the case-by-case assessment allows for recognizing differences. The disabled child is unlike both the ‘normal’ child and the chimpanzee. See Rachels (1990) and McMahan (2005) for accounts of moral individualism. Those who consider themselves pro-life will often claim, and as though supporting an argument, that if abortion had been allowed, they might never have existed. Is this true? If we think we are persons then it is true. But similarly if contraception had been allowed. Both, we should agree, prevent worthwhile lives from being lived. But as that doesn’t constitute an argument against contraception, similarly for abortion. It isn’t bad for those who fail to come into existence that they fail to come into existence. The case resembles, of course, McMahan’s presentation and discussion of The Cure (2002: 77–78). I refer to this in various places in this book and discuss it in my (2013). See Scheffer (1994), and https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasons-agent/ Consider here Paul Taylor’s (1986) well-known denial of human superiority. The arguments here, allowing for many intra-species rankings while ruling out those interspecies, are strong, even if not quite as decisive as he believes. First, our adaptability, second our ability (something Taylor acknowledges) to see things from the point of view of another creature, and to decide, with reason, to put it frst, gives some support, surely, to a superiority claim. Even so, I am happy to grant that tigers are not superior to butterfies, swallows are not superior to oaks, and humans are not superior to snakes. Where Taylor goes wrong is inferring from this that these things are, in some important way, therefore of equal value. Better to be wary, across the board, about the requisite appraisals. And see also, for a popular piece which is mostly but not altogether on

98

Lives

the right lines: www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/31/human-life-more -gorilla-killed-cincinnati-boy-fell-enclosure 43 Suppose you continue to think animal death matters, but matters less than human death. You might think we should put people frst. Yet this will only be true in general, as, arguably, it is true in general that we should put young people before old people, where life-saving is concerned. 44 And, to repeat, I reject Taurek’s claims to the contrary.

5

The Asymmetry

We can consider now whether there are reasons to start new lives, or bring such lives into existence. That is the concern both here and in the two chapters that follow. And the focus is very much on human lives. These fall into at least two kinds. The good lives are those in which things go well, that are worth living. In the bad lives things fail to go well, and these are not worth living. Assume there is a zero, or break-even point. Good lives, I’ll say, are mostly some way above this point; bad lives are mostly some way below it. Later I’ll elaborate on this.

The Asymmetry What does morality tell us about these lives? A view often referred to as The Asymmetry can be put thus: 1. Starting bad lives is forbidden 2. Starting good lives is permitted but not required. Or, in a somewhat different version: 1. There are reasons against starting bad lives 2. There are no reasons, setting aside effects elsewhere, for or against starting good lives. This formulation1 might be preferred. It is far from clear that starting bad lives is absolutely forbidden. If starting such a life is guaranteed, and the only way, to save a thousand from an early death, then it may be that we should, or at least that we may, start this life. Even so, that it will be a bad life counts as a reason against starting it. It is just that the reason is here outweighed. Similarly, it may be that there are circumstances where starting a good life is required. Your child is sick and needs a bone marrow transplant. A second child would offer a genetic match, and then lead its own good life. It can be argued that you ought to have this second child. In other circumstances starting good lives might be forbidden. There may not be space or food for more people. But this alternative formulation can also be criticized. To say there are reasons against bad lives allows that there

100

The Asymmetry

might be reasons, and even outweighing reasons, for starting them. So even if it is true, the sentence as it stands is thin on content. Suppose we add ‘other things equal’ to all four of the sentences above, and allow this to replace, as surely pretty much equivalent to, ‘setting aside effects elsewhere’. Then both formulations are improved, even if reasons against still says less than we might like. The frst is the more succinct, but the second, in emphasizing reasons, is important. I’ll draw on both; sometimes, for convenience, dropping the mention of other things equal and benefts elsewhere. McMahan makes three claims about this Asymmetry. Most people accept it. There are strong reasons for thinking it true. It is hard to explain how it can be true.2 The main focus, in what follows, is on the third claim. And I attempt to explain it in later sections below. This suggests, of course, that I think it true. So then in middle sections I consider some of the arguments for thinking it false. These arguments, I claim, are fawed. Still, there could be further arguments against the Asymmetry. And my backing for it here is best considered somewhat tentative, or provisional.3 Do most people accept the Asymmetry? McMahan offers no evidence for his claim here, and it’s not certain that he’s right.4 But there’s no doubt it has many supporters. I start by looking more closely at the Asymmetry and its component parts.

Some distinctions The Asymmetry consists of a pair of claims. Most people accept the frst claim, concerning bad, miserable, or wretched lives. Many accept also the second claim, concerning good or happy lives.5 But many others deny it. Most of the controversy concerning the Asymmetry centres on this second claim. In McMahan’s formulation it has three components. We can say more about each. Good lives, I’ve said, are those that are worth living, and contain positive well-being. Let’s say also that they will involve pleasure and happiness. We can imagine lives that are wholly and uniformly good – every day is very good, and no day contains any bad elements. Or lives might be wholly, but not uniformly good – though they are all good, some days are better than others. None of us live such lives. Our lives contain also some bad elements – pain, discomfort, unhappiness, frustration. In spite of this, our lives could be always good – it could be the case that at each moment pain, or whatever, is outweighed by pleasure. But I doubt that many of us live such lives. For most of us our lives will be at best overall good. They’ll contain some periods, even if very short, in which life is, or so we’ll believe, not worth living. Nevertheless, for most of us the good periods will, overall, outweigh the bad. But the Asymmetry claims that there is no reason to start either lives that are overall good, or those that are always good, or even those that are wholly and uniformly good. There are, however, reasons against starting those lives which are overall bad and those which are always bad. But what of the qualifcation, setting aside effects elsewhere? How are we to understand this? As I’ve said, more good lives might, because of crowding, be bad for existing lives. Then there is a reason against the new lives. Or it might be

The Asymmetry

101

good for us if new lives are started. The young, the healthy, the happy people are dying out and the world is going to rack and ruin. Start some good lives and the old people can be cared for, animals fed and watered, plants tended, sculptures and paintings repaired and restored. These various benefts might provide reasons for starting these good lives. Many will think that benefts for people will provide such reasons. Not many will think that benefts for plants or paintings also provide reasons. So benefts elsewhere are necessary, but not suffcient, for reasons for. And elsewhere is important. Someone might think that if you come into existence, with a good life, then this is good for you, and you yourself are benefted. A supporter of the Asymmetry has two options. Either she will simply deny that you are benefted, or she’ll grant this, but deny nevertheless that this beneft generates reasons for others to start your life.6 There is a further claim that this supporter needs to deny. It might be thought that even if it isn’t good for you to come into existence with a good life, still this is a good thing, or good simpliciter, or good for the universe, or intrinsically good. Accept the Asymmetry and you put a line through all this. There is an implicit distinction made here. Something might be good for a person, or a plant, or a painting, without it straightforwardly following that there are reasons to produce that thing. That stands as a further question. But if something is good for the universe, good simpliciter or intrinsically good then, it may seem, it does straightforwardly follow that there are reasons to produce that thing.7 Two points might be made here about reasons. They come at a price. And they come to us all. Suppose I notice that a child is drowning as I pass a lake. I have reason to try to save her life. And I have reason to do this even if it imposes some cost on me – I’m going to get wet and miss my next appointment. Moreover, as I have reason to attempt a rescue, so does everyone, in similar circumstances. Both points can be elaborated upon. The frst claim is modest. I don’t claim I ought to save her life, or should pay whatever it costs to rescue her, but only that, in order to generate this good, there is some sacrifce I should make, some price I should pay. And this is true generally. No sense, I think, can be made of the suggestion that there are some things I ought to do, or have reason to do, only so long as no cost is involved. And now the greater the prize, the greater the price. Other things equal, if I should pay $100 to save one life, I should pay $1000 to save ten lives. Of course, there are several respects in which things might not be equal. First, there are arguably limits to what I should pay. Perhaps no number of lives that can be saved gives me reason to end my own life. But the argument here needs to be made. Second, the lives might not be equal. There may be relevant differences between them, in terms of present quality, or future prospects. Third, though they are equal, they might not be of equal value. Suppose I need labour in order to build temples. I need only enough lives to do this. Generally, with things of instrumental value there comes a point where more isn’t better. And so there is diminishing reason to produce more. Notice, though, that this last point isn’t relevant to this discussion of the Asymmetry. If there is reason to prevent one bad life from starting, there is reason, and greater reason, to prevent a hundred from starting, still

102

The Asymmetry

greater reason to block a thousand, and so on. And if, contrary to the Asymmetry, there is reason, independently of side effects, to start good lives, then, though it needn’t increase proportionately, there is more reason to start more such lives. The second claim needs, in a similar fashion, to be modifed. I don’t deny that I might have reason to do something that is rightly a matter of indifference to you, or, though we both have reasons, mine might be stronger. I don’t deny, that is, that there are agent-centred reasons. But then your circumstances, in relation to this good, are not similar to mine. But while differences between us in terms of what we might want, or need, or prefer may make for differences regarding instrumental or personal value, they won’t, once again, be relevant to the Asymmetry. If it is a bad thing for bad lives to be started – bad simpliciter – then all of us have reason to prevent there being such lives. Suppose (although this is neither said nor implied in the formulation above) these reasons against bad lives are strong. Some of those who reject the Asymmetry maintain that the reasons to start good lives are equally strong. But others hold the reasons here are weaker. The comparison and difference in strength is internal to the Asymmetry. But we might as well make comparisons with existing lives. Suppose I should pay $100 to give an existing person 40 more years of good life. Should I then pay $100 to start a new person with a 40 year good life? Supporters of the Asymmetry deny there is reason to pay anything here. Some of their opponents will say we should pay this full amount while others, holding there is some non-trivial difference between existing and new lives, will have us paying less. I doubt that more than a handful will think we should pay more, and that it is more important to start new lives than save those already in existence.8 Supporters of what we can call the Weak Asymmetry, then, probably hold two views, frst that it is more important to prevent bad lives than to start good lives, and second that it is more important to save good lives than it is to start good lives. But still there are, on this view, some reasons to start good lives. I aim here, of course, only to identify and distinguish between positions. Defence or criticism will come later.

Other views The Asymmetry is the conjunction of one pair of views concerning the morality of procreation. Other views, and pairs of views, are possible, with some of these pairs in an asymmetrical and others in a symmetrical relationship. Here, then (with their expressions somewhat compressed), are several such views: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Asymmetry: reasons against bad lives, no reasons for or against good lives Symmetry: reasons against bad lives, reasons for good lives Symmetry: reasons against bad lives, reasons against good lives Symmetry: no reasons for or against bad lives, no reasons for or against good lives 5. Symmetry: reasons for bad lives, reasons for good lives 6. Symmetry: reasons for bad lives, reasons against good lives

The Asymmetry

103

7. Asymmetry: no reasons for or against bad lives, reasons for good lives 8. Asymmetry: reasons against bad lives, weak reasons for good lives.9 So 1 here represents McMahan’s, and arguably the most intuitively plausible position. 2–4 represent competing views, all of which have a number of genuine supporters, and all of which are frequently discussed in the literature. 2, then, is the most obvious counter to 1 and, as I’ve said, appears to have considerable support. 3 is at least close to David Benatar’s view. It again accepts that there are reasons against starting bad lives, but then argues that there are reasons against starting good lives. In short, and counterintuitively, it would be better if we didn’t exist.10 David Heyd has advanced 4. This agrees with the Asymmetry in denying there are reasons for starting good lives but then claims also, again counterintuitively, that there are similarly no reasons against starting bad lives.11 Anyone holding to 5 would appear to think that life is of some value, whatever its quality, and so think there are always reasons to start lives, even if in many cases there are also reasons against. So, on the best version of this view, the reasons for can be outweighed, but not obliterated, by the reasons against. The next view, 6, is perverse. Unless the point is just to emphasize that there are always reasons on both sides, I doubt if anyone seriously holds to this. The last pair of views offer two further asymmetrical positions. 7, included here for completeness, is similarly perverse. I don’t know of anyone who holds such a view. But 8 represents the Weak Asymmetry discussed above. There are reasons against starting bad lives and some, but lesser reasons, to start good lives. 8 is the only one of these views which gives any explicit attention to the strength of reasons. The main attention, in what follows, is on 1–4 and 8. With the exception of 4, all these views agree on the frst component of the Asymmetry concerning bad lives. They differ only about good lives. 1 and 2 differ profoundly, and yet both have considerable intuitive appeal. But amend 2 in order to make evident its contrast with 8 – stipulate that the reasons on both sides are equally strong – and it becomes unclear just which of these counters to 1 will have the most support. Probably, we’ll think that 8, and so the Weak Asymmetry wins.12 A second unclarity can be noted concerning the grounds for resisting the Asymmetry. One view is that it is just a good thing, even if not good for anyone, if there are more happy lives, and this goodness provides us with at least some reason to be involved in their creation. Another view is that it is good for those who will then have good lives to come into existence. And again this goodness gives us at least some reason to be involved in their creation. Which of these views is the more common? It’s impossible to say. But I’ll consider later some of the implications of this distinction. Benatar’s view, 3, isn’t as extreme as it frst might seem. Suppose a life is not only good, and consistently good, but is wholly good. There are no bad elements – no pains, disappointments, longeurs – within it. Benatar doesn’t believe it is wrong to start such a life. Rather, wrongness derives from the bad elements which, as a matter of fact, feature in all our lives. Why we should think that lives that are almost entirely happy are still better not started is, of course, a puzzle, and

104

The Asymmetry

Benatar’s arguments here are diffcult to understand. I consider these arguments, and at some length, in Chapter 7. Heyd’s view, 4, emerges from following through on what might initially appear a perfectly plausible position. As, or so many will believe, it cannot be good for us to enter into existence, so neither can it be bad for us. We are neither benefted nor harmed by coming to be. If we think the business of morality is just with benefting, and not harming people, then morality has nothing to say on starting new lives. So starting good lives and starting bad lives are both of them permitted. Most of us will think something has gone wrong here. But the problem for defenders of the Asymmetry is to counter this view without committing to either 2 or 8. It is easy to object, for example, that it is bad that bad lives are lived, that morality should busy itself with avoiding the bad, and so even if starting bad lives isn’t bad for anyone, doesn’t harm anyone, still it should be forbidden. But then, surely, even if starting good lives isn’t good for anyone, doesn’t beneft anyone, still it is good that good lives are lived, and this too falls into morality’s remit. I need to return to, and say more about, 4 later, when I endeavour to explain 1.

Other asymmetries The Asymmetry relates to, and perhaps can in part be explained by, various other views, not a few of which also take on an asymmetrical form. And in identifying, naming, and distinguishing these we can frst suggest a fuller title. As it makes claims only about starting lives, the view under discussion here might usefully be referred to as the Procreative Asymmetry. I’ll sometimes make use of that alternative term in what follows. Other asymmetries needing to be discussed are mostly wider-ranging, and concerned, at least in part, with existing people. Some of these have been introduced earlier. And they include: Harm and beneft. Though there are reasons on both sides, the reasons not to harm are stronger than the reasons to beneft. Many of us believe some version of this. We might think, for example, that so long as we are not positively hurting people, making things worse for them, we can get on with our own lives, and needn’t go out of our way to help others. There are complications; perhaps it is important to help those who are very badly off, or close at hand, and not particularly important to avoid minor harms to the well off. A rich man drops a dollar bill. I could alert him, but pocket it instead. But set the complications aside.13 Suppose there is something in this harm/beneft distinction. How does it bear on the Procreative Asymmetry? It lends some support to the Weak Asymmetry. Grant that reasons to beneft are weaker than those not to harm. If this is generally true, then, assuming we can beneft people by bringing them into existence, we have some reason to start good lives, though, given a similar assumption about harm, more reason not to start bad lives. Without this assumption, the asymmetry here has no bearing

The Asymmetry

105

on procreative issues at all. Either way, it offers no support for the Procreative Asymmetry. Pains and pleasures. Pain is real, it matters, and there are always reasons to reduce or avoid it. Pleasure is unreal, doesn’t matter, and there are no reasons to produce it. Suppose this is true. Then it will appear to support Benatar’s position, and so 3. Any actual life, even one that is always good, will contain some pain. This provides a reason against starting the life, and one that can’t be outweighed by its pleasures, no matter how great. But there are multiple problems with this view. First, these stark metaphysical and axiological distinctions between pleasure and pain come out of nowhere. Second, Benatar just isn’t wanting support like this. For this pain and pleasure asymmetry gives all of us reason to end our lives now. And Benatar insists his position doesn’t favour mass suicide. Third, and more important here, this asymmetry is at odds with all of 1, 2, and 8 above, and so at odds with what most will agree are the three most plausible positions on procreation. For if pleasures count for nothing they can’t weigh in against pains and make it permissible to start at least some of our lives. Amend the view so that it refers to overall painful and overall pleasurable lives, and it does now support the Asymmetry. But such support is paper-thin as, again, the view comes from nowhere. Moreover, the view that overall pleasant lives just don’t matter is at odds with much that we believe. Dilute the view, so that pleasures are real, but less so, and do count, but for less, and we arrive at a more plausible position. But we are back now with something akin to the view on harms and benefts. And so again, there is no support for the Asymmetry. These two asymmetries are often discussed in relation to the Procreative Asymmetry.14 But others can also be considered. Starting and saving. There are no reasons to start good lives, but there are reasons to save such lives, once they are started. So, the claim is, coming into existence makes a difference. And most supporters of Procreative Asymmetry will agree, thinking, as most of us will think, even though it’s not an express part of their view, that at least often we should save lives. The position isn’t characterized by a thoroughgoing neutrality towards good lives, then. But there is a certain tension here with another asymmetry which, even if not widely held, will tempt some: Endings. It is good to die when life is bad, but not bad to die when life is good. The Epicurean View has it that death is not bad for the one who dies. This, if true, would appear to lend considerable support to the Asymmetry. For if death is not bad, then there’s no reason, absenting side effects, to save someone from

106

The Asymmetry

death. But then if there’s no reason to save a life, surely there’s no reason to start it. The problem, however, is that Epicureanism is highly counterintuitive, and fails to fnd many friends. And it invites the objection that, if true, then, even more counterintuitively, death cannot be good for the one who dies. Surely, though, it can. At the least, circumstances can be such that dying is better than, and preferable to, living on. But this objection assumes symmetry. And there might be the beginnings of a defence of the Epicurean view if this symmetry fails to hold. So consider again animals. Many will think it can be bad for animals to live – quite often we are required to ‘put them out of their misery’ – but that painless death, even when all is well, isn’t bad for them. This then relates to, and invites modifcation of, the previous point about pains and pleasures. Pain, we’ll almost all agree, is bad for animals and can give us reasons to end their lives. Is pleasure good for them? We might offer a twofold response. Pleasure is good for them if and when they exist, but not good for them in a way that favours extending existence. Even if there are reasons to amuse your cat today, there aren’t similarly reasons to keep it alive in order to amuse it again tomorrow. So future pleasures won’t undermine a case for a painless death. Epicureanism for animals, then. But people are importantly different. As it is very often the case that death is bad for us, so our lives are often worth saving. Any argument for the Asymmetry that requires us to deny this isn’t, it seems, likely to get very far. Further alleged support for the Asymmetry, none of it faring too well, can be considered here. Complaints. Starting a bad life brings into existence someone who can complain about what has been done. Failing to start a good life doesn’t bring into existence someone able to complain about what hasn’t been done. This allegedly explains the Asymmetry.15 But it ought to be found wanting. We can do wrong without having complainants to contend with. I kill you. You won’t complain. But this won’t stop others complaining on your behalf. And these others can complain as well about failures to start. My daughter might complain, on behalf of the brother I never gave her, that my inactivity has cost them both the benefts of a valuable relationship. What is needed here is the retort that her complaint is illegitimate, and carries no weight. But that is to beg the question. What is effectively the same suspect point can be differently made: Rights. Starting a bad life brings into existence someone whose right to a worthwhile life is from the outset infringed. Failing to start a good life infringes no rights. Even if people have a right to continue in existence, they don’t have a right to come into existence. There are two responses that might be made. We can accept all this but claim that there is more to morality, and to what we have reason to do, than respecting, or not, people’s rights. Or, if there’s not more, we can query the insistence that there’s no right to come to be. And these responses might map on to the

The Asymmetry

107

distinction made earlier about the two routes for challenging the Asymmetry. If we think it’s good for people to come into existence, and this gives us reasons to start their lives, then we might think they have a right to come to be. If we think it is just a good thing, good simpliciter that there are more good lives, then we’ll probably think morality extends beyond the realm of rights. The take-home point, however, is that neither these claims about complaints, nor those about rights, are effective in establishing the Asymmetry. Although the thrust of this section has been overall negative – I’ve said we’re not yet close to explaining the Asymmetry – there has been some progress made. And not simply in setting aside various dead ends. For in the fnal section I’ll want to revisit some of this, and the points about pleasure and pain in particular, in order to develop for the Asymmetry more robust support.

Against the Asymmetry Are there good arguments against the Asymmetry? As I’ve explained, almost everyone agrees that there are reasons, and indeed strong reasons, not to start bad lives. So the focus here is on counters to the claim that there are no reasons to start good lives. Many think that this is false, and that there are such reasons. Establish this, and the Asymmetry collapses. I consider now three attempts to advance such an argument.

Chappell First, an attempt to exploit the virtues of the Weak Asymmetry. All that is needed, to counter the Asymmetry, is to show that there is some reason to bring into existence good lives. Those reasons needn’t be strong. Can we do this? Richard Chappell’s opening claim here will command widespread assent. But immediately thereafter we are into more contested ground: We generally have some moral reason to make the world a better place, or bring about better states of affairs. So, to refute the Asymmetry, it will suffce to establish the following thesis: Awesome Lives: It is (intrinsically) good or desirable that awesome lives come to exist. An ‘awesome’ life, as I use the term here, is one that exhibits a very high quality of life, along whatever dimensions you take to be normatively relevant…. Awesome Lives is, I think, intuitively highly plausible. When we think about what makes for a good state of affairs, the quality of life for the sentient beings contained therein is surely a (if not the) primary factor. A world full of awesome, fourishing lives is (intuitively) better than a world that lacks these good lives. Not everyone will agree with this, of course, but it is at

108

The Asymmetry least suffciently plausible that anyone claiming to represent the broad consensus of ‘commonsense morality’ can hardly start from the assumption that Awesome Lives is false.16

There are several observations to make about this. First, this talk of awesome lives might introduce a distortion. Someone might think there is reason to start such lives, while there isn’t reason to start more lives of the kind that we ordinarily enjoy. (Somewhat similarly, it might be thought that it is regrettable to lose the species tiger, without thinking the more tigers there are the better.) As a strategy against the Asymmetry, this would represent at best a partial success. However, the weightiness of the term notwithstanding, it seems that these allegedly awesome lives are not supposed to be different in kind from those that some of us already enjoy. Second, and related to a distinction I made earlier, it should be noted that the appeal here is to the alleged intrinsic value of adding new lives. It is because it is just a good thing, good in itself, rather than because it is good for the people who come into existence, that we have reason to create awesome lives. Chappell doesn’t deny that these lives would be good for their possessors; he makes no comment either way. Third, and more important, there is, in this, a quite unwarranted elision. Many will agree that if a state of affairs contains sentient beings then their quality of life will contribute to how good that state of affairs is. But it is another thing to agree that a state of affairs is improved by adding to the quantity of people, even if these extra lives are awesome. This distinction of course echoes one made famous by Jan Narveson. We can ask whether we should make people happy, and also – different question – whether we should make happy people.17 Almost everyone, Asymmetry supporters included, thinks we have reason to increase the happiness of those who do or will exist; far from everyone thinks we should add more happy people. If Awesome Lives is true, then the Asymmetry is false. And the strategy is to persuade us of its truth via noting its immediate plausibility and widespread appeal. But not everyone agrees. Chappell claims that at least many of the dissenters make mistakes about what assent to Awesome Lives will commit them to. They think it will impose upon them some rather onerous procreative duties.18 Creating people might be pleasant enough but then maintaining them can be irksome. Show that it doesn’t have these implications, and they’ll be happier. So consider: A Distant Realm: You learn that a new colony of awesome, happy, fourishing people will pop into existence in some distant, causally-isolated realm, unless you pluck and eat a particular apple. It strikes me as intuitively clear that you have good reason, in this case, to refrain from plucking and eating the particular apple in question. This suffces to refute the Asymmetry – we can have moral reason to bring good lives

The Asymmetry

109

into existence (or refrain from preventing their existence, which I take to amount to much the same thing in this context). Moreover, it would plausibly be positively wrong to eat the apple in this case. The personal cost of refraining from eating a particular apple is so trivial, in comparison to the great value of awesome lives, that it would seem perverse, or morally indecent, to so act.19 The idea, then, is that while it may be reasonable to refuse big sacrifces in order to create new lives – it may be reasonable to decline parenthood – shift to considerably smaller sacrifces and refusal is less obviously permitted.20 And this will undermine the Asymmetry – it claims there are no reasons, not simply that there aren’t strong reasons, or obligations, to start new lives. But there are problems with Chappell’s strategy here. In brief, what is intuitively clear won’t undermine the Asymmetry. And what will undermine it is far from clear. Suppose your giving up a slice of pizza (to switch to a less theologically-loaded food) will bring ten good lives into existence. Is there reason for you to do this? Say yes, and two things, both discussed earlier, appear to follow. First, if you should give up just a slice for ten lives then maybe you should give up the whole pizza for a hundred, and perhaps fast the entire day for a thousand. There’s no need to suppose it’s straightforwardly proportional, but up the benefts, and we should up the costs. And even if there are limits to this it’s not at all clear how, when benefts can increase massively, costs can always be restricted to the trivial. Second, if you should give up a slice of pizza, so should others. And they should do this whether or not they’re inclined to. Now one thing is clear from any survey – ask your students or your friends – many people would make a small sacrifce to bring good lives into existence. And many of these will at least claim that they think they should make this sacrifce. But – again ask others in order to check this – not so many will confdently claim that other people, disinclined to make this sacrifce, should nevertheless make it. Further, not many will think we can require others to make even this small sacrifce. But the belief here isn’t that it is generally wrong to require sacrifces of others. Suppose my taking a slice of pizza from you will save ten innocents from an early death. Many will think I am permitted, or even required, to impose this cost on you. Yet they won’t similarly think I can take your pizza in order to bring new lives into existence.21 Now Chappell might point out that he wants only to defend the Weak Asymmetry, and so can allow some degree of bias towards the living. But even this view will have it that some number of new lives will require, and of the unwilling, some non-trivial sacrifce. The idea of starting awesome lives will sound attractive to many. Given an option, many will elect to pay some small cost in order to start such lives. But we all know that some of our inclinations are well-grounded, others a matter of taste. That the thrill of starting new lives is more important to me than yet another high-calorie meal does nothing to show that this preference is one we ought to have. Chappell needs to offer considerably more than he provides here in order to support his claim that already, when thinking clearly, most people will agree that there is reason to start new lives.

110

The Asymmetry

Broome Consider now John Broome’s position. Again, the concern is just with one component of the Asymmetry. And the belief that there is (absenting special circumstances and side effects) no obligation, no reason to bring into existence extra good lives, either individuals or populations, he calls ‘the basic intuition’.22 He locates himself among those strongly tempted by it. But tempting or not, it may be, he says, ‘ultimately incoherent’.23 So, consider these schematic accounts of three worlds we might inhabit, and what might be said for choosing between them:24 1. WA = 100 good lives 2. WB = WA + S at level 7 3. WC = WA + S at level 10 We have (in 1) the world just as is, or (in 2 and 3) we add to it an extra person. This person has (in 2) either a very good life, or (in 3) an even better life. Now we are supposed to think that there isn’t reason to prefer 2 to 1 – adding an extra person doesn’t make things better. This is the basic intuition. So 2 isn’t better than 1. However, we surely do think that 3 is better than 2 – the higher someone’s quality of life, or overall well-being, or whatever, the better. But now if 3 is better than 2, both can’t be just as good as 1. If 2 is as good then 3 is better, while if 3 is as good then 2 is worse. Most plausibly, it will seem, 2 and 3 are both better than 1. So the intuition has to go. Broome elaborates and considers various further and more complex examples. But none of this blocks the following objection; we can plausibly believe that there is reason to prefer 3 to 2 without believing that either is preferable to 1. We can believe there is reason, if an extra person will exist, to make her well off, without believing there is any reason to introduce the extra person at all. So we can believe it is better for S, given she exists, to be at level 10 than at level 7, without believing it is either a good thing, or good for her, to come into existence in the frst place. And so what a defender of the Asymmetry most clearly wants to say about good lives just doesn’t have the seemingly contradictory consequence that Broome alleges. Broome might complain that I have switched the goalposts; he was talking about betterness, I am talking about reasons.25 Indeed, but a) the language here is a natural and legitimate way of talking about such cases b) it is in fact widely used in discussion of the Asymmetry and the basic intuition, and c) it is in effect the language that Broome himself uses in frst introducing the problem.26 But, it will be said, even if no problem emerges when we talk of reasons, talk instead of betterness and surely it comes to the surface. And to hold on to the basic intuition this needs to be explained, and explained away, rather than sidestepped. Fortunately, this can be done. Though he doesn’t say so explicitly, Broome is surely assuming, in identifying the contradiction here, that talk of betterness, or one thing’s being better than

The Asymmetry

111

another, is clear and unambiguous. But that is unwarranted. One situation, or state of affairs, or world might be better than another in that it is more goodcontaining – it has more good things, so good lives, or paintings, or knives, or pleasure episodes within it. And it might be better in what we can think of as an action-guiding way – there is reason to prefer it and, perhaps if possible, to realize it. It can’t be assumed that what is better in the frst sense is better in the second.27 Few people think there is other than instrumental reason to increase the number of good knives in existence. And not so many think there is reason to increase the number of good lives in existence. But undeniably, as 3 above is more good-containing than 2, so, as Broome observes, they can’t both be just as good-containing as 1. In fact, of course, neither is. In good-containing terms, 3 is straightforwardly better than 2, and 2 straightforwardly better than 1. A defender of the basic intuition can fully acknowledge this while insisting again on the critical Narvesonian distinction – it is good if good lives are improved, but not good (though of course not bad) if good lives are started. Even if it doesn’t command universal assent there is nothing puzzling in such a claim.28 To further clarify, contrast Broome’s set of worlds above with a modifed example, where different people are involved. 1* is the same as 1, while in 2* S1 is at 7, and in 3* S2 is at 10. As before, each world is more good-containing than its predecessor. Is there reason here to prefer 3* to 2*? Many will say no. Making people happier is one thing, choosing the happier people another. But for those who say yes then it will surely seem there is reason to prefer both of 2* or 3* to 1*. For our preferring 3* to 2* doesn’t stem from our wanting to make things better for anyone in particular but seems now to derive simply from our wanting to make the world a more good-containing place. If that is our aim, then improving existing lives, choosing the better of two lives, and adding extra good lives are all of them ways of doing this. And if this should be our aim then the basic intuition, and with it the Asymmetry, has to be abandoned. Not so, however, in the original case, and preferring 3 to 2. Of course, as a supporter of the Asymmetry I deny this should be our aim. And so far no reason has been given to think otherwise. Parft Finally here we can identify and begin to consider two arguments against the Asymmetry that fgure in Reasons and Persons. The frst involves providing for this controversial view explicit support and explanation. But then Parft argues that the provision here is illusory. This is at best a weak argument. It doesn’t show the Asymmetry is false, but insofar as the promise of support vanishes, its position remains insecure. The second argument, seemingly much stronger, appears only implicitly. I believe, however, that Parft should, in consistency, think that this argument is wholly successful. Both arguments rest upon the same key contention involving the so-called Non-Identity Problem. Insofar as I want to challenge that contention, I’ll insist that both arguments fail. And so the Asymmetry is unscathed. But frst we need to understand the context.

112

The Asymmetry

The overall aim, in Part IV of the book, is to develop a comprehensive theory of human benefcence, or what Parft calls Theory X. It is imperative, he says, that this theory ‘both solves the Non-Identity Problem and avoids the Repugnant Conclusion’. And further, ‘according to many people’, it should aim also to explain the Asymmetry.29 But it should be noted that Parft is curiously coy about just where he stands on this. He never says whether he is to be included among the many. And in his discussions of the matter he refers to it simply as ‘the alleged Asymmetry’.30 It may be, then, that he is somewhat indifferent to its fortunes. The frst argument involves an elaborate and extended back story, and I’ve space only to sketch this here. There is more on the matter in the next chapter. But Parft offers what he calls a Narrow Principle of Benefcence31 as a candidate for advancing the progress to Theory X. This, he says, frst looks attractive but, on closer inspection, has to be jettisoned. But this Narrow Principle ‘would have provided the best explanation of the Asymmetry’. The details of this he gives only in a lengthy endnote. Some of what he says there is clear: According to the Narrow Principle it is wrong, if other things are equal, to do what would be bad for, or worse for, the people who ever live. It is therefore wrong to have the Wretched Child, since this would be bad for him. But it is in no way wrong to fail to have the Happy Child. It is true, that if my couple have this child, this will be good for him. But if they do not have this child, this will not be bad for him. And, in the case described, it will not be bad for anyone else. This is why there is no moral reason to have this child.32 But does this work as an explanation? There are two objections that can be made. Parft considers and rejects the complaint that, at best, this restates rather than explains the Asymmetry. This rejection isn’t, perhaps, wholly successful. Certainly what we have here is at least close to being merely a restatement. But a second objection is more important. And that is that the Narrow Principle is untenable. Parft accepts this objection. For, he insists, it stands in the way of a solution to the Non-Identity Problem. But as that must be solved, so the Narrow Principle has to go. Thus, as the Asymmetry cannot be satisfactorily explained, it remains, at best, in a compromised position. Its position is considerably worse according to the second argument. There is a Non-Identity Problem. Again, this has to be solved. For it blocks our progressing with Theory X. But, I’ll claim, if there is indeed this problem then, more or less straightforwardly, and whether or not it’s solved, the Asymmetry is simply false. Now Parft doesn’t himself make this argument. But the wherewithal is to hand, and it is far from clear that he’d be unhappy with its conclusion. As I say, his commitment to the Asymmetry is, at best, tentative. We need, then, to understand frst what the Non-Identity Problem is, and second to see just how it relates to, and is in tension with, the Asymmetry. And this tension is considerable. For I’ll claim, also, that if the Asymmetry is true then there is no Non-Identity Problem needing to be solved. All of this has, however, to be postponed. The alleged problem most clearly emerges from cases where we need to consider not simply

The Asymmetry

113

whether to start a new life but where, assuming the decision here is already made, we are determining which of two possible lives is the one we should start. But that business – choosing between lives – is the topic of the next chapter and so, for now, is best put on hold. I am, however, going to deny there that the NonIdentity Problem is real. It will, then, be unable to fgure in either of these arguments targeting the Asymmetry. So much, at least for the time being, for Parft’s case against. But I’ll turn now to the case for.

Explaining the Asymmetry The Asymmetry claims there are no reasons to start good lives. I’ve considered above some arguments that question the strength, plausibility, and coherence of this claim. These arguments, I’ve said, are not strong. But it claims also that there are reasons against starting bad lives. Can we hold to both claims? Or if it’s bad for people to come into existence with a bad life, thus adding to the sum of suffering, and this gives us reason not to start these lives, then why isn’t it good for people to come into existence with good lives, with that, and adding to the sum of happiness, similarly giving us reason to start such lives? I’ve suggested earlier that we might doubt that it can be good for someone to come into existence. But if that is so, surely we should doubt also that this can be bad for them. There appears room for retrenchment. Surely it’s bad that bad lives are started. But then isn’t it good that good lives are started? Whichever way we cut it we arrive, it seems, at something symmetrical. And, its intuitive appeal notwithstanding, the Asymmetry resists explanation. Yet, as I’ve noted, there are further asymmetries in the vicinity. And it may be they can help in developing now a fuller account of why this Procreative Asymmetry represents a position we can consistently maintain. Consider again Heyd’s position, and then a strategy for coping with its counterintuitive implications. Heyd holds that our business is with the living – those who don’t exist cannot be of concern. So, symmetrically, there is no reason to start good lives, and equally no reason not to start bad lives. But a theoretical elegance – there is an important and across-the-board distinction between existence and non-existence – is here achieved at the cost of considerable implausibility. For surely it would be wrong to bring such lives into existence. Allow that we have responsibilities towards the living. It is not implausible to suppose that if someone leads, and will continue to lead a wretched life, then there is some responsibility to end that life. Many of us think this, and are at least sympathetic to euthanasia. But then won’t it seem we have a responsibility to prevent such a life from starting in the frst place? There is something markedly perverse about allowing such lives to begin, even while planning immediately to end them. Nor is there much purchase in insisting that until life begins there is no harm or badness that we’re able to consider, and that without this there is nothing we must do. Where the living are concerned we regularly and unproblematically take preventative action. And an evident responsibility towards existing people inevitably generates, we might think, a comparable responsibility towards the non-existing.

114

The Asymmetry

So much for Heyd. The problem here, of course, is that it seems then as if a corresponding linking will be in place in happier circumstances. If we are obliged to save good lives once started, then aren’t we similarly obliged to start those lives in the frst place?33 And if that is so then the Asymmetry is false. One way to block this, and escape these obligations, is to insist on the asymmetry in the starting/saving distinction. Good lives, if they exist, have value and should be saved. But it doesn’t follow that further good lives should be brought into existence. Yet even if this is right, it doesn’t so much explain the Procreative Asymmetry as constitute just a further component of it. And we can again ask why, if it’s just a good thing that these lives are lived, we still have no obligation to add to their number. There’s a puzzle here. And what in the end will prove a better way is to deny that coming into existence marks a critical boundary – rather than assuming this, we might hold both that bad lives should be ended or prevented either side of this line, and also that good lives on both sides are permitted while on neither are they required. There’s strength in this. And even if you doubt whether reasons to save lives do generate reasons to start them, still, the inverse appears clearly to hold; if there are no reasons to save, then there are no reasons to start. But though Epicureans might swallow the antecedent here the rest of us will have doubts. Surely good lives are worth saving. What could be more obvious? The Asymmetry concerns itself with lives. At least implicitly its focus is on human lives, or lives like ours, or, as we might be tempted to say, the lives of persons. Our being persons is obviously important, and personhood can appear to be what gives life much of its value. How much? There are, or so I’ve claimed, important respects in which non-persons, even if they have good lives, just don’t matter. And so that we should save good lives isn’t as obvious as at frst it might seem. Think again, then, about animals, and consider some that are surely susceptible to both pleasures and pains, but about which no strong case can be made that they can achieve, or even approach, personhood. Allow that rabbits can lead good or bad lives, and that many things are good for, many others bad for rabbits. Living badly, in pain, is bad for a rabbit, and as almost all of us agree, gives us reason to end its life. Is living well, enjoying the pleasure of the carrot, good for the rabbit? We can agree that it is, somewhat in the way that being watered is good for a plant, without agreeing that we thus have reason either to add to its pleasures at those times when the rabbit exists, or to save its life and so provide it with further good times. Only the second point is important here. And many will think that a sudden and painless death isn’t bad for a rabbit, or at least isn’t bad for it in a way that makes death something best delayed. Allow this, and there is reason to end the life of a wretched rabbit, but no reason to extend the life of a happy rabbit. And from this it follows, I want to claim, that there is reason not to bring into existence wretched rabbits, but no reason to bring into existence happy rabbits. Human beings, when they come into existence, are also not persons. We might allow that newborns can, perhaps, want, and enjoy pleasures now, but deny that

The Asymmetry

115

they can want, or even conceive of, future pleasures. Hence a sudden and painless death is not bad for them, or at least isn’t bad in a way that gives us reason to save their lives. So there is reason to end the life of a wretched newborn, but no reason to extend the life of a happy newborn. And this is true, I claim, whether these newborns are rabbits or people. Thus, as the Asymmetry claims, there is reason not to bring into existence wretched people, but no reason to bring into existence happy people. One objection is that this gets things wrong even for rabbits. But as I’ve said, and repeatedly, we need to distinguish between badness and badness that matters. We might agree that death is bad (though not especially bad) for rabbits, and yet still hold that there is no reason to save them from a painless death. All this was, of course, discussed in the previous chapter, and there’s nothing more to be added here. Further and more formidable objections concern people, and it will be insisted that no matter how in the end it stands with animals, here there are obviously reasons to save lives: babies and children clearly matter, and not least because they mostly turn into persons. Any suggestion to the contrary will strike many as utterly unacceptable. But now this invites a series of responses. First, there are indeed many reasons for saving the lives of babies and young children. And we should, it will rightly be said, immediately and instinctively save such lives even without considering whether or not this is reasonable. But my claim is only about what we have reason to do, simply for the sake of the one who will otherwise die. And the claim is restricted in this way just because the Asymmetry itself is similarly restricted. We have no reason to start good lives, it is said, setting aside benefts elsewhere. We can have reasons aplenty when others are taken into account. And, reasons apart, we can be naturally inclined – and it can be a good thing, and good for us, that we are so inclined – to want children. Second, however, it needs to be noted just when it is that our lives begin. We don’t, of course, come into existence right at the time we are born. It is around nine months earlier, if we are essentially human animals, and considerably later if, as some hold, we are, from the outset, persons. But now if, and as I believe, the case for the earlier date is the stronger then the disconnect between reason and nature is less abrupt than it at frst might seem. For the extinction of human life, in its early stages, is often a matter of near indifference to us. Very few of us feel regret, or believe that there is any reason for regret when, very shortly after conception, a spontaneous miscarriage occurs. Many of us have no objection to embryo selection, and with it the discarding of healthy embryos. And considerable numbers are relaxed about at least early-term abortion. So while, when the focus is on babies, the claim that there are no reasons to save lives meets with immediate and instinctive resistance, shift to those more recently created, and these antipathies are much reduced. What, though, of the seemingly critical contention that babies, unlike animals, develop seamlessly into persons, and so do have the kinds of lives which matter, have value, are worth saving? Well, there’s nothing here against my argument unless it is insisted further that these human lives matter right from the

116

The Asymmetry

outset. For the claim isn’t that lives like ours are not worth saving, but only that they acquire this worth gradually, and some several months after existence begins. One life, perhaps, but several stages; and the likes of you and me, as we are now, are importantly and deeply different from human embryos, fetuses, neonates, similarly as they are now. Hence, and principally because of our categorical or future-directed desires, painless death can be a thing that matters for us even when it doesn’t matter at all, rather than mattering less, for those in whom personhood is still to come.34 Nor, I think, is there anything to be gained in insisting that it is in the nature of neonates to develop into persons, or that they have the potential for this, or even that, in some sense, they are aiming at or striving for personhood. All this can be granted, even while it is denied that anything of substance follows. And we can continue to hold, in support of the Asymmetry, that as there is no reason to save the lives of those just born, so there is no reason either to bring these lives into being. There are, however, questions now about the precise role that personhood is playing in the argument. McMahan suggests that if we were fully-fedged persons from the beginning of existence, ‘as Athena emerged from the head of Zeus’,35 then death immediately after this beginning might well be bad for us. And in that case there would be reason not to end our lives, right from their outset. Does it then follow that there would be reason to start such lives? And if so, is the Asymmetry once more under threat, and my attempt at an explanation undermined? Could we come into existence as persons, and fully-formed? We talk, play tennis, recognize people and places, remember earlier events, have hopes, fears, plans for the future. Perhaps we can imagine your having many such capacities right from the outset. But you couldn’t genuinely remember things from earlier times, nor could your future plans be based on past happenings. You couldn’t want to complete your book, meet again old friends, or see your kids through school. The sorts of things that most clearly make death bad for us now just wouldn’t fgure – even if they might appear to fgure – in the opening of your life.36 Even supposing you are some sort of person you are, at this outset, utterly unmoored in the world, with no genuine attachment to it. Right now, at least, and if we again set aside effects elsewhere, it isn’t at all clear to me that there are any reasons to save the lives of such creatures. Imagine a different case. As you are ill, and about to die, scientists offer to build a replica and transfer your brain contents into that replica as it is constructed. You accept. This quasi-human does come into existence as a person. And, as I suggested earlier, it can be argued that the person here is you. So there are reasons not to kill or destroy this fabricated thing even from the moment its life begins. And there are reasons too to bring such things – new lives, but not new thoughts – into existence. So there needs to be a qualifcation added to the Asymmetry; starting good lives is in fact permitted but not required. Or, there are in fact no reasons, setting aside benefts elsewhere, to start good lives. It can be allowed that in some special circumstances, circumstances thus far fantastical, things might be different.

The Asymmetry

117

Summary There is disagreement about good lives. Supporters of the Asymmetry believe there is no reason, absenting effects elsewhere, to start such lives. And I come among those believing this. But I don’t claim to have shown it to be true. Of course, there are many further beliefs that will imply this view about good lives and, if true, will establish the Asymmetry’s central contention. I’ve argued here that if there are no reasons to save lives, soon after they’re started, then there are no reasons to start these lives. But again, I don’t claim to have shown there are no reasons to save them. The contention is only that if we think about what we most clearly value, for its own sake, in a human life, namely the forming and persisting of a person, then we might see how the ending of a life, in its early stages, is not something we have reason to regret. Those opposing the Asymmetry believe there are reasons, even if weak reasons, to start good lives. Weak reasons are strong enough for the Asymmetry to be false. I don’t claim to have shown there are no such reasons. But I have made a number of claims, and offered certain arguments, concerning this Weak Asymmetry. I’ve said that Chappell’s argument, which alleges there is strong and sustained intuitive support for this view, unfortunately fails. Broome and Parft offer arguments, in one case explicitly, in the other implicitly, against the Asymmetry, and thus, as we might think, in favour of its rival. These arguments, I’ve said, similarly fail. I’ve made a further claim of some importance here. There’s been some dispute about whether it is good for people with good lives to come into existence. I’ve wanted to say that this is something of a sideshow. For even if this is good for them, it won’t follow that we have reason to start these lives. So those opposing the Asymmetry go wrong if they think all they need show is that it is good for us to come to be. They have to show, if they want to establish their position, that this is good for us in a way that matters. Alternatively, they need to show that it is intrinsically good, or good for the universe, or just a good thing, if good lives are started. I don’t believe they can show this, even if it might perhaps be true. It might be true, then, that pleasure is just a good thing, the more of it the better, and not only should we make people happy, but we should as well make happy people. But there is no reason to believe any such thing. So far, then, it is something of a stand-off. Neither the Asymmetry nor its rival can be shown to be true. But equally, neither can be shown to be false. There are, however, further considerations needing to be taken into account concerning what these two views imply. And here, I think, the Asymmetry has the edge. For suppose we should, other things equal, increase the number of good lives in existence. Then, it seems, various things will follow. If there are reasons to start new lives, then contraception, embryo selection, and abortion are all of them prima facie wrong. There are reasons to regret the countless miscarriages that occur daily. As it is worth paying a price to bring new lives into existence so there is some reason a) not to improve (neglect), b) to fail to save (let die), c) to bring to an end (kill) existing lives in order to start new lives. Not only should we welcome the discovery of distant planets, with more good lives upon them,

118

The Asymmetry

we should welcome too the discovery that life on earth started earlier than we believe. For then more good lives will have been lived. Thus far I assume that the rival view holds only that the lives of persons are ones we have reason to start. If it is insisted that both animal lives and the lives of humans who won’t become persons should, assuming these will be good lives, also be started, then there are further consequences to note. They include starting some number of animal lives will come before saving a human life; there are reasons to bring into existence a happy child even when it will nevertheless die in six months’ time; we should welcome the discovery that dinosaurs existed in greater numbers than we currently believe. Some people will view these as counterintuitive consequences of the Asymmetry’s rejection, and thus as reasons to adopt that view. Others, of course, will bite the several bullets. Are there similarly unsettling consequences of the Asymmetry than need now to be noted?37 I don’t think so. But others will disagree. They’ll think that a view that denies there are objections, deriving from lives lost, to contraception, embryo selection, abortion has, in virtue of this, marks against it. Similarly for the other denials. We might ask these people whether religious concerns, and perhaps a belief in life’s sanctity, could be lurking, unacknowledged, in the background here. But they might deny this and simply insist again that the Asymmetry is false. And there is no proving that these people are wrong.38

Notes 1 This second version is a compressed version of McMahan’s formulation, (2009: 49). 2 ‘Most of us accept the following two propositions…..’ (and there follow versions of 1 and 2 above). ‘…..although the Asymmetry is intuitively compelling it is extraordinarily diffcult to defend or justify’. Both McMahan (2009: 49). ‘It may be that the only view that captures our strongest intuitions about the morality of procreation is the Asymmetry. Yet…. the prospects for fnding a compelling theoretical defense of the Asymmetry are not promising’. McMahan (2009: 67). And see also McMahan (2013) for iterations of such claims. 3 Much of the focus here is on the claim that starting new lives is not required. Is it also permitted? We might say yes, but I consider this in more detail, and in the end raise doubts, in Chapter 7. 4 See note 12. 5 McMahan (2009) refers most often to happy people and miserable people. Parft (1984: 381, 391) contrasts the happy with the wretched child. I mostly talk of good or bad lives, but use the other terms occasionally and where especially appropriate. 6 She could agree with Parft that this is a peculiar beneft, and use that as a ground for denying this beneft is reason giving. But of course, and as I’ve explained, this move isn’t obviously necessary. Many ordinary benefts are similarly not reason giving. See again the discussion in Chapter 2. 7 McMahan (2009: 50–51) makes a similar threefold distinction between what is simply good, what is good for you, and what is good for others, but employs here (and needs to clarify and modify) the Parfttian terminology of impersonal and person-affecting value to do this. And this gets messy. My way is simpler. See Appendix 4 for further discussion. 8 I refer here to cases where the amount of good life is the same. So then the claim is, I think, wholly uncontroversial. But suppose I can start a life that will last 80 years

The Asymmetry

9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24 25 26 27

119

or save the life of someone at 40 in order that they live to 80. Supporters of a simple utilitarian view will opt for the former. Most of these views are identifed and discussed in McMahan (2009). But a question arises as to the sense of the symmetry/asymmetry distinction. Note that all of 2–4 are described by McMahan as symmetrical, even though 2 and 3, for example, differ profoundly. There is a certain looseness here; the views picked out as asymmetrical are ones involving a difference in strength – reasons for or against on one side, with either no reason or weaker reasons on the other. Symmetrical views include both those where there are equally strong reasons for on both sides, and those where reasons for are countered by equally strong reasons against. See Benatar (1997, 2006). See Heyd (1992). I said earlier that we might doubt McMahan’s claims about the extent of support for the Asymmetry. One reason, then, is that the Weak Asymmetry, once distinguished, probably draws off much of this support. Hanser (2008) does an excellent job of envisaging and then discussing such complications. See McMahan (2009: 54–58) Harman (2004). See Magnusson (2019), Piller (forthcoming) ‘How to Explain Procreative Asymmetry’. Chappell (2017: 168). Narveson (1967). Chappell (2017: 169–170). Chappell (2017: 170). A further point to note here is that the wording seems to suggest the default is that the new lives are started, with apple eating undertaken as a means to prevent these lives. But that is illicitly to boost the argument. It would indeed seem perverse, when other things are equal, to want to stand in the way of good lives. This isn’t merely speculative. Again, small scale surveys of students, colleagues, and acquaintances confrm these claims. Broome (1999: 228). Broome (1999: 229). See his discussion (1999: 229–230). I have here simplifed a little on the details. And he did complain, when I made this objection during a talk he gave a few years back (‘Climate Change, Life and Death’ University of York, May 2014). Thus the opening section, and the initial discussion of the basic intuition, though it uses both terms, is heavily weighted to talk of reasons, rather than of betterness. Broome’s confation here is echoed by McMahan. Assume we must choose to start P1, who will live to 80, or P2 who will live to 60. Other things are equal. McMahan says: Because a life that is well worth living that last 80 years is better than an otherwise comparable life that ends after 60 years, it seems that the outcome in which P1 comes into existence is better than that in which P2 comes into existence. And if one outcome is better than another, there is a reason, from an impartial point of view, to prefer it and bring it about if one can. McMahan (2013: 5–6.)

I want to say that P1’s life is better – more good-containing – than P2s life. The outcome in which P1 rather than P2 exists is therefore better insofar as it is more goodcontaining. There is no reason to think it is better in any other way. And so there is no reason to prefer it, or bring it about. We can get reasons from goods that matter, but we need reasons to think that goods matter. Many don’t. 28 The point can be made in terms of a distinction insisted on in Chapter 2. So 2 is better than 1 in that it is more good-containing, but it isn’t better that 2 obtains than that 1 obtains. Similarly for 3 and 1. But it is better that 3 obtains than that 2 obtains.

120

The Asymmetry

29 Parft (1984). Both quotations here are on p. 391. And then later p. 396, ‘Many people accept the Asymmetry’. 30 See, for such discussion, Parft (1984: 391) ‘An Alleged Asymmetry’ and then 1984: 525–527, Endnote 32. 31 Parft (1984: 393–395). It isn’t necessary here fully to understand what Parft means by this. But I say more in the next chapter. 32 Parft (1984: 526). 33 See for related discussion Rachels (1998: 106–111) and Parft (1984: 489). 34 McMahan (2016: 71) insists there is ‘no signifcant difference’ between our dying soon after coming into existence and our never existing at all. I pointed to certain ambiguities surrounding his arguments in the previous chapter. This is another. Does he mean there is no relevant difference at all, or nothing of much importance? Perhaps he is just undecided. Elsewhere he says there ‘seems to be little or no difference’ between such cases (2009: 60). 35 McMahan (2009: 60). 36 The replicant Rachael, in Bladerunner, is implanted with various seeming memories. This doesn’t provide reason, I claim, for thinking that death is bad for her now. We might, for similar reasons, deny that death is bad for someone who exists only in an experience machine. 37 Need now, as opposed to need later. Let me be clearer about something that is thus far only hinted at. The Asymmetry, I claim, is plausible. And it has more to be said for it than its strongest-seeming rival, the Weak Asymmetry. Much of my concern here has been to argue this, and so support the view that there are no reasons to start overall good lives. But the Asymmetry claims also that starting these lives is permitted. And in Chapter 7 I’ll look again, and more deeply, into this. 38 Some of these fnal comments echo points made by McMahan (2009: 64–67). There are, however, some differences and disagreements between us, but nothing that demands immediately to be pursued.

6

Choosing

Suppose we can give someone better health. There is, I’ve said, some reason to do this. There is reason to improve human lives. Suppose we can save someone from death. Is there reason to do this also? I’ve wanted here to be more cautious. But I’ve said that, often, there are such reasons. What about new lives? Many will think we have reason to start new lives when those lives started will be good. I’ve expressed reservations about this. And I’ve wanted to defend the Asymmetry. Although there are reasons against starting bad lives, there are not, I’ve said, reasons for starting good lives. What needs to be considered now is an intermediate position between improving and starting. Suppose we’ve decided already to bring a new person into existence. We are going to start a life. But there is a choice as to which life to start. And we know already that one of these lives will be better than the other. Does it matter which we start? Many will think it intuitively obvious we should choose the better of the two. I argue here against this.1 The business of this chapter began to get underway in the previous chapter. I referred then to Parft’s oddly tentative dealings with the Asymmetry, and contrasted this with his altogether more confdent position on what he calls the Non-Identity Problem. The problem here is said to derive from cases where there is a choice between lives. Parft says we should choose the better of those available. Because we should do this, and because it’s not obvious as to how this is to be explained, the Non-Identity Problem arises. And, he insists, that problem has to be solved. But if there is such a problem, I said, then the Asymmetry is false. If, in contrast, the Asymmetry is true then this alleged problem disappears. So I claimed, in that chapter, that there is considerable tension between these two positions. One aim here is to explain how this tension arises. Another, more important, is to show it’s not true that we should choose the better of two lives. And so the Non-Identity Problem fails to emerge. In the chapter’s second section I look at and engage with Parft’s argument in some detail. In the frst I give more of the setting.

Choices and principles Suppose you are to choose between one of two options. And your decision will bear on, make a difference to, human happiness. It might impact a) on people

122

Choosing

who do exist, or b) on those who don’t but will exist, independently of your choice, or again c) on those who don’t but might exist, and whose existence does depend on your choice.2 Suppose you think we should be concerned for members of all three groups. And we should be concerned both about good things and bad things, or benefts and harms, coming to these people. Then, I’ll say, you’re after some wide principles of benefcence. Suppose, in contrast, you think our concerns should be restricted in some way. Perhaps they should be limited just to people in a) and b), just to the people who do or will exist anyway. Or perhaps they should focus just on the good things or just on the bad things affecting some or all of these different people. Then, either way, you’re wanting correspondingly restricted or narrow principles. Parft talks a good deal about principles of benefcence. He believes that our concerns to increase human happiness, or well-being, or good or worthwhile lives should proceed not in some piecemeal or ad hoc fashion, but should instead be shaped by coherent and systematic guidelines or principles as to what would be best. And, though it isn’t always clear as to the detail, he distinguishes between narrow and wide principles in ways which are at least similar to that above.3 He distinguishes as well, and more clearly, between different kinds of choices with which, when aiming at happiness, we can be faced. Same People Choices are those we make when dealing just with people in groups a) and b). Whether we serve strawberry or vanilla ice cream, spend Christmas with family or friends, do or don’t give to the donkey charity, most likely the same people will exist either way.4 But what if we go wider, and consider as well those in group c)? Choices here take two forms; we might, for example, commit to adding a certain sized group of new people into the world, but be thus far uncommitted as to who these people will be – these then are Same Number Choices – or perhaps we’ll want to expand the population but are as yet undecided by how much. Here there are Different Number Choices. Recall Narveson’s distinction. So then one way of linking things up would be to connect together frst, making people happy with Same People Choices and narrow principles, and second, making happy people with both Same Number and Different Number Choices, and with wide principles.5 As Parft notes, we may well be tempted to think our job is just to make people happy, or do what is good for people, or make things better for them. We might think that morality involves only Same People Choices. And we might think, as well, that if our activities don’t make people unhappy, are not bad for people, don’t make things worse for them, then what we do is surely permitted, and can’t be considered wrong.6 But the temptation should, he says, be resisted. Think about having children. Suppose you are wanting a child and, because you’re unable to go about this in the standard way, you’ll have generated a number of embryos from which one will be selected. Suppose there are just two embryos. One reveals a predisposition to asthma, though otherwise shows every sign of being healthy, while the other lacks this predisposition. Choose the frst and you bring into existence Art. Let’s suppose that even with asthma Art will have a good life. But you might instead choose the second embryo. And resulting Bart will, let’s also suppose, have a better life. Imagine the effects on other people,

Choosing

123

whatever the choice, are the same either way. Many, and perhaps most of us will choose, and think we should choose Bart.7 Suppose we don’t. In choosing instead Art, it seems we’ve made the wrong choice, done the wrong thing, even when what we’ve done doesn’t make things bad for, or worse for, anyone who will ever live. Not only is this choice not bad for or worse for Art, nor bad for or worse for other people, it isn’t bad for or worse for Bart not to come into existence. Even though we grant that Bart would have had a good life, and even if we grant, also, that coming into existence would have been good for him, we won’t want to say that never existing can be bad for him, or worse for him.8 But it seems we should have chosen Bart. That would have been the better choice. No more is needed, it might seem, to demonstrate that at least some sorts of narrow principles, confning our attention to existing people, are not ft for purpose. Parft focuses on cases similar to these in the opening chapter of Part Four. He focuses, then, on Same Number Choices, where it is decided that a certain number of new lives will be added, but it is still to be decided which those lives will be. Perhaps he thinks our intuitions are frmer in these cases, and that Different Number Choices are more complex and so best reserved until later. And he wants to investigate and defend: The Same Number Quality Claim, or Q. If in either of two possible outcomes the same number of people would ever live, it would be worse if those who live are worse off, or have a lower quality of life, than those who would have lived.9 So it is worse if all of us and Art live, than it would have been had all of us and Bart lived. We should choose Bart, as we should produce the better of the two outcomes. Several points about this need to be clarifed. One has, at least implicitly, already been made. The others are introduced here. First, Q is, for Parft, a component within a more wide-ranging principle, the elusive Theory X, that will deal satisfactorily not only with Same Number, but also Different Number Choices. Alternatively, we might see it as one member of a set of principles which together will handle the gamut. Second, though Q is not itself explicit about this, Parft holds, seemingly uncontroversially, that we should, other things equal, produce the better outcome. Third, we should produce the better outcome even when both outcomes are good. Suppose asthma is always a life threatening and severely debilitating disease, with no cure, and only inadequate treatments. Perhaps it would be wrong to bring Art into existence, even if there were only one embryo available. But, as I said, Art’s life will be good, though not as good as Bart’s. And Q says our choice is for the worse simply when, as a result, people are worse off than the alternative people, not when they are both worse off and badly off. So we should choose the better life, or group of lives, even when both lives, or groups of lives, will be good, or worth living. Fourth, we should do this even at some cost. It’s often said we should do everything possible to give our children the best start in life. Similarly, it is claimed we simply should, apparently without

124

Choosing

qualifcation, choose the best children.10 These claims are too strong. It is unreasonable to be asked to do everything possible to help your child. And we can’t always be required to put new people frst. Now suppose embryo selection is an expensive business. No one is going to claim we should incur massive costs to select embryo B, when it is only marginally superior to embryo A. So perhaps we should say instead that other things equal you should do what is best for your child, and other things equal you should select the best or better embryo. But this now is too weak. If there are reasons to bring about some outcome, there are reasons to sustain some costs to that end. So perhaps we should say, when the benefts outweigh the costs, we should bear these costs. If the gains to your children, in moving to a new school district, will outweigh the various costs to you in making this move, then you should up sticks. If the difference in quality between Art’s life and Bart’s is greater than the costs to you in going through with these medical procedures, then you should bear those costs. But the point is wider than these examples indicate. I imagine here that the costs fall to you as the decision maker. But they might impact on others. It will cost your children, too, if they are to move to a new school. Medical costs are often born by taxpayers as well as by patients. These costs too should be weighed against apparent gains. And we might consider as well costs falling to people not yet born, but who will be born, independently of your decision. So a plausible-sounding claim is that when the sum of these costs is less than the benefts of the better outcome then the costs should be suffered.11 Parft gives no explicit attention to these points. But they are implied in most, though regrettably not all,12 of what he says both about these Same Number Choices and indeed in most of the further topics in the remainder of the book. And it is, as I hope, reasonable to assume he would accept them. The focus now is just on Same Number Choices, selecting between differently constituted, but same sized populations, to add to those already existing. We will, as I’ve said, mostly believe that we should choose to bring into existence Bart rather than Art. And probably most of us will be tempted by Q. But how is this to be explained? Why should we choose a better-seeming outcome when frst, this has some costs, and so make things worse for existing people, second, it benefts neither existing people nor those future people who will exist either way, and third, the new people, whichever of them we choose, will have good lives? This is the Non-Identity Problem.13 It comes about because allegedly, our intuitions are frm, but hard to explain. The argument here is that there is no such problem. Either the alleged problem admits of an easy solution, or it never gets off the ground. For on refection we should see that our intuitions in this area, even if entrenched, are often not to be trusted. All that needs to be explained is how and why we should be so seriously misled. First, and briefy, the easy solution. Utilitarians think we should add to or maximize the sum of human happiness.14 So we should make people happy, and this for people who exist now, and for those who will exist in the future. And many of them think also that we should make happy people. So we should add new lives when, as a result, the sum of happiness will go up. Anyone thinking this

Choosing

125

will predictably think also that we should similarly, and in similar circumstances, choose the better of two lives. We might say, then, that we should make the happiest people.15 So we should choose Bart over Art. The problem here is that utilitarianism doesn’t have intuitive support. The instruction is clear enough, but we’re not inclined assiduously to follow it. Nor is it within Parft’s programme to argue for utilitarianism, or, at least in this area, for anything that is so out of tune with widespread intuitions.16 But then why do I say that if this straightforward solution fails, we should instead think that no problem concerning identity remains? Parft rests a great deal of his argument on claims about the intuitions we’ll have regarding a handful of select cases. It is precisely because, or so he thinks, these intuitions are altogether robust that the emergence of the NonIdentity Problem cannot be blocked. And then, in turn, it’s because this has no easy solution, but demands a solution nevertheless, that he sets out on the various phenomena-saving epicycles that occupy much of Part Four. But these claims, I say, are suspect, and the further moves unmotivated. So we need to consider the cases in some detail. Cases I The various cases here, all of Parft’s own devising, can usefully be divided into two pairs. The frst case in the frst pair is the best known. The 14-Year-Old Girl.17 A young girl wants a child. She can have a child now, or she can wait a few years, and have a different child later. Suppose, to make non-identity wholly clear, there will in that case be a different father. The frst child, Agnes, will have a worthwhile but average-ish sort of life; the second child, Bertha, will have a better life. Should this girl wait, and bring Bertha, rather than Agnes, into existence? There’s a need for more detail. No one who exists independently of this decision will beneft from her waiting. It won’t be better for grandparents, taxpayers, or social services if she delays. But this doesn’t mean other things are equal. She is being asked to give up on what she now very much wants to do, incur some cost, pay some price in order to start the better of the two lives. So, it seems, waiting will be worse for her. Assume we are concerned with happiness, and can measure overall happiness levels. And then assume the difference in happiness between Agnes and Bertha is greater than the cost, in terms of happiness, to this girl. We might say that she should make this sacrifce for the greater good.18 Parft claims that the young girl should wait, and claims too that this is a widespread intuition. Even though, if she doesn’t wait, her decision is bad for and worse for no one, still it would have been better, better all round, had she not gone ahead. A second case involves bigger numbers. Depletion. We have a choice as to how much we consume of the world’s resources. If we deplete then people in the future, say those living more than 200 years hence, will have a lower quality of life than if we conserve. But, importantly, our choice here will have effects on who is born. One example: if fuel is more expensive we will travel less, and then meet, and couple, with different

126

Choosing

people. Suppose we deplete. The future population A will have a lower quality of life than will the different population B that will come into existence if, instead, we conserve. (To make this a Same Number Choice we should assume, implausibly, that these future populations are of exactly the same size.) But again detail can be added.19 Whether we conserve or deplete, these future people will have a quality of life considerably higher than ours today. Conserving will cost us, in terms of convenience. We, and our children and grandchildren, will be less happy than we, and they, would be were we to deplete. But this cost will be less than the difference in happiness between populations A and B. I add a further detail, again unlikely. In any very large population, even when average happiness is high, it is probable that some lives will not be worth living. But I want to assume this is not the case in either of the populations A and B. Without some such assumption we might choose conservation, and thus B, not in pursuit of the greater good but simply in order to minimize the number of worthless lives. Parft gives no express consideration to this point, but it is, again, surely reasonable to suppose he would accept it. He is after support for the claim that we should choose the best lives. So cases where all the candidates have good lives need to be considered. He thinks we should choose conservation and thus B, and thinks, too, that many of us will have a similar intuition.20 Why should the girl, against her wishes, wait, and so choose Bertha? Why should we conserve, and bring into existence population B? Explaining this is our Non-Identity Problem. But the problem disappears if we see that our intuitions mislead us, and we come to agree there is no reason to burden ourselves, or the girl, in order to bring about the greater but different good. And, because the cases fetch some real-world baggage with them, our intuitions, or so I’ll claim, do mislead us. Almost everyone, at least around here and around now, thinks that 14 year olds are too young to have children. And a girl this young can’t, here and now, have a child without engaging in some illegal activity. We’ll probably think it would be better for her, even if not in the short term, certainly in the long term, if she waits. We might think, also, that whatever its quality overall, Agnes has a bad life at least in her early years, and the girl does wrong in causing this. All of this, I suggest, impacts positively on the intuition that she should wait, and so undermines the case’s contribution to the Non-Identity Problem. Surprisingly, perhaps, Parft agrees with much of this, allowing that the child’s life has a bad start, and that in going ahead the girl probably makes things worse for herself. And he concedes that this case doesn’t give frm support for Q.21 Things are supposed to be clearer with the second case. But it is equally open to objection. The terms ‘conservation’ and ‘depletion’ are heavily loaded – we’re against depletion (as we’re against extravagance, exploitation, conspicuous consumption, discrimination) pretty much as a matter of course. And we use here more resources than we might (and of course it’s tempting, and again misleading, to talk of using more than our share) in order to advance our own lives. This suggests selfshness, or greed. Again, these details of the case weigh in on any intuition that we should conserve.

Choosing

127

So introduce some small differences. Replace the girl with a young woman of 23. Any child she has will have a good start in life. But she will give a different child a better start if she waits until she is 30. And, impacting then on her career, this will certainly be worse for her. The intuition that she should wait will likely be weakened, and may be held only by those predisposed to think we should aim always to increase the total sum of happiness. Similarly with the second case. We recognize that conserve or deplete, people in the future will have lives considerably better than ours. And yet we recognize too that our lives are considerably better than the lives of people in large parts of Africa. If we deplete we can help these people to lead better lives. But then future people will lead lives only moderately better than ours. If we conserve then different future people will lead lives much better than ours while the lives of Africans will continue to be impoverished. Those predisposed to thinking our focus should be on the sum of human happiness may continue to favour conservation. But concerns for a) the worse off and for b) intergenerational equality will support depletion. It has to be remembered also that this shift to equality is achieved without any reduction to anyone’s standard of living. Whether we conserve or deplete, future people, whoever they are, will have lives that are better than ours and as good as their lives can be. If we deplete and thereby help Africans there are many winners and no losers. There are further considerations that count against Q and the Non-Identity Problem. First, a purer case. Our choice is between worlds. So we can bring into existence, at no cost, distant planet A where a million people have lives that are twice as good as ours. Or we can, by imposing non-trivial costs on 10,000 strangers, substitute for A a different planet B where a million different people have lives three times as good as ours. I grant some people will choose B. But these people will be wedded to the view that what matters most is the total sum of human happiness. And they will accept Q. Thus far it is hard to see why anyone who is not already drawn to maximizing will want to support Q. My intuition is that almost all of those who are not so drawn will choose A, and choose not to hurt thousands of strangers. And, I claim, not many are drawn to maximizing. Second, a real-world consideration. Most disabled people have lives that are well worth living. No one wants to end these lives. But disabilities usually make life go worse than otherwise it would. So Parft appears prepared to say to disabled people, ‘it would have been better if you hadn’t been born, and your parents had given birth to an able-bodied child instead’. This sounds harsh. Nevertheless, under one interpretation the statement here is true. There would, other things equal, have been more human happiness overall had these parents selected able-bodied children. Grant that human happiness is a good thing. We might say also that the universe’s sum of goodness would then have been higher. But it doesn’t follow from this that it would have been preferable had these parents so chosen, or that they ought to have so chosen, or even that they had any reason so to choose.22 And, I think, not many at all have the intuition that disabled children, leading good lives, ought not to have been born.23 After discussing this frst pair of cases, Parft entertains a halfway position; there is some reason to choose the better lives, but improving actual lives is

128

Choosing

more important. But The Medical Programmes24 aims to show this is false. The case is convoluted, but can be given in a somewhat simplifed version here. We can fund, and must select, just one of two screening programmes, both designed to bring benefts to those who will be born. One programme involves selection between gametes and a choice between possible lives. The other involves repair to fetuses, and so improvement to actual lives. Now consider three groups, each of 1,000 new lives. The A children will be born either way. But alongside them, and depending on our choice, there will exist either the B people, or the C people, but not both. Choose Preconception Testing and the B people are handicap free. The C people don’t exist. The A people, developing from untested fetuses, are born handicapped. Choose instead Pregnancy Testing and these A people are now handicap free. But because there are no funds elsewhere, the C people, handicapped, come into existence while this time the B people don’t exist. The handicap is moderate; those who suffer still have lives well worth living. As in either outcome we have 1,000 handicapped and 1,000 non-handicapped children. Parft thinks these programmes are equally worthy. But this ignores an important difference. Choose Preconception Testing, selecting between gametes, and the A people can complain: ‘Had you chosen differently our lives would have been better, and no one’s life would have been worse. That is why you should have opted for Pregnancy Testing’. Choose Pregnancy Testing, or fetus repair, and no one can complain. The C people won’t regret their lives or wish that you had chosen differently. Neither, of course, will the A people. This, I believe, is a reason for opting for Pregnancy Testing. Other things equal, we should put making things better for people ahead of making better people.25 Many people will agree with this. They’ll see an asymmetry here, with more reason to improve the lot of those who do or will exist, raising them from good to very good levels of well-being than to choose, from those who might exist, not the good but the very good lives. So while agreeing with Parft that there are reasons in both cases, not many will agree, further, with what he calls the No-Difference View, where these reasons are equally strong. They may think that this goes too far, and mars an otherwise solid position.26 On my view, however, the asymmetry is more pronounced. I want to say there are no reasons, rather than weaker reasons, to choose the better of good lives. Cases II The second pair of cases are more closely connected than are the frst.27 In The Risky Policy, one strategy for energy production is completely safe but more costly. The cheaper alternative involves our burying nuclear waste. There is a risk here of a future catastrophe. In several centuries time an earthquake might release radiation into the atmosphere. If this happens, thousands will be affected and, though suffering no symptoms beforehand, will die painless deaths at around 40. Parft thinks it clearer in this case than in Depletion that choosing the less expensive policy is wrong. In Jane’s Choice/Ruth’s Choice, we consider single person variations of this case. The only child that Jane can have will inherit some faulty

Choosing

129

genes, and die a painless death around 40. Ruth’s condition is similar, but she has a choice. She could pay for an operation that will ensure she has a healthy child, or she could save her money. In this case she risks having a child who will die painlessly, around 40. Parft thinks that while there may be some objection to Jane’s having a child, it is much clearer that there are objections to Ruth’s making the cost-cutting choice. Though more closely connected there are still differences, and not just in terms of numbers, between these cases. Both are Non-Identity cases, and both involve a risk, rather than a certainty, of bad outcomes. The choice of energy policy affects the identities of future people. But those very people who die early, if a radiation leak occurs, might well, in other circumstances, have lived much longer lives. They might, for example, have chosen to live hundreds of miles from the leak. And no one will die early if, in spite of the risk, no leak occurs. In Ruth’s case the risk comes earlier. The choice to save money generates a risk of her having a child who is then certain to die early. But she might have had a different child. Though Parft doesn’t say this, intuitions that the cost-cutting choices are the wrong choices will be here more widespread, and frmer, than in the earlier cases. Subjecting people to these risks might appear inexcusable. Still, it can be doubted that enough is done to show there really is a Non-Identity Problem needing to be solved. That problem requires us to have a choice between two outcomes, A and B, where both are good, but where B is better. If A isn’t a good outcome then, assuming there was an option of our doing nothing, we are wrong to choose it, whether or not B is an option. (If B isn’t an option, but A is unavoidable, then we are fated to bring about a bad outcome.) Now it may be that bringing into existence people who are destined to die at 40 when most lives are twice this long, is, other things equal, to act wrongly.28 I might appeal here to a distinction that several people have made between lives worth starting and lives worth living. It may be that some lives are such that once started they should be continued but are nevertheless of a value so low that there ought to be reservations about starting such lives in the frst place.29 It may be, also, that even to risk starting such lives, other things equal, is again to act wrongly. In Jane’s case, other things are not equal. Given that she very much wants a child, and has no other options, we might understand and excuse her having this child. If we insist that a short life can nevertheless be a perfectly good life, and are altogether happy to allow Jane’s choice, then it becomes less clear that we should disallow Ruth’s choice. Moreover, it becomes in this case less clear that we should describe the aftermath of going nuclear as a catastrophe. Some people live shorter lives, but so what? If we have doubts about Jane’s choice then of course we’ll have doubts too about the Risky Policy and Ruth’s choice. But then there isn’t here unequivocal support for the Non-Identity Problem. That needs the worse outcome, taken just in its own terms, to be unproblematic. Of the four cases that Parft discusses at length, only one properly illustrates the Non-Identity Problem. Parft himself grants that the young girl will probably make things worse for herself if she has a child now. So this isn’t, at least as he describes it, a case where choosing the lesser good has no bad effects for existing

130

Choosing

people. In the Risky Policy, and Jane’s choice/Ruth’s choice, it is far from clear that we are selecting between good and better outcomes. It is at best borderline whether the lives in the less good outcome should have been started. Only in Depletion can we say both that the outcomes do contrast in this way, and also that choosing the lesser good isn’t bad for, or worse for, anyone who exists either way. But there should be doubts about Depletion that, in choosing depletion, we do anything wrong. Indeed, or so I’ve argued, there may be circumstances in which this is fairly clearly the right choice.

Choosing and starting Why does Parft discuss frst, at length, and pretty much in isolation, Same Number Choices? I suggested he might think that Different Number Choices are considerably more complex, and less supportive of stable intuitions. But one Different Number Choice is very familiar. A couple are thinking about whether they should have a child. The number of people in the universe will vary, depending on their decision. It is perhaps hard to say whether choosing to have a child now or later is more, or less, common than choosing to have some child or none – perhaps most couples make both decisions, sequentially – but undeniably both occur frequently in everyday moral thinking. We’ve encountered already a view, widely supported, which to some degree helps them with this decision. The Asymmetry says that there is no reason (setting aside consequences for those, including the prospective parents, who exist either way) for them to have this child. Parft offers, I’ve said, no clear view as to where he stands on this. But his view on Same Number Choices is clear. We should choose the better of two lives, or indeed two populations, and so act in ways that imply our support for the quality claim Q. What is needed now is to show how these two seemingly plausible positions are in tension with one another. If we should choose the better lives then we should, I’ll argue, start good lives. Conversely, if there is no reason to start good lives then there is no reason, either, to choose the better of those lives on offer. Supporters of the Asymmetry can accept these conditionals, but they then infer from them that there is indeed no reason to choose the better populations, or the better lives. As he takes the contrary view, and believes we then have a Non-Identity Problem pressing to be solved, so Parft, rather than wavering, should reject this Asymmetry outright. It may seem that contentions here are far from secure. Consider again the young girl. Allegedly, she should wait, and have Bertha later rather than Agnes now. But how can it follow from this that she should have a child anyway? If she is already committed to having a child, then, it will be said, the extra cost to her, in waiting, is small in comparison to the gain overall. And this is a cost she then should bear.30 If she is not committed then the cost to her, in having either child, will be considerable. And we can’t simply insist that she should bear this cost. So then it’s just not true that if we should choose the better lives then we should start good lives.

Choosing

131

The argument needs some refning. I might claim, frst, that if this girl should, as alleged, bear some cost in order to bring Bertha, rather than Agnes, into existence, then if she could have this or a similar child for just that cost, she should go ahead. And no prior commitment to parenthood is needed. Imagine that an organization, keen on increasing good lives, offers to cover all the costs she would have to bear were she to have Agnes. They could then say to her – we’ve done our bit, and it’s considerable. Now, whatever it is you happen to want, you should pay the small extra amount needed to have Bertha. And, in such circumstances, given that earlier choosing was required, starting appears to be required now. But, as differentials in costs and commitments evidently complicate this case, we might instead make a related though more obviously secure claim. So, second, if the girl has reasons to wait, and have the later child, then she has reasons to have that child anyway, even when the frst child isn’t an issue, and even when she has no desire for a child. Having reasons for some action is perfectly compatible with having greater reasons against, but the Asymmetry says there are no reasons at all (discounting side effects) to start new lives. So if there is even a small reason for her to have a child then the Asymmetry is false. And if she has reasons to delay, when this isn’t what she wants, then she has reasons to create a new life even when, again, this isn’t what she wants. This link between starting and choosing is clearer, less cluttered, in Depletion. If we deplete, then future people will have somewhat poorer lives than those who will exist if, instead, we conserve. But imagine the consequences of depletion are very much worse. Consume at our present rate and in the future there will be no people at all. Surely, if we should conserve in order to ensure that future lives are excellent rather than very good (and recall that on Parft’s account these lives are better than ours either way) then we should conserve in order to avoid extinction.31 Real world complications inevitably infltrate and distort discussion of these cases. So, to avoid this, consider again the making of worlds. Though inclined to sit still, you must clap your hands once or twice. Clap once, and a planet is formed with a million averagely happy people on it. Clap twice, and there are instead a million very happy people. Critically these are different people. The second clap doesn’t improve the lot of people who will exist anyway. Imagine now that you say, as will many, that you should clap twice. In a second situation you must again clap once or twice. Once, and nothing happens. Twice, and again you create a planet with a million very happy people. It is hard to see why, if you think you should clap twice in the frst case, you shouldn’t have to clap twice in the second. So again, if there’s reason to choose the better lives, there’s reason to start these lives even when less good lives are not an alternative. There’s an additional point to be made here. If we think there’s a positive difference between happy and very happy people in the frst case, and making this difference is worth the effort of a second clap, then surely there’s more of a difference, and the effort more worth it, when we create either no one at all, or a million very happy people. Similarly, of course, in Depletion. It will seem to many that there is much greater reason to consume less when, if we don’t, then extinction threatens than when there is otherwise merely a slowdown in living standards’ upward trend.

132

Choosing

Is there anything to be said for a contrary view? Or should it now be accepted, putting this in simple terms, that choosers should be starters? One reservation might be noted. If we consider only Same Number Choices then whenever we select the better or best outcome there will be an increase in both total and average happiness. If we consider bringing into existence some extra happy lives then, though total happiness will always rise, average happiness may fall. Is this a reason for claiming that the case for choosing is more secure than, and so might after all not imply, that for starting? Anyone inclined to this would seem to think that increasing average happiness is of considerable importance. But there are no good reasons to agree.32 Choosers should be starters. Parft, other supporters of the Q, and believers in the Non-Identity Problem should then agree in rejecting the Asymmetry, and hold instead that there are reasons (though not to do with effects elsewhere) to start new lives. But the Asymmetry has considerable intuitive appeal and many advocates. Nor, I’ve argued, is it as wanting of theoretical defence as is sometimes believed. And now the contention of this chapter has been that the intuitive appeal of choosing is much shakier than it frst appears. The young girl can, in good conscience, have her child now. And we can continue to ignore some of the calls for conservation. No good case for Q can be made out. Moreover, its clashing with the Asymmetry further, and perhaps fatally, undermines any arguments in its favour.33

Benefcence What we want from principles of benefcence is clear, plausible, coherent, and wide-ranging guidance on what we ought to do, and to want, regarding human well-being. There are constraints set on such principles resulting from our core beliefs, or intuitions we’re unwilling to give up. And Parft identifes three such constraints. These principles should, he says, solve the Non-Identity Problem, they should avoid the Repugnant Conclusion, and perhaps too they should explain the Asymmetry.34 How far can we go with this? Wide principles, demanding that we consider those who do exist, those who will exist, and those also whose existence depends on our decision are needed, he insists, in order to deal with the Non-Identity Problem. Only they require us to consider the fortunes of new, or extra, people. But it is perhaps a mark against such principles that they generate the Repugnant Conclusion. Imagine a choice between a world A with millions of people having a high quality of life, and a world Z where zillions have lives worth, but barely worth, living. Intuitively, the frst world is vastly to be preferred. But in terms of the sum of human happiness the second world, just in virtue of its size, is the better. We should worry about wide principles if, though solving the Non-Identity Problem, they lead to the claim that this bigger (and more good-containing) world is the better (to be preferred) world. And perhaps we should think, if narrow principles allow us to deny this, there is still everything to play for. But such principles have multiple strikes against them. They don’t require us to choose, as Parft believes we should choose, to start the better

Choosing

133

lives. And even if they don’t lead to the view that Z is better than A, they don’t give us reason to claim, as we want to claim, that it is worse.35 So the Repugnant Conclusion, it seems, points to shortcomings in principles of benefcence however we construe them.36 Should we nevertheless agree that wide principles, requiring us to consider the fortunes of extra people, as well as those existing anyway, still have the edge? Not at all. I have, of course, denied there is a Non-Identity Problem to solve. And, further, there’s been no discussion as yet of the relation between these principles and the Asymmetry. This needs to be remedied, and the merits of the Asymmetry acknowledged. We should note, frst, that it is intuitively appealing. Almost everyone accepts its frst component, about bad lives, and, though it is more controversial, perhaps a majority accept the second also. Having children, most people think, is a private decision. There can, normally at least, and absenting side effects, be no duty or obligation here. And as what we say about benefcence should be sensitive to intuition, so this Asymmetry deserves a reckoning. Second, it doesn’t imply the Repugnant Conclusion. There is no reason to add even very good lives to those already in existence, unless it so happens that these good lives will beneft existing lives. And if this is true of very good lives so is it true of mediocre lives, whatever their number. Nevertheless, Parft’s observation about narrow principles can be echoed here. Although it doesn’t imply the Repugnant Conclusion, the Asymmetry doesn’t show what is wrong with it. It will appear that we are permitted, even if not required, to bring into existence large numbers of lives that are barely worth living. And we are permitted to do this even when, instead, we might have started smaller numbers of far better lives. But the Asymmetry might be amended in a way that blocks this. We might again appeal to a higher threshold for starting than for continuing a life. So starting bad lives, and those barely worth living, might both be forbidden.37 Finally, here we should revisit some of the discussion in the last chapter. I said there that Parft thinks that narrow principles offer the best explanation of the Asymmetry. Such principles, having a solid view only on existing lives, are well placed to claim we do wrong in starting bad lives. But, in contrast to wide principles, they have nothing to say about our failing to start good lives. Whether this explains the Asymmetry or merely reveals some consonance with it is a matter open to some further debate. This won’t be of great interest to Parft, however, as, having rejected narrow principles in light of their preventing a solution to the Non-Identity Problem they can’t offer to explain the Asymmetry. But of course having denied that this problem so much as arises in the frst place, this objection to narrow principles, on my account, falls to one side. So their cohering with the Asymmetry is restored. In light of all this we might usefully revisit and refne the distinction between wide and narrow principles. Wide principles ask us fully to take into account the lives that do, that will, and that might exist. Narrow principles, I said, can be seen as confning our attentions to existing lives. But there is considerable space between narrow, so understood, and wide. And the Asymmetry asks us

134

Choosing

to discriminate among these new or extra lives. We mustn’t start the bad ones. We may, but it’s not that we must, start the good ones. Whether we think of this as implying a re-versioned narrow principle, or instead as undermining the dichotomy between narrow and wide, is not important. What is important is that we acknowledge there are several plausible alternatives to wide principles. Parft repeatedly notes our temptation to think we do no wrong so long as we avoid affecting existing people adversely.38 This is, he argues, a mistake. But the mistake more obviously attaches to starting bad lives than it does to failing to start good, or the better lives. So then we might believe that in considering lives that do or will exist we have reason to be concerned with both good things and bad things, or benefts and harms, coming to those lives. But we might believe also that in considering lives that might exist, depending on what we decide, we have reason to avoid starting bad lives, but no reason to start good lives. If we do decide to start good lives, then we have reason thereafter to be concerned with both good and bad things, benefts and harms coming to those lives. This, then, respects a distinction within new lives that can too easily be overlooked. The young girl has no reason to choose Bertha over Agnes. But having chosen Agnes, she then has reason to make her life as good as possible. No lives should be started. But those that are and will be started should then be improved.39

Summary We will almost all agree that we have reason to improve existing lives. Many of us will think, in contrast, that there is no reason to start new lives. There is intuitive support for both views. But, supposing a decision to start a new life has already been made, is there reason to choose the better of those lives available? I’ve argued here that just as there is no reason to start new lives, so also, on the assumption that all candidate lives are worth living, there is no reason to choose the better or best lives. The focus, in all this, should be directly on the lives in question. A consideration of side effects can introduce reasons, either for the good life, or for the better life, where otherwise there are none. Why are so many tempted by the contrary view? I’ve pointed to certain mistakes that might easily enough be made. We might simply assume, frst, that it is better if the better lives are lived, and then, second, that there is reason to choose these better lives. But ‘better’ here need to be disambiguated. If ‘better’ means more good-containing, we can agree that it is better to have the better lives but then should agree also that nothing follows from that about the choices to be made. If ‘better’ implies there are reasons, then we should hold off from agreeing that so-called better lives really are better. But we can’t make two moves in one. Closely related is the mistake of paying insuffcient attention to differences in identity. We should improve lives. So then, given a certain child, we should choose for that child the better – and here more good-containing – of two lives available. But it is a different matter to hold that of two separate children, we should choose the one that will have the better life.

Choosing

135

The assumption here is that both these lives are worth living. Another mistake involves borderline lives. I must choose whether to bring into existence A or B. Suppose there are doubts, perhaps relating to threshold levels, about A. Then I should choose B. But if, when considered separately, starting either of A or B is altogether legitimate, then there are no reasons, absenting side effects, for preferring B to A. Mistakes of this kind can, I’ve said, more easily be made when the complexities of quasi real-world examples or illustrations threaten to distort our thinking. And Parft’s examples, I’ve said, can do this. Substitute something cleaner and more schematic and the danger here is avoided. But other real-world examples can themselves indicate something is amiss. There is no suggestion that lives should be ended, no argument for euthanasia, but Parft’s view implies that other things equal it would have been better if those with even moderate disabilities had never been born, and able (or abler) bodied children had been born in their place. Taking all this into account we might, then, and independently of further considerations, come to doubt whether there are reasons to choose the better lives. But a considerable part of the argument here links choosing with starting. Suppose you think, as perhaps most do think, and accepting the Asymmetry, that there is no reason to start lives. Then, in consistency, you should think also there is no reason to choose the better lives. Suppose you hold to the view that we should choose the better lives. In consistency, you should think we have reason to start lives. Someone disposed to the latter thoughts appears, I’ve said, to be disposed also to thinking we should maximize the sum of human happiness. We think the more happiness the better, or that happiness is good for the universe, or good simpliciter, or intrinsically valuable, or some such. And not so many of us are so disposed. Going this route counters rather than complies with intuition. What this package of views suggests is that we again revisit Narveson’s distinction. Should we make people happy, or make happy people? I said, and still say, the former. But we can add; there’s no reason to make the happiest people. And we can add also; we shouldn’t make people unhappy, and we shouldn’t make unhappy people. This is where benefcence takes us.

Notes 1 I gave a precursor of this chapter’s argument in Belshaw (2003). 2 Two points can be added. Suppose you believe in posthumous harms. Then you’ll think there might be impacts also on those who did exist, but exist no longer. Suppose you are choosing between killing someone and letting them live. This person does exist, even if she doesn’t continue to exist, independently of your choice. She is a member of group a) rather than group c). 3 He introduces both notions in Part Four’s second chapter. What he says about wide principles (1984: 396–401) is clear; what he says about narrow principles (1984: 393– 396) less so. There are issues, frst, about some of his uses of the distinctions between ‘bad/bad for’ and ‘worse/worse for’. As he later notes, he had to make, between the 1984 and 1985 versions of his book, certain changes here. And it isn’t clear to me that there are not further infelicities remaining. Second, related, but more important, what

136

4

5 6

7

8 9 10 11

12 13

Choosing appears to be his key statement of the narrow principle (1984: 395, top) is profoundly puzzling, and diffcult to reconcile with what elsewhere, less formally, and more plausibly (1984: 395, below) he offers as the gist of the principle. The narrow principle as stated gives rise, as he notes, to contradictions. It might be suspected that the problem lies here, in his particular formulation, rather than a narrow principle more sympathetically construed. Parft gives further consideration to these principles of benefcence in more recent works (see especially Parft (2017a)) but these, though extended, make no signifcant impact on the discussion here. It might be objected that because of what is referred to as the butterfy effect this can’t be maintained. Who knows how small differences now will pan out over time? Perhaps it is safer, then, to suggest we should simply assume that there are, and that these are, Same Number Choices. Parft capitalizes a lot. I follow him in some parts of this, not in others. In particular, my non-capitalizing of wide/narrow principles indicates a reluctance to be committed to precisely Parft’s understanding of these terms. The less formal statement mentioned in note 2 runs thus: ‘The Narrow Principle is intuitively plausible. It is natural to assume that, if some choice will not be bad for anyone who ever lives, our Principle of Benefcence should not condemn this choice’ (1984: 395). If principles of benefcence are concerned only with human well-being then what Parft says here is seemingly correct, even though narrower than my claim above. But there is, on a wider view, animal well-being to take into account. This is one reason why McMahan’s (2009: 50) shift from person-affecting to individualaffecting considerations has much to recommend it. The example here is taken from Julian Savulescu. And it is he, I believe, who introduced the now widely used term (though not used by Parft) Procreative Benefcence. This refers, in his account, to a principle: ‘Couples, or single reproducers should select the child, of the possible children they could have, who is expected to have the best life, or at least as good a life as the others, based on the relevant, available information’, Savulescu (2001: 451). See back to my discussion in Chapter 2 and, again, Parft’s Appendix G. Parft (1984: 360). The resemblance between this and Savulescu’s principle is clear. See again Savulescu’s principle, in note 6. A weakness here is that no attention is given to the costs relating to selection. The plausible sounding claim needs at least some qualifcation, however. Not many people will think you should sacrifce your own life, or your child’s life, to save the lives of two strangers, even if, from a neutral perspective, it is better that they live than that you live. So something about agent-centred prerogatives needs to be factored in. A more fundamental concern is that my claim here about reasons implying costs is suspect. Couldn’t someone insist that you can have reason to do X, or that you ought to do X, but only so long as X is altogether cost-free? I think not, but rather than discuss this in detail I’ll say here only that my claim holds at least for a great number of cases, including for all the cases that fgure in discussions of Q and the Non-Identity Problem. As I explain in the next section, there are deviations from some of this in at least three of the key cases from Part Four’s opening chapter. Parft introduces the problem in relation to the frst case I discuss below, the young girl’s child. He insists she does wrong if she has a child now. But, he says, we must ask: ‘What is the objection to her decision? This question arises because in the different outcomes different people would be born. I shall therefore call this the Non-Identity Problem’ (1984: 359). There is a very similar dialectic a few pages later, relating now to the second of these cases. It is, he thinks, clear that we should not deplete. But we should ask, ‘(1) What is the moral reason not to choose Depletion?…. Our need to

Choosing

14 15 16 17 18

137

answer (1), and other similar questions, I call the Non-Identity Problem. This problem arises because the identities of people in the further future can be very easily affected’ (1984: 363). The term isn’t going to disappear. It titles Part Four’s opening chapter, fgures often in the remainder of the book, and is now much used by many other writers. But it isn’t well chosen. Notice frst that the problem isn’t that of determining some truth, but of explaining that truth. For those with doubts about the truth this is perhaps premature. And ‘non-identity’ doesn’t itself point to the truth at issue. We don’t need to explain, for example, that delaying conception affects the identity of who is eventually born. That is uncontroversial. Better, perhaps, to have called it the Q Problem, namely that of explaining why Q is true. But Parft can’t accept this. First, the problem as he presents it relates to a range of particular issues – why should the girl wait?, why shouldn’t we deplete?, ‘and other similar questions’ (1984: 363). And he claims that we can ‘partly answer’ such questions by appeal to Q (1984: 363). In one sense Q gives a complete answer: if Q is true then it pretty much straightforwardly follows that the girl should wait, we shouldn’t deplete, and so on. In another sense it gives no answer at all. If the Non-Identity Problem is concerned only with particular questions then there is a closely parallel problem about why we should accept Q. If it can have broader concerns then it applies itself directly to Q. Second, the problem can arise, he says, in both Same Number Cases and Different Number Cases (1984: 364), and so ranges beyond Q. This only makes for a further puzzle. I suggested that Depletion should be read, even if a little implausibly, as a Same Number Case. It may be, however, that Parft intends it as a Different Number illustration of the Non-Identity Problem. But in that case any intuitions we might have about depleting being wrong will be unstable from the outset. Different Number Cases, surely, present us typically with questions as to what is true, not simply with the problem of explaining why this is true. More accurately, utilitarians taking the total view will think this. And, of course, they mostly think also that net happiness is what matters – we should take into account increases in both happiness and unhappiness, or pleasures and pains. So the better or happier of two, and the best or happiest of three or more. If he did argue for utilitarianism then he would straightforwardly reject the Asymmetry. But, as shown in the previous chapter, he doesn’t do this. Section 122 (1984: 358–361) is titled ‘A Young Girl’s Child’. But the case itself is, as here, The 14-Year-Old Girl. There is more to say here regarding benefts. In discussing this case, Parft suggests (1984: 359) that the girl’s decision to wait benefts her child. This invites three responses. First, we might deny it. But then Parft won’t insist on it. As he says here, and elaborates in Appendix G, that causing benefts is a defensible view. Though we can’t think it is better for someone to come into existence (because it is not worse for them if they don’t come into existence) we can think it is good for them. But then this coming into existence benefts them, albeit in a peculiar way (1984: 487–90). Earlier I linked together all of good for, better for, and beneft (or perhaps of beneft to) and am disinclined to sever that linking here. Suppose, in a concessionary mood, I allow there are peculiar benefts, where the link with better for is denied. I’ll want now to suggest that coming into existence is similarly good for a person only in a peculiar way. Second, suppose we agree that waiting benefts her child. It would have been true that if she hadn’t waited, this too would have benefted her child. For a different child would have been born, similarly with a life worth living. Parft needs to add she would beneft the second child more than she would beneft the frst. Third, we can demand more. We still need to be persuaded that these are benefts we have reason to confer. Suppose we are persuaded. I’ll allow we might then take it for granted – no further argument is really needed – that there are then reasons to maximize benefts,

138

19 20

21 22

23

24 25

26 27

Choosing and, other things equal, agree she should have the second child. But persuasion needs to come frst. Relevant here is a claim about a distinction between impersonal and person-affecting principles, which in part explains the considerable effort Parft makes to set out and insist on their differences: ‘It is easier to deny that it would be better if there was more happiness, or more of whatever makes life living. It is harder to deny it would be better if people were benefted more’ (1984: 400). Interpret better in some reason giving sense. This deniability distinction holds if we are concerned with ordinary benefts. But if we extend it to include peculiar benefts then it fails to hold. In effect, the distinction – in this context slim – is just that between human happiness and happy humans. I ignore, however, the differences in Parft between Greater and Lesser Depletion (1984: 362–366). But there is between them one similarity that should be noted; in both cases future lives, whether or not we deplete, are better than lives now. It might be objected that things are not this clear. He claims frst (1984: 363) only that there is ‘some moral reason not to choose Depletion’. But later (1984: 369) it is clear that he ‘and many other people’ would choose Conservation. And this is, of course, supported by Q. ‘In the case of the 14-Year-Old Girl, we are not forced to appeal to Q. There are other facts to which we could appeal, such as the effects on other people’ (1984: 361). Some points made earlier, about ambiguities around here, will bear repeating. Do we have reasons to promote the good? If it’s good that p then other things equal we should aim at p. It doesn’t follow, of course, that we have reasons to do what is good for such and such. Nor does it follow we have reason to add to the sum of good things – contrast here good states of affairs and good objects. Do we have any reason to increase the number of good lives? Only if it is good that there are good lives. In one sense, then, the good might not have value. Parft discusses a similar, and true, case, though one not involving disability (1984: 364–365). A young girl’s child, now a middle-aged man, writes to The Times complaining of social engineers and moralists who think it would have been better had he never been born. Parft can stick to his guns here, and insist this would indeed have been better, but this has to be via the upshot of an argument, rather than appeal to any widely held intuition. For there is no such intuition. Parft (1984: 366–369). Parft considers this objection. Allow that the A people, handicapped, are not worse off than the C people, handicapped, even though the frst group could have, while the second group could not have, been cured. He says, ‘we ought to cure this group only if they have a stronger claim to be cured. And they do not have a stronger claim. If we could cure the second group, they would have an equal claim to be cured. If we chose to cure the frst group, they would merely be luckier than the second group. Since they would merely be luckier, and they do not have a stronger claim to be cured, I do not believe we ought to choose to cure these people’ (1984: 369). Imagine two children, both drowning but at different ends of a large lake. You are at the south end. The girl at the south end, who you rescue, is merely luckier to be so positioned. But it would be odd to say you ought not to rescue her. See, for good discussion of this, and that based on a case that is clearer than Parft’s, see McMahan, (2013: 11–12). Parft (1984: 371–377). He introduces these cases in order to consider what he claims is a minor aside, whether an appeal to people’s rights can, in extreme situations, solve the Non-Identity Problem. But they can, as well, be seen as providing further grounds for supposing the Non-Identity Problem is real. A detail; Parft presents Jane’s Choice and Ruth’s Choice as a pair of discrete cases. But as they are bound together in discussion, so I’ve packaged them as one.

Choosing

139

28 Parft surely implies it is a bad outcome when he describes the upshot of the nuclear leak as ‘a catastrophe’. Even so, the decision to risk catastrophe might be defensible. The probabilities of both losses and gains, along with their respective sizes, all need to be considered. 29 See Benatar (2006: 45) and Kamm (1992: 132). Both are referred to in McMahan (2009). McMahan appears, however, to be unsympathetic to such distinctions. 30 More accurately assuming the differential value between A and B outweighs the extra cost, then she should bear it. 31 Someone might agree but fnd themselves unconcerned. The basic intuition, a component in the Asymmetry, is that there is no reason to start new lives. But extinction is, it will seem, a special case. Many will think it evident we should avoid extinction. So that some claim about choosing implies this won’t be seen as in any way challenging that claim. I say a lot more about extinction, of course, in Chapter 10, but also a little more in note 33. 32 Average happiness will increase when, within a given population, the total increases. Other things equal, this may be a good thing. But increasing the average by culling less happy people, or by adding a few super-happy people, are less obviously good things. 33 The argument here has a familiar structure. I claim that choosers should be starters. But as there isn’t reason to be starters, so there is no reason, either, to be choosers. We might consider a further argument. Starters should be choosers. But as we shouldn’t be choosers, so also we shouldn’t be starters. Is this a good argument? Formally, they are on a par. And, accepting the frst argument, I accept the critical contention of the second. But the frst argument does more work. Support for the Asymmetry, or so I claim, is stronger, more resilient, than support for Q. We can effectively bring to bear the strong against the less strong. We can’t, then, with any comparable effectiveness, make the second argument. The consequent is clearer than the antecedent. But consider again the issue about extinction. Suppose you think that in this special circumstance, when otherwise there would soon be no one, there is a reason to start new lives. How does this impact on choosing? Suppose the difference between good and better lives relates to increased fertility. In this similarly special circumstance there may be reason to choose the better lives. 34 See the opening of Ch. 18, Parft (1984: 391). 35 Parft (1984: 395). Most of us, he says, would fnd it hard to believe that Z is not worse than A. 36 This is to skip over some detail. For again, there are average and total versions of these principles to take into account. Opt for the former – introduce new lives if and only if average happiness increases – and we avoid the Repugnant Conclusion. But we may then be committed to different conclusions which are equally discomfting. See Parft (1984: 401–422). 37 More generally, then, we might identify a number of areas where even if people judge their lives worth living, there can be doubts as to whether those lives should have been started. Lives just above the break-even point, lives far shorter than average lives, lives destined to be lived as slaves, or destined to suffer repeated tortures, are all, we might think, morally compromised. These concessions do nothing to rescue Parft’s claims about the Non-Identity Problem. Q holds when the worse lives and the better lives are all of them unambiguously good. 38 Though on p. 395 he appears to make both this point – the narrow principle allows Depletion, for example, as it allows choices that are worse for no one – and also implicitly to concede the Asymmetry’s second component – it allows choices that are not worse for, or bad for anyone. 39 There is a complication here. Suppose Agnes, at 13, starts to go blind. There is reason to intervene and try to prevent this. Suppose that doctors tell you, before she is born, that she will go blind at 15. But genetic engineering, performed now, on the embryo,

140

Choosing will prevent this. There is reason to perform this engineering. Suppose, instead, that doctors tell you that without their intervention now, Agnes will be born blind. If they intervene, she will be sighted. It might seem obvious that they should intervene. The same child is born, in a better or worse condition. But someone might argue that a difference this great is, or is in effect, identity altering. So then this case becomes a version of choosing, rather than improving.

7

Anti-natalism

Should we start new lives? Many say there are no reasons for or against this. Many others say there are reasons for. Some say there are reasons against. If there are no reasons for, and some reasons against, then starting a life is wrong. We ought not to have children. Anti-natalists believe this. But, as before, we need some qualifcations here. Though the term might suggest otherwise, anti-natalists are concerned not so much with birth as with coming to be, starting to exist, or, as in our case, conception. And the central concern is with human beings and human life. But there are good reasons for thinking they should be concerned with animals also. This is because their hostilities derive from a concern with sentience and so with the existence, and importance, of pleasures and pains. Suppose oysters are not sentient. Then these are animals with whom anti-natalists are not concerned. Nor are they concerned with plants. The focus is on pain. It is because of the pain we suffer that, allegedly, it would be better if we’d never been born, and had never come into existence.1 Finally, we need, of course, to focus, as before, just on the life started, and set aside any benefts elsewhere. Anti-natalists will agree that it might be good for others if a new life is started. So then there will be reasons to start the life, and these might outweigh the reasons against. But consider just this life and, as there are no reasons for, so reasons against win the day.

A weaker case The chapter begins with a consideration of two well-known anti-natalist arguments. These arguments, I claim, fail properly to support the anti-natalist position. But they point the way to further arguments which offer to anti-natalism more support. A secondary argument First, an outline sketch of a common view. Most of us believe that there are, within most of our lives, some pleasures and some pains. We might think the pleasant life is the good life, and we might think also that life is, on balance, good, worth living when overall pleasures win out against pains. Pleasures and

142

Anti-natalism

pains are both real, and both count. In this view lives can be bad and not worth living. But they can as well be good and worth living. It depends how things go. Suppose you know they will go badly, and that any child of yours will have a terrible life. Setting aside any benefts elsewhere, most of us will think it wrong for you to have a child. In such circumstances we will be against birth. Most of us will think, however, that only rarely do people have such knowledge, and this in part because only rarely, in fact, is life not worth living. Our anti-natalism is conditional, or qualifed, or restricted. Contrast this common view with some others, related, in which, as I see it, most of the argumentative moves are solid, but where the openers are suspect. So-called negative utilitarians think there is an important difference in the status of pleasures and pains. While pains are pretty much as we take them to be, pleasures, in contrast, are either unreal or, even if real, still unable to count in any way against pains. Pains matter, pleasures don’t. If either of these views can be made out then a very wide-ranging anti-natalism will follow. In all cases where there is some pain in a life, the pleasures, no matter how many or how great, will be altogether unable to weigh against it. So when there is pain, life will be bad and not worth living. And as it is in fact true, even if it’s not necessarily true, that all our lives contain some pain, so none of our lives will be worth living. Setting aside any benefts elsewhere, it will always, in fact, be wrong to have a child.2 We might consider, however, a further, and moderated, version of the second view. Pleasures count for something but they don’t count for very much. And now there may be some cases where pleasures, because they come in vast numbers, do outweigh pains, especially when these are few. In some cases, even if not in many, life will be worth living. This now resembles a version of anti-natalism with which David Benatar has some sympathy. Particularly in his book on the subject he sometimes talks about our tendency, especially when thinking about our own, but also when thinking about other people’s lives, to exaggerate the amount of pleasure, and underestimate the amount of pain, within them.3 We tend to think life is worth living when in fact it’s not. Though there’s a resemblance, there’s still a difference between the two views. On the negative utilitarian view, we might be right about the numbers, but wrong about the importance of pleasures in our lives. On Benatar’s view, we can be right about importance, but we go wrong on the numbers of pleasures we enjoy. But this is not a signifcant difference. Either way we miscalculate. On both of these views it would appear that a life could contain some amount of pain, and yet still be a good life, one worth living. The claim is only that this happens much less often than we are inclined to think. All the views discussed here share a common feature. Given their starting points, they all proceed pretty much uncontroversially to their conclusions. But all of them, apart from the common view, adopt suspect starting points. They make contentious claims either about what we might call the metaphysics of sentience, or about the number or quality or value of pleasures and pains that in fact we have in our lives. One uncontroversial feature in particular – one I’ve hinted at but not spelt out – is worth noting here. They are against birth because

Anti-natalism 143 (or insofar as) they are against life. It is because (almost always) life will be bad that starting a life (almost always) is bad, or wrong. I’ve sketched these views, and made these points about them, in order to construct a backdrop against which it will now be easier to describe and comment on a further view, and the focus of this chapter’s frst half. Benatar’s main view is notable for two features. First, he holds that in all cases where there is any degree of pain in a life, then no matter how much pleasure the life also contains, that life is better not started. If we know there will be pain to come, then it is wrong to start the life. Again, this is setting aside any benefts elsewhere. But, second, he doesn’t hold that lives that contain some degree of pain are none of them worth living. He doesn’t think that all our lives are bad, and are best ended. In contrast to the views outlined above, Benatar’s position here is anti-natalist without being pro-mortalist; it’s against life but not for death. It is this combination of views that makes it especially challenging. Better never to have been There is a good deal worth discussing even in the opening sentences of the paper with which Benatar made his reputation: There is a common assumption in the literature about future possible people that all things being equal, one does no wrong by bringing into existence people whose lives will be good on balance. This assumption rests on another, namely that being brought into existence (with decent life prospects) is a beneft (even though not being born is not a harm). All this is assumed without argument. I wish to argue that the underlying assumption is erroneous. Being brought into existence is not a beneft but always a harm.4 The ‘common assumption’ referred to here can be related to the common view I outlined above. That, in a nutshell, says that it is wrong to start bad lives. This, also in a nutshell, says that starting good lives is permitted. Together they represent Procreative Asymmetry. And this can be set against a contrasting symmetrical view – starting bad lives is wrong, or forbidden; starting good lives is right, or required. The shared component here, about bad lives, is almost universally believed. But both views about good lives, starting is permitted and starting is required, have many supporters. Neither can claim to be the standard view.5 Benatar’s second sentence appears not to be true, then. Those who think we’re required to start good lives may well think that people are benefted by coming into existence, just as those who think starting is forbidden might think we are, if started, harmed. But the most obvious ally of a belief that starting is (merely) permitted is, surely, that we are thereby neither benefted nor harmed. There may be a suspicion, then, that Benatar, right at the outset, is losing sight of the middle ground, and overlooking the possibility that coming into existence might be of neutral value, neither good for us, nor bad.

144

Anti-natalism

His claim, anyway, is that coming into existence is always a harm. There are two questions we can ask about this. The view he rejects is that coming into existence, with decent prospects, is a beneft. The qualifcation is obviously important. No one thinks we are benefted no matter how bad things are going to be. So, frst, is Benatar’s view that we are always harmed as, sadly, our prospects are never decent, or is it that we are harmed irrespective of our prospects? It might seem that it is surely the former – coming into existence is bad because life itself is bad – but as I’ve said, his view somehow manages to combine anti-natalism with a rejection of promortalism, and this seems to allow some sense in which we might have worthwhile lives. So it may well be that his is the latter view – harmed even though prospects are decent – after all. The second question asks whether there might be an easy way out of the apparent puzzle here. What does it mean to say that coming into existence is always a harm? Here are three suggestions. First, we might think that coming into existence is always a cause (or better, a causal condition) of harm, in that none of the harms we suffer in life would have come to us had we never existed. This, of course, is true. But then in the very same sense it is a cause of beneft. Second, it might be thought that coming into existence, just considered in itself, considered as a process, is harmful, rather than in itself benefcial. This isn’t obviously true, but nevertheless might be thought somewhat plausible, at least if we think here not of conception, but of our typical entrances into the world. However things happen to turn out later, giving birth often appears to be a pretty grim experience for mother and baby alike. Now in later sections I’ll want to make something of this point, but neither this, nor the frst suggestion, appear to capture what Benatar is driving at. So, third, coming into existence harms us in such a way that we’ll be right to think (again setting aside benefts elsewhere) that it would, on balance, or taking all into account, have been better had we never come into existence. And, to repeat, this will be so even if, once in existence, it is rightly judged that our life is worth living. This seems to be his view. Before looking in more detail at how the argument for this is supposed to go, I want frst to consider, and then set aside, a concern that many will have about an evident central feature. When Benatar says, as so often he does, that it would have been better had we never been, is he involved in some illicit comparison between existence and its opposite? And does that then undermine the whole project? On both counts I’ll say no. Imagine again a scale, with positive and negative ranges, and between them a point at a zero or neutral level. Most lives will be above or below this level. But we can imagine a life at this level, either because the pleasures and pains are equally balanced, or because it contains no pleasures or pains at all. Jim, in a coma and sensation free, might, for a period, be described as being at this neutral level. Even though there is nothing intrinsically good or bad about this, it might be better or worse for Jim to be at this level than to be conscious, and sentient, and at some other level. Better to be in a coma than to be in agony, but worse in a coma than in ecstasy. When the alternative is agony then the coma is better for Jim, he’s better off in this state, even if he isn’t then well off. Someone in or near agony might think they’d be better off dead. And thinking this, they might then kill themselves. Suppose we agree that when dead you cease

Anti-natalism 145 to exist. We’ll probably agree that if you’re then in any state at all it is a neutral state. Pleasures and pains are over. But is there really this third way, involving non-existence, for someone to be in the neutral state? Some people want to deny this, and insist there are important differences between not existing on the one hand, and existing with nothing going on, and thus being at the neutral level, on the other. There are differences, but it is hard to see how they can be important for someone having to choose between them. Jim knows he will enter tomorrow into an irreversible coma, and then subsequently die. It cannot really matter to him whether he dies next week or next month. Someone who, saying they’d be better off dead, believes that they’ll then be in a situation where they can refect on their lot, feel relief, think themselves fortunate has, most of us will think, made a mistake. Suppose they don’t make such a mistake. I want then to allow them this phrase. And I don’t think it much matters if we decide that what they say cannot literally be true.6 Whether or not it’s literally true, we know what they mean. Someone whose agony has been lifelong might think it would have been better if they’d never been born. Can this be literally true? It can be true that the world’s net sum of goodness is greater where this person never exists. Is it a good thing if the sum of goodness is greater? I’ve expressed doubts about that. Is it better for, to the beneft of, good for this person if they never exist? I’ve expressed doubts about all three locutions. Nevertheless, if someone says that it would have been better, or better for them, or they would have been better off, had they never been born, we can, again, know well enough what they mean. The upshot is that we can’t rule Benatar out of court just because he considers that it might have been better – and better for us – never to have been. Most of his uses of that phrase are innocuous. And the main point can, in any event, be differently put. He thinks that, setting aside effects elsewhere, there are reasons against, and no reasons for, starting even the good lives, or those lives we will judge are worth living. The main argument Benatar’s main argument occurs in section II of his 1997 paper. This argument is, I think, impossible to understand. Nevertheless, we can be confdent that it goes astray. I’ll sketch something of its structure – enough to show that something is amiss – and then consider it in more detail. A key contention – itself pointing to structure – occurs about halfway through the section. Benatar says: If my arguments so far are sound, then the view about the asymmetry between pain and pleasure is widespread, and the dissenters few. My argument will proceed by showing how, given this common view, it follows that it is better never to come into existence.7 I’ll claim that it cannot be determined precisely what asymmetry Benatar has in mind here. We might suspect it’s just the familiar Procreative Asymmetry noted above – bad lives are forbidden, good lives are permitted but not required. This is indeed a common view. But it’s not easy to see how Benatar can derive from

146

Anti-natalism

this his desired conclusion. That says, in effect, that no matter how good the life, it is better that it isn’t started. So, presumably, bad lives and good lives are equally forbidden. It looks, then, as if the argument has it that if the common view is true, it follows that it is false. So perhaps the asymmetry referred to should be differently understood. But, I’ll claim, no alternative interpretation can be considered a common view, and one that excites little dissent. In a nutshell then, if we accept this asymmetry, it won’t lead to, indeed, is at odds with, the desired conclusion. If it does lead to that conclusion, we won’t accept it. There’s a need for more detail. Benatar sets out by distinguishing between the values of pleasure and pain. But, contrary to what might be expected, this involves his making not one but two comparisons. Thus: (1) the presence of pain is bad and (2) the presence of pleasure is good and this now allows for a contrasting asymmetrical evaluation in a second case: (3) the absence of pain is good, even when that good is not enjoyed by anyone but (4) the absence of pleasure is not bad unless there is someone for whom this absence is a deprivation8 And that is about it. He doesn’t explain these claims, and in particular the asymmetry between (3) and (4) any further, and perhaps thinks there’s no need to, saying that his view here is ‘widely shared’, and then (as above) describing it as a common view. This isn’t an accidental oversight. Both in the introduction and the body of his book he similarly appears to think his view requires little explanation.9 But many will disagree. Imagine someone existing and living a life. There’s a mix of pleasures and pains, good and bad, within it. Our overall assessment may hang upon which of these predominate. It might hang, then, on the values we give to (1) and (2). Imagine now (as I’ve said, loosely, we might) someone not, and indeed never, existing. We might think there’s nothing going on for this person, neither pleasures nor pains, nothing good and nothing bad. But we might think, as well, that were they to exist then pains would be bad for them, pleasures would be good for them, and then, depending on their numbers, that this will count for or against bringing them into existence. Nothing asymmetrical here, and nothing that immediately helps make sense of the unfamiliar, uninterpreted, and yet seemingly critical (3) and (4). Thus far, we’re a long way from a view where coming into existence is always bad. There are, however, some asymmetries hereabouts. Can they point to a different reading of (3) and (4)? Indeed they can. I’ve said already that many will

Anti-natalism 147 accept the Procreative Asymmetry. And Benatar claims there’s a clear link here: his view ‘is the best explanation of the commonly held view that while there is a duty not to bring suffering people into existence there is no duty to bring happy people into being’. There’s more support for (3) and (4), he says, from an asymmetry about reasons: ‘whereas it seems strange to give as a reason for having a child that the child one has will thereby be benefted, sometimes we do avoid bringing a child into existence because of the potential child’s interests’. And a further asymmetry offers yet more support: ‘Bringing people into existence as well as failing to bring people into existence can be regretted. However, only bringing people into existence can be regretted for the sake of the person whose existence was dependent on or decision’.10 Some people might agree that there are here three distinct asymmetries all of which link to (3) and (4); others will argue that there is the one asymmetry, differently packaged. No matter. The critical point is that these asymmetries are none of them noticeably controversial, and all stand some way from Benatar’s anti-natalism. Some movement towards that might be gained, however, if we make now a distinction between whole lives and part lives. The familiar asymmetry attends just to the former – we shouldn’t start lives which on balance, or overall, will be worse than nothing, while we can, but it’s not that we should, start those which on balance or overall will be worth living. It is no part of the ordinary view, whereas it is, of course, Benatar’s view, that we shouldn’t start lives that will contain even the smallest amount of pain. But perhaps we can see how (3) and (4), generously interpreted, might be understood to imply this. We might say, of any contemplated future life, that the pleasures it will contain give us no reason to start the life, while its pains give us a reason against starting it. Some reasons against, none for. So, then, no actual life is one that we are permitted to start. I’ll need to return to this, and take it further, in the chapter’s second half. Right now it should be noted, frst, that Benatar doesn’t appear to be making any such claim, or drawing on any such distinction, and, second, that if he did he’d surely have a problem with holding to both anti-natalism and anti-mortalism. For won’t we then want to say too that future pleasures give us no reason to sustain a life, while future pains give us reason to end it? But we needn’t consider only absent remarks. For, third, Benatar does have several other, and rather different, things to say about how, allegedly, (1) to (4) will deliver his aimed for conclusion. And these need now to be considered. These individual claims of his can, along with some further detailing, be put together in a grid pattern, or matrix, thus:11 Scenario A

Scenario B

(X exists)

(X never exists)

(1) Presence of pain (Bad)

(3) Absence of pain (Good)

(2) Presence of pleasure (Good)

(4) Absence of pleasure (Not bad)

148

Anti-natalism

We are invited here to consider and compare what we might want to say about someone’s situation frst, where they exist, and second, where they never exist. Start with A, where someone exists. Even if there is some oversimplifcation hereabouts, we’ll probably agree with Benatar that the pleasures within a life are good, while its pains are bad. We’ll perhaps agree also that the balance of pleasures and pain will determine whether that life is worth living.12 And even if they are less numerous than we might suppose, there are cases where pleasures outweigh pains. Life can be, on balance, good. Is it then worth starting? Benatar makes a telling point here against ‘the analysis of the cheerful’.13 It doesn’t at all follow from something’s being good – a cake, a holiday, a life – that it is worth having, or is something you’d have reason to choose. It depends how it compares with the alternatives. A holiday, for example, needs, before you part with any money, not only to offer you a good time, but one better than staying at home. And doesn’t the alternative here, Scenario B, obviously win out? Scenario A contains a mix of goods and bads, while in B there are goods and, though there’s more besides, no bads at all. So B – non-existence – is to be preferred.14 Obviously something has gone wrong here. And there is room for at least two objections. First, how can non-existence be better than existence, when the agreed value of existence is overall positive? Surely non-existence is featureless, and so, at best, of neutral value. Non-existence can be better than existence, and is so when existence is bad, but it can’t have any positive value of its own. So it can’t be better than existence, when existence is good. Second, suppose we back off on this, and allow, for the sake of argument, that non-existence might indeed have some positive value, and so be better, even when existence is good. Still, we can’t do the sums unless we plug in the numbers. Take away the bad from the good in Scenario A and the result may still be better than the sum of the good and the (presumed) zero of not bad in Scenario B.15 So even if we are inordinately charitable towards Benatar here, it is still unclear how he can get the result he wants. Or is it? Suppose we deny that the pleasure in (2), no matter how great, really does any work, or carries any weight. Then the overall value for A, given that all lives contain some pain, is negative. And in this case then B, even though it is only of neutral value, and has our protagonist only at the zero level, is to be preferred. But frst, there is no evidence here that Benatar is even remotely thinking along such lines; second, there is ample evidence that he is in fact thinking along contrary and more familiar lines, where we allow the common-sense position that a life can be overall good, or worth living, and so have an overall positive value; and third, were he not thinking along such lines then, given his desired outcomes, he’d have further diffculties to face. I turn to this now. Anti-natalism and pro-mortalism Why don’t we all go off and kill ourselves? There are various reasons – fear, incompetence, responsibilities to others. But more important, for many of us, is the simple fact that we enjoy life and think it worth living. Not only is it worth

Anti-natalism 149 living, it is better than the alternative. In part, at least, Benatar agrees. He agrees that the pleasures in life can outweigh the pains. And he thinks that certainly in most cases, when this is so, then death is bad. But then how can he hold to his anti-natalism – life is better not started – and yet fail to hold also to promortalism – life is better ended?16 I suggested one way – coming into existence is bad for us while it’s happening but afterwards, once we’ve arrived, this badness is ended. But this isn’t Benatar’s view. He appears to think that coming into existence puts us in not just a temporary but lifelong situation which, even if it isn’t intrinsically bad, is worse than the alternative where we simply fail to exist. So here’s another way. Never existing is better than, and preferable to existing. But existing for a longer time is better than existing for a shorter time. Hence the badness of at least a premature death. On the face of it, these claims might appear to be compatible. Still, if never existing is preferable to existing, it might seem that if we are unfortunate enough to have existence thrust upon us, the sooner this is over with, the better. How can this not be the case? One answer to this appeals to what Benatar claims is an ambiguity in the idea of a life worth living. We resolve this, he says, by contrasting a life worth starting with one worth continuing. And then, between these, we’ll fnd that different standards are in play. Imagine a child suffers from some handicap or impairment. Benatar puts his point thus: The judgement that an impairment is so bad that it makes life not worth continuing is usually made at a much higher threshold than the judgement that an impairment is suffciently bad to make life not worth beginning. That is to say, if a life is not worth continuing, a fortiori it is not worth beginning. It does not follow, however, that if a life is worth continuing it is worth beginning or that if it is not worth beginning it would not be worth continuing. For instance, while most people think that living life without a limb does not make life so bad that it is worth ending most (of the same) people also think that it is better not to bring into existence somebody who will lack a limb. We require stronger justifcation for ending a life than for not starting one.17 Is any life worth starting? There’s a further ambiguity here, and one that should be noted. Most of us will think there are countless cases where we can start a life which will be well worth living and so, as Benatar will prefer, worth continuing. But those tempted by Procreative Asymmetry will think there is still no reason, setting aside benefts elsewhere, to start such a life. And as there is no reason to start it, so there is no reason to incur even a minimal cost, or impose this cost on others, in order to start it. In this sense, then, no life is worth starting. But most of us will, in contrast, think that in the same sense, many lives are worth saving. There are often costs we ought to incur, sacrifces we ought to make, to save our own or other people’s lives. This doesn’t give Benatar what he wants. When he says that no life is worth starting, he means that we ought not, setting aside benefts elsewhere, to start a life even at no cost. Not only are actual lives not worth starting they are, we might say, worth not starting.

150

Anti-natalism

Consider then impairments. And start with Benatar’s claim to have intuitive support for his position: Although most people would agree that to save my life now at the cost of my leg would confer a net beneft on me, many fewer people would think that saving the life of a conceptus at the cost of living its life without a leg constitutes a net beneft.18 There are two weaknesses here. First, I can agree that I don’t beneft the conceptus. But the view Benatar wants to undermine has it only that I do no harm, and so no wrong, in starting its life. Second, the comparison is unfair. It may be that never having a leg is far worse than losing a leg. But what we need to compare is, for example, removing a leg to save, now, the life of someone who is currently 40, with bringing into existence someone who, if they are not then simply to die, will lose a leg at 40. An inherited genetic condition, we might imagine, makes this unavoidable. I grant that many will think, other things equal, you shouldn’t have this child. But imagine you go ahead. When he is 10 and still fully able you’ll probably think his life is worth living and, if under threat, worth saving. And you’ll probably have the very same thought when, at 40, he loses his leg. Except in extreme cases, disabilities don’t prevent a life from being worth living. So this future loss, before the life is started, allegedly gives us reason not to start, but the same loss, once life is underway, certainly doesn’t give us reason to bring life to an end. Hence the two standards. But is it really so clear that you shouldn’t have had the child? Some weight attaches to the seemingly innocuous phrase, ‘other things equal’. And I can draw here on the discussion of Jane and Ruth in the previous chapter. One claim might be, if you can just as easily have a different child, who won’t have the genetic condition, you ought to prefer this second child. Another might be you can’t know what the future will bring. But you can know if a child will lose a limb at 40, there is some non-negligible risk that this will impact so badly on his life that it will cease to be worth living. Suppose we agree with one or both of these claims. We might say, these now are cases where other things aren’t equal. So set them aside and suppose they are equal. You want a child. There is no option of having a different child who won’t later lose a limb. And, magically, you know his life will be worth living. It is hard to see how it could be wrong to have this child. Suppose he lives from 2020 to 2100. Whether refecting on his life occurs in 2010, 2040, 2080, or 2110 the judgement should be effectively the same – this life will be/is/was worth living. And in that case, it isn’t clear how there can be any objection to his life’s being started. This two standards view is, then, not yet established. Though it may at frst appear to have some merit it is hard to see precisely what this is. But Benatar, somewhat later, claims to have explained: Those who exist…have interests in existing. These interests, once fully developed, are typically very strong and thus, where there is a confict, they override interests in not being impaired. However, where there are no…interests

Anti-natalism 151 in existing, causing impairments, (by bring people with defects into being) cannot be warranted by the protection of such interests.19 This invites an objection. Ahead of time, before the life is started, there are neither interests in existing nor impairments.20 Later, after the life is started, there are both. We can ask, again, how can it be wrong to start a life which, once started, will be impaired and yet worth living? A reply might point to the qualifcation, ‘once fully developed’. In sections below I explain how that reply might link in with a stronger version of anti-natalism. But a fnal point here. There is, I want to concede, something to be said for the two standards view. But it won’t give Benatar his conclusion. We might think there are some lives which, though worth living, are not very far above the threshold level. Of these lives, it might be said that they ought not to be started. Lives need to be better to be worth starting than worth saving, and these don’t make the grade. But other lives will be a good way above the level. Even when the starting/saving difference is taken into account, these lives can be started.21 For Benatar, remember, the smallest amount of pain to come is enough to make a life not worth starting. This is not plausible. And it is in no way supported by what is solid in the two standards view.

Interim Anti-natalists are against birth. But no one should think that birth is morally innocuous. Bringing someone into existence is a big deal. We should ask, will this person have a worthwhile life? And we surely all agree, in some cases the answer is no. So perhaps we are all, as I said earlier, partial anti-natalists. Are there many such cases, maybe millions more than we imagine? Benatar wants to persuade us there are. Life is much worse than we think. In this, even if he wins some ground, he is less than wholly successful. The case for extended anti-natalism is not well-made. And it is very hard to believe that no one has a life worth living. So this argument, implying pro-mortalism, and advanced by Benatar only half -heartedly, altogether fails. In a second argument, one to which he is fully committed, and which hopes to avoid pro-mortalism, the worthlessness of life drops out of the picture. But no matter how good our lives are, if, as is inevitable, they contain the least amount of pain, they should not be started. This argument, too, altogether fails.

A stronger case Even if Benatar’s arguments are unsuccessful there are others, related to his, which can help mount a case for anti-natalism. One is straightforward. I hinted at it above. It gets us to a conclusion as wide-ranging and at least initially as counterintuitive as Benatar’s, but by a quite different route. And there is available a second argument, admittedly less straightforward, to the same conclusion. This one is closer to, but still distinct from Benatar’s. I’ll present both, and point to some links between them.

152

Anti-natalism

Numbers and risk Many people, accepting Procreative Asymmetry, believe that while there are reasons against starting bad lives, there are no reasons, setting aside benefts elsewhere, to bring into existence a life worth living. Still, starting good lives is permitted. Now suppose that, as a consequence of fertility treatments, our children always come in threes. And suppose that of the three, one child will have a bad life while two will have good lives. Given Procreative Asymmetry, and given that we are again setting aside benefts elsewhere, it is in these circumstances always wrong to have children. Even though there are more good lives than bad, and so we might say that the good outweighs the bad, still, as there are no reasons to start good lives there is nothing here to counter the reasons against starting the bad life. And it would be wrong to bring into existence this package of lives. What about a life that is at risk of being bad? Suppose you know there’s a one in three chance that any child you bear will have a life so bad that it won’t be worth living. It would surely be wrong of you to have a child. Although it is most likely that its life will be good we will surely seem not to be justifed, given that benefts elsewhere are discounted, in starting a life, when there is this signifcant risk of things turning out badly.22 Contrast these cases with some that involve existing lives. After an accident, a man exists at the break-even point, or zero level, with a life neither good nor bad. An operation has a two in three chance of signifcantly improving his condition and a one in three chance of making it signifcantly worse. Or three people are at this point. If we try to aid them, then two (and we don’t know which) will be benefted, and the third harmed. Perhaps these people, while at the zero level, are conscious, with a balance of pleasures and pains, or perhaps they are in a coma. Either way we can’t ask them what we should do. But we can try to do either what is best for them, or what we think they would want. In these cases it is, I think, permissible to attempt improvements, even if in the frst case there is a risk of failure, and in the second there is certain failure in a third of our attempts. The difference here is that we will generally acknowledge that we can beneft, and have reason to beneft, one whose life is saved. So not only does the good outweigh the bad it also justifes the bad, giving us reason to risk the bad result in the frst case, and reason to generate a bad result, alongside two good results, in the second case. What if we change the odds to one in ten, one in a thousand, or even lower? Strictly, this makes no difference. Given Procreative Asymmetry, then even if there is a slight chance that your child will have a bad life, then absenting side effects it is, I claim, wrong for you to have a child. And there is always such a chance. None of us knows for certain that our child’s life will be good. So given Procreative Asymmetry, and some degree of risk, anti-natalism appears to follow. This might be taken as a reductio of Procreative Asymmetry. But the point about side effects is important. You want and will beneft from having a happy child. Others may beneft also. It may be that if the risk of unhappiness – the child’s and presumably also yours – is very low, then, as the chances of beneft are high, that risk is one you should bear.23

Anti-natalism 153 Cohesion The frst argument, involving multiple births, focussed on separate lives, some bad and some good. The second, concerning risk, required that we consider, as we might say, separate outcomes. The one life could go badly, or it could go well. But now imagine again just the one life, but this time imagine we know also how it will go. No actual lives are wholly good, and even those that are overall good, with more good parts than bad, might have some small parts that are overall bad. Benatar wants to insist that such lives ought not to be started. He doesn’t, I’ve said, provide good arguments for this. But it doesn’t follow there are no such arguments to be given. Consider, then, one life divided into three periods. Sixty of its ninety years will be overall very good, while thirty years – and these come as a block – will be overall very bad. In the life as a whole there is twice as much pleasure as pain. Are we permitted to start such a life? It may appear so. Jan knows her life will end badly but will tolerate this as the price she must pay for her present good. Jesse is, in her middle years, having a wretched time. But it was good earlier, and she knows it will be good again. Jude had a miserable beginning. But all is going swimmingly now, and she has no regrets about having been born. But if we can’t start three lives when two are good and one is bad, why can we start one life when, within it, the ratio of goods to bads is the same? Surely this is because different lives are separate, while the parts of one life coalescence, it will seem, into a whole. And so not only do the goods overall outweigh the bads, the goods in one period can, it seems, compensate for, and give us reason to tolerate the bads in another period. A simple example – I can opt for the pain of dentistry in order to enjoy the pleasures of ice cream. And another – you can subject me to excruciating operations, after my car crash, in order to save my life. So then we can start good lives even when there will be bad periods – six months of agony or an hour’s toothache – within them. But this is too fast. Consider again the middling sorts of animals – sensitive enough to feel pleasures and pains, yet with cognitive capacities markedly less developed than are ours. Suppose that a rabbit lives for three years, two of which are overall pleasant while the third is overall painful. But suppose the rabbit in effect begins each day anew. Physically there’s one animal, but psychologically the parts don’t meld into a whole. Like us, it has memories, anticipations, hopes, fears, but unlike us, only for the short term. As I suggested earlier, everything, apart from instinctive reactions, is cancelled by sleep. Even if it thinks, for example, ‘I’ll eat lettuce this afternoon’ it doesn’t think, ‘I’ll tackle the new warren tomorrow’, or ‘I’m exhausted right now but I’ll be bright as a button in the morning’ or ‘I ought soon to settle down and start a family’. Effectively, it lives in the present. And though pleasures and pains might coexist, and with pleasure in the ascendance, equally there might be periods when either its pleasures or its pains are all-consuming. Suppose it has a day in which it feels only pain. It can’t think that this agony won’t last, or that it’s worth bearing. Nor can it take solace in recalling past pleasures. The pain here, even if outweighed by earlier or

154

Anti-natalism

later pleasure, is uncompensated. Now assume, as may well be reasonable, that the rabbit has some days only of pain. An animal like this has a life which is best not started. Moreover, such a life is best ended. I argued earlier that, assuming it lacks categorical desires, there are no reasons to save an animal from a painless death. So if an animal is in pain, and death is an option, there aren’t reasons to prefer instead that we give it complex life-saving treatment, even when, assuming it survives, there are good times ahead. But I want to make further points here about timing. Suppose an animal’s life is good right now, and will similarly be good tomorrow. There is no reason to end its life now. But, supposing it will have a bad life tomorrow then there is reason to end it before tomorrow begins. So long as an animal has ahead of it periods of pain, no matter how distant, no matter how short, and no matter whether these are outweighed by periods of pleasure, there are reasons to end its life now. Are there countervailing reasons? Effects elsewhere might give us reason to delay. And so long as there are certain to be further opportunities, before pain begins, to end its life, then, although there are still no reasons for delay, there are none against. Given this fne-tuning then for all such animals, we might say, both anti-natalism and pro-mortalism are true. Consider now a human animal. Imagine a case where, unfortunately, a newborn child will live only for six months, and then die a painless death. The parents know this beforehand and know too that its life will, overall, be not worth living. Many will say it is wrong to go ahead and start this life. What if instead, and based on the balance of pleasures and pain, it is judged overall worth living? We should think that the parallels between this and the rabbit case are strong. As we all know, babies appear to undergo considerable periods of distress. This isn’t surprising. They have to get used to a new and in many ways hostile environment. Compared with most other animals they are born prematurely, and certainly can’t cope alone with their surroundings. There are bodily changes which they can’t fathom, and which cause them discomfort – teething, hunger, colic – and they’re often fearful at fnding themselves alone. But, of course, they appear too to have good times and enjoy much that comes their way. Their life is a mix of pleasures and pains. Suppose this mix is tilted towards the good. I claim it is nevertheless wrong to bring into existence such a child. This, setting aside any benefts elsewhere, is a life best not started. As with the rabbit, this very young child has only a fragmented psychology. It can’t think, when things are bad, that they’ll be better soon. It too is effectively locked within the present. Its pleasures, even if they outweigh, can’t compensate for the pains. And key elements in the Asymmetry continue to hold. There is no reason to start its life for the sake of the pleasures. But there is reason not to start it on account of the pains. Most human lives are, of course, much longer than this. Does this make a difference to whether they might be started? Relevant here are the psychological differences between the infant and the adult, and the development of personhood. It is because we are persons, and have, at least for much of the time, not irrational desires to continue with our lives, even when those lives will contain some mix of pleasures and pains, and even when there may be periods when pains

Anti-natalism 155 predominate, that death is bad for us and ending our lives would be wrong. But what of beginnings? Are these longer lives ones we are permitted to start? Imagine our origins are utterly different. In order to create one of us we need to bring into existence a new kind of animal. This animal lives a short and diffcult life for six months and then dies a painless death. From its remains a different thing, a person, later emerges. If we want there to be people we need these animals. They are, we might say, caterpillars to our butterfies. All of us who enjoy our lives might be glad that these animals have lived. But if we are thinking just of what is good for them we may regret their existence. And as it would have been better for them never to have been, so it would have been better for them had we never come to be. But that isn’t reason to regret our continuing to exist, once our lives are started. There’s nothing to be gained for us, or for them, by our now killing ourselves. How are our actual origins importantly different from this? Some claim that we are essentially persons, and that none of us was ever a fetus, a neonate, or a six-month-old child. And so, of course, no six-month child ever acquires for itself personhood, even if it does turn into a person. Excepting that the shift here is gradual, this is pretty much the fanciful view I sketched above. On this view, we are still bringing into existence one kind of thing as a means of generating a second kind of thing.24 If we are thinking just of what is good for the young child we’ll again regret that it, and so also that we, should ever exist. But others see personhood as a phase – one we’ll hope is long-lasting – that one and the same animal goes through. On this view the child becomes, rather than is replaced by, the adult. Now suppose it is good for the 20 year old to undergo painful operations at 25 in order thereafter to survive to 80. Is it then good for the child either to undergo painful operations at six months in order to become this 20 year old, or indeed good for it to undergo painful operations at 25, in order to survive to 80? We should think that if the child survives to 20, it is then good for him to have the operations fve years later and so survive to 80. But suppose he will survive to 20 only if he has operations at six months. It is not, I think, good for him at six months to have these operations. He has then no inkling of a life beyond the present, and no desire to tolerate pain in order to acquire future pleasures. He can’t agree to these operations or understand at all why he is subjected to them. Better for him to die, painlessly, than to suffer in this way. So even assuming we are animals rather than persons, and thus once were babies, still, coming into existence is bad for us, even though, once we are persons, continuing in existence is normally good for us. Recall now Benatar’s point, made in reference to the two standards view, about our having interests in continuing to exist. Those who exist, he says, have interests in existing, but these interests become stronger as they fully develop. Recall too the distinction between the two senses of ‘interest’ that I noted back in Chapter 2. Which of these does he have in mind? Certainly we can say of babies, but also of rabbits, oysters, plants, and microbes, that it is in their interests to be properly cared for, and for their lives, in a good condition, to be prolonged. But interests in this sense don’t develop over time, and don’t generate in us reasons to

156

Anti-natalism

preserve things in existence. More likely, then, that Benatar is thinking in terms of interests as desires. These are not present in oysters and plants and do develop over time. But though babies and rabbits have some such interests, they lack, or so I’ve argued, any interest in their future existence. Hence death can be bad for persons in a way that it can’t be bad for non-persons. And interests in this second sense do give us reasons to preserve life. So Benatar is right to insist, in spite of his anti-natalism, that pro-mortalism is wrong for people. We shouldn’t kill either ourselves or each other. But, in focussing so much on the two standards view, and neglecting to explore how, in critical respects, our psychologies develop over time, he fails to explain why it is wrong. Finally here, and as is implied by all this, I should distinguish between Jan, Jesse, and Jude. I said earlier that it may seem, when the good periods outweigh the bad, that they also compensate for the bad, and so that starting these lives is permitted. But what should by now be clear is that this isn’t the case with Jude’s life. Here the bad period is at the beginning, rather than the middle or end. And when so located the bads can’t be compensated, even if they can be outweighed. That Jude has no regrets about being born doesn’t show that bringing him into existence was permissible.

Summary A simple and widely held view is that pleasures and pains are pretty much equal and opposite. So it’s going to be hard to see, when a life contains more of the former than the latter, that it can fail to be worth living. Nor, on this view, will we fnd objections to starting such lives. A contrasting view – less widely held – is that pains are somehow more real or more weighty than pleasures. This view allows that a life might be a bad life, even when pleasures predominate. At an extreme, so little as a toothache can render a life not worth living. But not only should we not start, it is diffcult to see why also we shouldn’t bring to an end, such lives. So any view which, like Benatar’s, holds to anti-natalism without holding also to pro-mortalism is going to be hard to explain. Hard, but not impossible. And what I’ve emphasized here are the differences, frst, between lives and, second, between the parts of lives. Both differences link with the person/non-person distinction, and then in turn with some complexity in balancing pleasures against pains. So even though in the lives of animals pleasures might outweigh pains, still, because they effectively live in the moment, their future pleasures can’t compensate them for their present pains. With persons, in contrast, desires for and interests in the future can make it the case that pains now are, as often we acknowledge, worth enduring. Hence lives like ours are, and for our own sakes, normally best continued. The complication here is that we begin, and for substantial periods continue, not as persons, and not with such interests and psychologies in place, but in the relatively primitive form of embryos, and then later fetuses and babies. And what is true of persons is for a good while not true of us. Because as babies we suffer uncompensated pains our lives are, I’ve argued, best not started. Even so, they

Anti-natalism 157 are, when we are persons, best continued. In altogether neglecting to give any attention to such distinctions, Benatar too soon arrives at the unfortunate position, where having granted, with the cheerful, that an analysis just of their contents will suggest many lives are worth living, he casts about for some explanation of how, even so, they can be less good than never existing at all. This, I’ve argued, is a cul de sac. More promising, as it turns out, are the indications, noted earlier, that he wants to pull his anti-natalism out of the hat of Procreative Asymmetry. As with rabbits, this looks as if it’s going to be some feat. Can it be done? We can almost all agree frst that overall bad lives plainly shouldn’t be started and second that with overall good lives matters are less straightforward. But my argument here implies that, in spite of its considerable appeal, the Asymmetry has in the end to be abandoned. Agreeing that lives might be started requires not only that pleasures outweigh, but also that they compensate for the pains that will need to be endured. And though they often enough do this when lives like ours are well under way, they are in this regard impotent during the early stages. Does this support for anti-natalism mean that it is always wrong to bring new people into existence? No. I suggested in the previous chapter that there might be fanciful cases where a human being comes into existence already as a person, and from the outset aware of what the future might bring. Here starting will be permitted, even if not required. Other fanciful cases are those where life will contain pleasures, but no pains. These too we’d be permitted to start.25 And starting can be permitted, even required, when we take into account side effects. An existing child might need a new sibling in order to access bone marrow or a kidney. We’ll all need young people to care for us when we’re old. And – a different sort of case – while there may be no reason to boost a healthy population, it may be good to prevent extinction. Suppose we agree that, absenting side effects, it is wrong to have children. How wrong is it? I’ve said that babies, when in pain, can’t think that this will soon be over. But nor, unlike us, can they think, this will go on forever. Many of the psychological aspects of pain – and these can be considerable – are absent for animals and babies alike. The wrong we do them, assuming we do wrong, might not be great.

Notes 1 Again, this is a central concern, and so my focus. But there are others. Someone could be against (human) birth because they are for trees, or the natural environment more generally. See Benatar (2006: 8) for further variants. 2 Two points can be made here. First, Benatar wants to resist talk of whether life is worth living, claiming this blurs the distinction between starting and saving lives. So in some ways it does, but more on this in sections below. Second, it is worth stressing here and later that his claim really is, as he acknowledges, as extreme as it appears here. So a life with any degree of pain – ‘only an iota’, (2006: 2–5), or ‘a single pinprick’ (2006: 48) – is one we ought not to start. 3 See Benatar (2006: ch.3), and within that, his discussion of Pollyanaism (2006: 64–69). 4 Benatar (1997: 345). And the same passage, pretty much verbatim, opens a key section in the book (2006: 28).

158

Anti-natalism

5 See back, of course, to Chapter 5 for more detail on all this. 6 Terminally ill, and in agony, you’ll die on Tuesday. If you say you’ll then be better off on Wednesday than you would otherwise be then what you say, I claim, is perfectly comprehensible even if not literally true. But consider whole life assessments. Again, you’ll die on Tuesday. And you now say that you’ll be overall better off, living the shorter life, and dying then, than you would be were you to live on and instead die on Thursday. You might say, as well, that this shorter life is better for you than the longer. Such claims can, surely, be literally true. So you might be better off dying on Tuesday without, strictly, it following that you are better off dead. 7 Benatar (1997: 347). 8 Benatar (1997: 345–346), and also, with the very same wording, (2006: 30). 9 Although there is some pertinent discussion in the book. For there he says, and right at the outset, ‘…the basic insight is quite simple: Although the good things in one’s life make it go better than it otherwise would have gone, one could not have been deprived by their absence if one had never existed. Those who never exist cannot be deprived. However, by coming into existence one does suffer quite serious harms that could not have befallen one had one not come into existence’ (2006: 1). Again, the problem is seeing even the glimmer of a pleasure/pain asymmetry here. We might say, frst, that bad things make life go worse, but one could not have been benefted by their absence if we had never existed. And, second, coming into existence leads also to serious benefts that you couldn’t have enjoyed had you never existed. And then in the fuller discussion in Chapter 2, although he talks at some length about (3) he neglects to comment on (4). So the asymmetry isn’t explained. 10 See Benatar (1997: 346) for all three remarks. 11 Benatar (1997: 347). And see the corresponding material in the book (2006: 46). 12 Benatar himself makes the point that much of the pleasure/pain talk is standing in for a more heterogenous account of the good and bad things that might befall us in life (1997: 345). We might agree. I come back to it. So that is one minor oversimplifcation. But there’s another. As will emerge later, my view is all that can be inferred from an excess of pleasures over pains is that life is overall more (as we might say, and truistically) good-containing, and not (what would be a substantive claim) that it is an overall good life. But we can let this pass for now. 13 Benatar (1997: 349). 14 This – looking at the overall values of both A and B – is a straightforward way of comparing existence and non-existence. Benatar’s procedure (1997: 348) is more complex and considers various contrasts between individual components. One instance of this is comparing (1) with (3) and then (2) with (4). The absence of pain is clearly better than its presence. But, ‘In the second comparison, however, the pleasures of the existent, though good, are not a real advantage over non-existence, because the absence of pleasures is not bad’. We might struggle to understand this. And drawing an analogy between this case and one where we compare a sick with a healthy person (1997: 348), doesn’t, as Benatar half admits, offer much help. 15 Consider one person. Let’s assume that whatever the negative value of pain in (1), there is, in (3), a corresponding positive value. If the value of pleasure in (2) is less than twice the value of absent pain then, assuming the value in (4) is zero, Scenario B, and non-existence, is to be preferred. For illustration, assuming the values of present and absent pain are −5 and +5 respectively, then only when the value of pleasure is greater than 10, is A to be preferred over B. Now I grant that it may well be true of many lives that their pleasures are less than twice as great as their pains, but there is no reason to think this is true of all lives. So there is no reason to think, for example, that for any life containing so much as a mild headache, it would be better had that life never been lived. Even if we allow Benatar a good deal of highly suspect material regarding the positive value of non-existence, still his argument doesn’t go through.

Anti-natalism 159 16 For answers see his discussion, (2006: 211–221). There is surprisingly little on this in his paper, though he does there maintain that, even if he doesn’t explain why, death is typically a harm. And it should be noted that in neither text is there explicit reference to pro-mortalism. Use of this term, both in relation to Benatar and more widely, is common since at least 2012, however. See, for several examples, including some of my own, Metz (2012). 17 Benatar (2006: 22–24). 18 Benatar (2006: 25). 19 Benatar (2006: 25). 20 But both Benatar’s claim, and the brisk objection, fail to make clear what sorts of interests are in play here. And this matters. Continuing to exist can be good for us, and can also be something we want to do. Plausibly, the frst is with us from birth, while the second emerges later. Similarly, being impaired is, from the outset, bad for us, while a desire not to be impaired comes with time. Why does it matter? Because either way there is some weakening of the objection to starting an impaired life. 21 Imagine a) some numeric scale for life’s value but b) uncertainty in its application. There is a margin of error of 2 points either way, with predicted scores. So a life expected to be just worth living, with a score of +1 may achieve anything from −1 to +3. We shouldn’t start this life, even though it is most likely worth living. But lives with predicted scores of +3 or more can be started. Even with error, they will be worth living. There is some bearing here on the Repugnant Conclusion. We can believe that lives in Z are so close to the threshold that, though technically worth living, are not ones we ought to start. So arguments that would have us start them are ones we might resist. 22 Both arguments rest on an important assumption. Suppose you have always the option, and suppose this is legally permitted and morally innocuous, of ending a life that is not worth living. Then although one in three lives will be bad, having children is now permitted. Eliminating those with bad lives eliminates the reasons against starting. But the assumption here is that option is not available. And it is wrong to start a bad life when that life will then have to be lived. 23 The arguments here both suggest that we cannot, where starting lives is concerned, assume that if the good effects outweigh the bad then we can legitimately proceed. McMahan identifes similar considerations, and notes their leading to similar conclusions in his discussion of the Asymmetry (2009: 53). But he seems to think that both common sense and – connected – the appeal of the Asymmetry indicate something has gone amiss. It ‘cannot be right’ that reasons against starting win the day. I am less sanguine, more inclined, perhaps, to follow the argument. 24 On the fanciful view the frst thing goes out of existence. On the personhood view this frst thing – a human animal – persists while a new thing – a person – comes into existence somehow alongside it. Hence ‘pretty much’. 25 Some detail should be added. I’ve said that even the best lives will not be entirely pain free. But imagine a life where pain begins only after personhood is developed. We might (and it will now mostly depend on the amounts of pleasure and pain) be permitted to start this life. Or imagine a life where pains always occur alongside pleasures. There are never moments, even in infancy, containing only pain. In such a case it may be that pain is compensated as it occurs. And then, again, starting might be permitted.

8

Meaning

Value and meaning will appear in evident ways to be connected. Meaning in life may well be among the things we value, and value highly. And a search for, or concern with value can itself be something that offers us meaning. There’s a further connection. About both value and meaning it is possible to hold a markedly sceptical attitude. As we might doubt whether our lives have the value we ascribe to them, or more generally whether the foundations of value are secure, so also might we doubt, not whether anything has meaning, but whether our lives have, or indeed can have, the sort of meaning to which, seemingly, we aspire. And there’s a difference. Questions, books, jokes, flms about the meaning of life are commonplace. But set aside its place in philosophical discussion on the one hand, and though often closely related, matters concerning religion, medicine, or economics on the other, and value questions, at least in any explicit form, are only infrequently encountered.1 This chapter’s main business is with a pair of well-known investigations into these matters. These differ in an important way. The frst looks into particular differences between lives and approaches to life, and considers how these differences might impact on meaning. The second asks whether any of our lives, no matter how they are lived, might be meaningful. So then we can contrast inquiries at the local or individual level with those that take a global or cosmic perspective. Though the distinction here is important, around the middle of the chapter I ask questions about the extent to which it is robust. And then later on I consider whether and to what extent meaning matters. But frst just a few preliminaries.

Preliminaries Do the questions here make sense? Until relatively recently, a common posture in academic philosophy has been to resist, as some kind of category error, any attempt so much as to ask about the meaning of life. Words, sentences, road signs, certain gestures have meaning; life doesn’t. But we’ve moved on. Questions about life’s meaning are now mostly and uncontroversially seen as legitimate.2 Suppose you are the exception, and fail to see at all what is being asked when we ask about meaning. Then we bring in some related terms. To ask about life’s meaning is

Meaning

161

to ask whether there’s point, signifcance, purpose, or even value in what we do. Still this might not help. You point out that bees, fruit trees, chickens, for example, have a purpose and ask if I’m suggesting that our purpose is simply to reproduce, look after the planet, or praise God. So then I need to explain that the points and purposes relevant here are those that we might select for ourselves, or refect on and endorse, rather than those foisted on us from outside. Meaning in life, of the kind that matters, will then be restricted to human life – only we can discover or make this meaning for ourselves. There is here an intimate connection, then, with the old question of how to live – the Greeks, we can think, were interested in meaning. Still, the topic benefts from some careful handling. So we might prefer to ask after meaning in life rather than the meaning of life, acknowledging that we go wrong if we suppose there is one thing we are looking for, say love, or understanding, or justice, that will give life meaning.3 At least to begin, it is better to grant there might be a range of things – circumstances, activities, pursuits – that contribute to a life’s having some meaning. Moreover, meaning won’t be an allor-nothing business, but something that comes by degrees, with your life, and even if we fnd meaning in the same things, perhaps having more meaning than mine. We need, though, a further distinction. It is said, and again by the Greeks, we should call no man happy until he is dead. In some versions the jury remains out until sometime later, when things have settled down a bit. But this is surely extreme. We can’t say that someone has been happy at every moment until the life is over, but few of us would hope for so much. Happiness and meaning, unlike pleasure, can’t be with us just for some part of the early afternoon, but they can be ours for intervals shorter than our span. A life might have some happy or meaningful periods within it, it might even be overall happy or meaningful, but it is most unlikely to be happy or meaningful through and through, from beginning to end.

Wolf – Local meaning Start here with contrasting views. Many people will think that, setting aside the constraints of morality, it is up to us to determine the contours of our lives. No one can tell us whether we should work hard or take it easy, travel or stay at home, read classics or comics. And no one can tell us what we will or should enjoy, point us to happiness, or determine for us where meaning is to be found. Meaning in life is something to make for ourselves, to discover where we will. If we believe our lives are meaningful then so they are. And if we think they lack meaning, then again our verdict carries the day. This subjective account contrasts markedly with another. And not a few hold that there are signifcant external constraints on what will amount to a meaningful life. Not only are there enabling conditions – and so illness, both physical and mental, poverty, or living in extreme hardship might limit our chances of fnding meaning – but the constituents of a meaningful life, the sort of activities, engagements, or projects we must look for are themselves determined from without. So

162

Meaning

the view here might posit some sort of objective list – worthwhile relationships, a satisfying career, some kinds of intellectual activities, helping others – these are the sorts of things that generate meaning. There can of course be dispute about precisely what is on the list, but to engage in such dispute is in itself to allow that the outlines of the view are correct; there are facts of the matter, even if not always agreement, as to where meaning can be found. So, in contrast to the subjective view, it is denied here that meaning is up to us. We can believe our lives are meaningful, or meaningless, and yet in each case be wrong. Susan Wolf’s is a composite view, with both subjective and objective elements, knitted together, sitting at its core. In what promises to be some useful sloganeering she insists that ‘meaning arises when subjective attraction meets objective attractiveness’.4 The main idea here is surely both clear and commendable; a meaningful life has us drawn to, enthusiastic for, passionate about something or other that is genuinely worth our attention. And so neither living the right sort of life, nor believing you live this life, is suffcient for meaning. Both are necessary. And when both elements are in place your life will then be – again to some or other degree – one that is meaningful. Yet even if this is, in broad terms, correct, we might still ask if it is correct through and through.5 Details Sisyphus is destined to push a heavy stone to the top of a mountain, let it roll down, then push it to the top again, repeating this process forever. He is aware of what he is doing, under no illusions about it, would prefer to be otherwise engaged. His is an archetypically meaningless existence. Can it be improved? Allow in some illusions – he falsely believes this is worthwhile, some essential component, say, in appeasing the gods. He feels now a solid satisfaction in what he does, and believes his life is meaningful.6 Wolf’s intuition here is that he is just plain wrong – despite how things seem or feel to him, what he is doing remains pointless. This counts against the subjective view. She considers another variant. Vultures are attacking the people. Sisyphus isn’t aware of this but his stone rolling scares the birds away. It saves lives. Let’s agree that lives are worth saving, and saving lives is a useful, valuable thing to do. But even though Sisyphus is now playing a part in some large scale objectively worthwhile project, still, on Wolf’s account, this doesn’t give his life meaning. His involvement here is accidental. He doesn’t plan it, know of it, or approve of it. So much for the objective view. Combine the cases; he enjoys what he is doing, and what he is doing has good consequences. We might think there’s both subjective and objective value in this. But these need to be appropriately linked in order to give his life meaning. He needs both to see, and to want, the benefts of stone rolling. This example now shows how the composite view, stressing an attraction to the attractive, needs some augmenting. Sisyphus has not only to want to scare away birds, or even to do this in order to save lives, but also to believe, as is the case, that saving lives is worthwhile. Moreover, he doesn’t merely aim at but

Meaning

163

succeeds in, and knows he succeeds in, doing something worthwhile. We should think his life is now meaningful. These add-ons matter. I spend years at the cello but never make any progress. I seek out meaningful relationships but no one likes me. My buildings all, and quickly, fall down. Failures like these stand in the way of meaning. So too do failures to grasp the import of what I’ve achieved. I have only a childish enthusiasm for life-saving, temple-building, music-making. Again meaning is compromised. What Wolf calls the Fitting Fulflment View,7 properly understood, requires that we pursue the right sorts of things, for the right sorts of reasons and then, with a measure of success, and this acknowledged, thereby fnd for ourselves the right sorts of benefts. Consider alternatives where some of these multiple components are missing. Michael spends much of his time standing on railway platforms, making various notes on the passing, and stopping, of traffc. Trainspotting is his thing, and, he insists, much to be preferred over a regular and humdrum job of the kind promised him at school. When it is suggested that he is wasting his life in this way, and that there is nothing of signifcance or value in what he does, he is altogether unmoved. He doesn’t claim we’re missing something, and should be out there with him, nor does he deny that other ways of life may have more of value in them – his sister works for charity, and he knows that what she does is important and worthwhile. But this is of no interest to him. Talk of passion and commitment always worries him a little but he enjoys his life, he says, wouldn’t want to change it. Certainly he fnds it meaningful enough. Unimpressed, we might say he confuses meaning with pleasure. Consider his sister further. Jane has worked for this NGO – fundraising for medical supplies in North Africa – for several years now. When she began she was full of enthusiasm for her work, talked about it with friends, and was proud to make a difference. But like all jobs the novelty wears thin and, if she’s honest Jane will admit that she fnds much of the routine tedious, the frustrations increasingly hard to manage. The way to cope is to switch off, see it as a just another offce job, and keep an eye open for career opportunities. She acknowledges the importance of what she does, but denies it gives her life meaning. Her friends insist that she’s wrong. But perhaps they confuse meaning with value. These cases, in different ways, both have objective value at their core. Michael claims that objective value isn’t necessary for a life to have meaning; Jane denies it is suffcient. Is there any merit in their views? Wolf spends a good part of her second lecture in considering doubts about the objective element in the composite view. But there is, I think, a failure here to tease apart the different questions that might be addressed. So, as well as the obvious question – does talk of the objectively valuable even make sense – we can ask also, as in these cases – does meaning really require, and does it perhaps only require, some sort of promotion of this value? And there is the further question – is meaning itself of objective value? The last of these is something I’ll take up later. The frst, having had an airing in this book’s earlier chapters, needs only a light touch here. Wolf opts for a sensible middle position, where we insist there are more than individual preferences to take into account, while declining to claim that the value of things is

164

Meaning

written in some Platonic heaven. Consider what happens in schools. Only a few will complain when the syllabus gives more space to Shakespeare than to soaps, or puts the history of art over the history of sport. We think there is more worth, even if still only human worth, and perhaps a worth relative just to our own culture, in the selected items. So, and rightly, we make kids learn. What is important to note is that this frst question is distinct from the second, and it is that which needs more consideration right now. I want to be bullish about this, contending, frst, that meaning does require we engage with what is objectively valuable. Michael’s life, insofar as it revolves simply around trainspotting, lacks meaning. Wolf on occasion appears to waver on this but, I think, is wrong to do so. Consider some of her own examples. She might be right to think that lawnmower racing is less straightforwardly meaningless than endlessly doing crosswords or Sudoku, but this may be because, as a more obviously social activity, it can lead to meaningful relationships with others of a similar persuasion. And we should distinguish between the activity itself and its spin offs. She might be right, also, to concede that while living only for your goldish is in general an indication that something has gone deeply wrong, there can be special cases where some such concern is altogether worthwhile. Still, we can grant this while nevertheless insisting that worthwhileness shouldn’t be confated with meaning.8 I’ll return to this in the chapter’s last section. Wolf spends a good deal of time in considering the need, where meaning is concerned, to engage with something objectively valuable; substantially less on whether such engagement, however it is carried out, is all we need. She may be right to think that, among those going wrong, far more are tempted by the subjective than by the objective view. But it is worth insisting, nevertheless, that the subjective element is necessary. So consider Jane’s case further. The situation here isn’t simply one where our protagonist does business with what is objectively valuable. Jane is good at this, and saves lives. Moreover, she aims at it, is aware of her success, and prefers this to failure. So even when attending to how things are for her ‘on the inside’, much that is implicated in meaning is going to be found. All that is missing are the feelings of fulflment or satisfaction that Wolf emphasizes, and, deriving from that, the belief that her life is meaningful. The complaint of her friends that she is in some sense selling herself short may well have justifcation, and they might insist that were her attitude to be different she’d have meaning in her life. But that doesn’t warrant the claim that her life is, even now, meaningful. And, I want to say, no such claim can properly be made. Some may have doubts about the particular case, but the inadequacies of the objective view are more evident if success is taken from the picture. Robert Adams offers the Stauffenberg case as a challenge to Wolf’s view. Even though the plot to kill Hitler failed, and even if Stauffenberg, prior to his execution, considered himself a failure, Adams thinks we should judge his life, and in virtue of this plot, to have been meaningful. But I think it is clearer here than in Jane’s case that meaning, as Wolf’s view implies, is absent. Aiming at some valuable target is commendable, no doubt, but more, we can insist, is needed for meaning.9

Meaning

165

Reservations Consider again Wolf’s central claim: ‘meaning arises when subjective attraction meets objective attractiveness’. I’ve said, and will continue to say, that there are considerable merits in this. In particular, this composite view is always to be preferred over alternatives that opt pretty much exclusively for either the subjective or the objective elements. Even so, the view has defciencies as it stands. What I’ve most wanted to emphasize is its need for additions. Meaning requires some measure of success in promoting value. It requires also that we note this success and thereby add to our satisfactions. And Wolf will agree. But the concern now is with further shortcomings, this time in areas where she is, I believe, less likely to give ground. The frst of these is the more important. This claim, as Wolf puts it, presents the composite view as suffcient for meaning. But it is better seen, I’ll suggest, as pointing to what is necessary. And thus meaning arises not when, but only when, the elements thus far discussed are in place. So then you might be attracted to some objectively valuable activity, recognize and aim at this value, enjoy and acknowledge your success, and nevertheless fail to achieve meaning. What would be missing? A meaningful life, as Wolf from time to time allows, requires us to have, and then make at least some progress in the realization of our worthwhile plans or projects. But I want to go further. Getting somewhere with the right sort of plans will require some effort, not be too easily achieved, have us, until it peaks, on an incline. And the idea here – meaning isn’t ours just for the asking – fts, I suggest, both with our pre-theoretic intuitions and with refection on the more compelling of her examples. She offers as illustrations of those with meaningful lives Cezanne, Mother Theresa, Einstein, and Gandhi.10 We’ll probably agree – they worked hard and achieved much – but think that this sets the bar too high, and want more guidance on less elevated cases. But then among these we might be more inclined to allow philosophy and cello playing, neither of which comes easily, than visiting the sick, baking cakes, or helping someone move house. This isn’t elitist, or privileging of so-called higher pleasures – there might be doubts about repeatedly serving even the most delicious chocolate cake, but none at all about building from scratch a thriving café business. There’s a similar distinction to be drawn between regular maintenance of an established garden on the one hand, and the design and development of a new plot, on the other.11 The differences here relate to meaning. No one should deny that cakes and gardens matter, or there’s value and fulflment from digging or baking, but we can allow all this and still demur over meaning. The suggestion here is that meaning demands more than Wolf believes. In another area it may require less. Consider her claims about the relation between meaning and morality: An individual cannot get meaning from worthless projects, much less from projects of wholly negative value. Thus a child-molester cannot get meaning from molesting children, whatever he may think and feel about the matter.12

166

Meaning

Is this so obvious? Again, we might have doubts. Assume, somewhat simplistically, that there are, and from the moral point of view, overall good, bad, and neutral persons and lives. How are meaning and morality related? First, there isn’t a requirement, in order to have meaning, that one is actively seeking to be a conventionally good person or to do good things. The philosopher, scientist, or cook might feel no pull to morality at all. But nor is it necessary altogether to avoid the bad. Notice that some of those on the list of famous people – Gandhi and Mother Teresa in particular – already have their previously spotless reputations tarnished. And similarly for the rest of us, all of whom lead somewhat compromised lives. Fiddling your tax returns, or mistreating the cat, won’t bar you from meaning. What if the relation between meaning and immorality is more intimate? Famously, Gauguin abandoned wife and family in order to pursue painting in Tahiti. He had, surely, a meaningful life, but there is no denying that he offended not only against the conventions of morality but against its genuine substance. Moreover, the immoral actions here were on the route to meaning – had he stayed at home his achievement, we can believe, would have been signifcantly less. But immorality might not only be some part of the cause, but also a constituent of meaning. Recent reappraisals suggest Gauguin’s relations with his sitters – many of them not far into their teenage years – overstepped the bounds of propriety. Similarly with Lewis Carroll, Benjamin Britten, Woody Allen, where again we might identify non-trivial relations between dubious predilections and valuable products. But it would be a mistake to assume that if some project involves an activity that is straightforwardly morally wrong, then nothing of value can emerge from it. And it is diffcult to argue that the lives instanced here lack meaning. Wolf’s child molester example carries intuitive conviction, perhaps, as we assume this man does nothing but single-mindedly pursue his perversion in some tedious and repetitive fashion. Meaningless, certainly, but not because of its immorality.

Nagel – Global meaning Consider again Jane but in earlier days. She cares about what she does, wants to, is relieved to, and is pleased to make a difference. She knows that what she does matters. We might even say she fnds her work fulflling. And yet there are, from time to time, certain doubts. She saves the lives of children but soon begins to worry about what adulthood will do to them. There’s relief from famine now but then the threats of overcrowding, water shortages, more war in the future. She asks what really, in the long run, is the point of it all. But we shouldn’t think of hers as a special case. Rather, we are all prone to such refections on our situation, all given to night thoughts about the ultimate meaninglessness, pointlessness, absurdity of what we do, and the lives we lead. And this, it seems, is a wholesale feature of the human condition. So even though the differences between lives, of the kinds sketched here, are undeniable, it’s nothing like as clear as it might be that even the best cases really deliver, in any thoroughgoing fashion, on what we want, or at least on what we think we want, when we’re looking for meaning.

Meaning

167

Nagel argues along some such lines,13 granting that if things go well there can indeed be meaning at what I am calling the local level, but then observing that when we step back, and view things as from afar, our confdence in this meaning soon fades. Where exactly this is supposed to leave us is perhaps less clear. And though his end point can eventually be made out, there are diffculties, and at least the scope for confusions, along the way. For frst, certain of the critical terms here are ambiguous, and second, certain distinctions are less sharp than they initially appear. But we need details. Start with the doubts. Grant that there is this widespread pessimism about meaning. We attempt, Nagel claims, to back this up with argument; nothing we do will matter in a million years, we say; or we are insignifcant blips at the edge of the universe; or death, individually or collectively, is just around the corner. But these arguments miss their target, none of them doing the work they set out to do. Nevertheless, he says, they’re aiming to express something both important and true – the sense that not everything is as we might hope cannot simply be brushed aside. This point about the arguments’ failure needs more time. Nagel employs a general tactic here. We attempt to explain the meaningless claim by appeal to some purported fact. But, we should ask, suppose that contrary facts were in place, would this make a difference? You say we’re stuck at the edge of a vast universe, and so life is meaningless. Yet suppose we were bang in the centre of small universe, would that help? Or the concern is about the inevitable annihilation of all that there is. Imagine then, that rocks and stars, people and penguins go on for ever. Would that give us back meaning? Think about the options here and it will appear to us, the claim goes, to be not only a feature but a necessary and unbudgeable feature of the universe that it won’t give us what we want. We might believe, then, that our situation is not only bad but hopeless. Yet we need to retain some sense of proportion. There may be no ultimate justifcation for anything we do, but interim justifcations are in place and compelling. We have ample reason, Nagel says, to take aspirin for a headache, get ourselves to an art show, stop a child from playing with fre. Yet all this, and similar, doesn’t console us. The darker thoughts won’t go away.14 How then should we think of all this? Two analogies are key to Nagel’s account. The frst has us refect on ordinary absurdity, examples of which we frequently encounter in everyday life; a notorious criminal is made head of a philanthropic organization; a woman gives a speech in favour of a motion that is already passed; your trousers fall down just as you’re being knighted.15 There is in such situations a clash between pretension and reality – it matters to you, and matters a lot, that things go according to plan, and yet circumstances prevent this. Instances of such absurdity are familiar, occurring all too often on the local scale. Philosophical absurdity, Nagel says, is similarly structured, yet issues not from contingent circumstances but from the perception of something universal – some respect in which pretension and reality inevitably clash for us all. This condition is supplied…. by

168

Meaning the collision between the seriousness with which we take our lives and the perpetual possibility of regarding everything about which we are serious as arbitrary, or open to doubt.16

And he continues: We cannot live human lives without energy and attention, nor without making choices which show that we take some things more seriously than others. Yet we have always available a point of view outside the particular form of our lives, from which the seriousness appears gratuitous. These two inescapable viewpoints collide in us, and that is what makes life absurd. It is absurd because we ignore the doubts that we know cannot be settled, continuing to live with nearly undiminished seriousness in spite of them.17 An inevitable clash of perspectives, then, is what makes our lives absurd. But is it inevitable? Is this really an unavoidable feature of the human condition? Not quite. We might aim at strategies that will give absurdity the slip, foregrounding one of these perspectives over the other. So we attempt some kind of animal existence, living altogether in the moment, never stepping back and entertaining the broader view. Or, in contrast, we might endeavour to abandon the here and now, jettison everyday concerns and aim instead to become at one with the universe. But such strategies, supposing they succeed, give us an attenuated existence, something like half a life. We avoid absurdity only by turning away from what the human condition, the life fully lived, offers.18 I said there were two analogies within Nagel’s account. While the frst compares ordinary and philosophical absurdity, the second considers philosophical absurdity and philosophical scepticism. Ordinarily, then, we suppose that there is a good deal that we know – that we are awake, that we have hands, that between our hands we hold a book. But think more deeply and we see that we don’t know, for example, that we are not dreaming the whole thing. And if we might be dreaming then we don’t know we have hands, books, and the like. Again, the idea of contrasting perspectives is key: everyday engagement on the one hand, and a detached and abstract view of all that our everyday beliefs involve, on the other. But just how do these perspectives weigh in against each other? Philosophical skepticism does not cause us to abandon our ordinary beliefs, but it lends them a peculiar favour. After acknowledging that their truth is incompatible with possibilities that we have no grounds for believing do not obtain… we return to our familiar convictions with a certain irony and resignation. Unable to abandon the natural responses on which they depend, we take them back, like a spouse who has run off with someone else and then decided to return; but we regard them differently.19 And the situation is very much the same regarding meaning; we sometimes look at life, and the seriousness with which we take it, from afar, and we then go back

Meaning

169

to living it, recommitted, and yet with, as he puts it, ‘the seriousness now laced with irony’. Nor is there much choice in this; unlike the cuckold we can’t decide enough is enough, and opt for a different approach. Rather, our human nature keeps us wedded to this same path; always there’s equilibrium, but never a solid base. Interpretations What is Nagel wanting to tell us about the meaning of life? If, as I’ve suggested, this is far from immediately clear, this is, in some part, because when it comes to detail the point of these analogies is itself unclear. One thing about them is clear. The contrasting perspectives don’t have equal standing. Ordinary absurdity involves a clash between pretension and reality – we aspire to dignity and importance but in fact we make fools of ourselves. Similarly, or at least as it appears in Nagel’s account here, with the epistemic – we think we know things about the external world while actually nothing is certain.20 But now is there supposed to be a similar imbalance in play where meaning is concerned? Is the point, then, that we think our lives are meaningful but in reality, as is evident when we step back and consider them from afar, everything we do is meaningless? Does the detached perspective, here also, show us how things really are, and give us the truth about our situation? There are reasons for doubting this. First, Nagel doesn’t appear to want this conclusion. The claims are only that when viewed from outside, life often seems to lack meaning. And while not only the claims of but also the arguments for scepticism are, on his reading, sound, the attempts at supporting the meaninglessness contention, we should remember, all allegedly fail. Moreover, perhaps most of us, quite independently of Nagel, are inclined to doubt whether any full-blooded insistence on life’s meaninglessness or absurdity can really be made out. We might be uncertain as to whether there’s meaning, and supposing there is, be uncertain where it lies, but doubt is one thing, denial another. The better picture here, then, and, though implying some weaknesses in the analogies, surely the one Nagel is after, is that the two perspectives are at odds with one another, but with neither having the upper hand. And when, fipping between them, we see that they are at odds, our commitment to either becomes provisional or tempered. Suppose, then, that rather than holding frmly to either view, we sometimes suspect but never fully endorse the claim that life is meaningless. Should we then be similarly ambivalent about whether it is absurd? It’s of course tempting to think that within this sort of discussion the terms stand proxy for one another. But this is a temptation that might well be resisted. And what we should notice here is that Nagel, though he never makes this clear, talks of absurdity in three quite distinct ways. First, there are the everyday absurd situations we might, from time to time, get ourselves into. Related, but different, is the familiar thought, one that allegedly we are all prone to, that life as a whole is absurd or meaningless. This is the view for which arguments fail. But then the same term is used in a further and now technical sense, to name the two perspectives view wherein

170

Meaning

we repeatedly shift between thinking that life does and doesn’t have meaning. Notice that only the second of these implicitly equates absurdity with an absence of meaning, and notice also that only this, of the three, resists an ordinary truth value. What needs to be taken from this, then, is that, contrary to what might be assumed, Nagel’s defensible contention that life is, in this technical sense, absurd doesn’t at all imply that life is meaningless. We will claim this, of course, but in doing so – and this is Nagel’s point – we are seeing only half the picture. We’ll claim on other occasions that there is meaning, but again this is a merely one-sided view. An upshot of this is that certain criticisms levelled at Camus don’t quite hit their intended target. Nagel complains that the Frenchman, with all his talk of fst shaking and suicide, has a self-indulgent and self-pitying attitude to absurdity, and recommends instead that we approach life ‘with irony instead of heroism or despair’.21 But it is misleading to suggest that we have here two responses to the same phenomenon. Nagel’s philosophical absurdity may, as he claims, be one of the most interesting things about us, and may well, once we grasp it, deserve little more than a knowing smile. Camus might have an unduly pessimistic view, but he is reacting to perceived absurdity in the different, and perhaps primary sense, where it connects intimately with life’s having no meaning.

A middle way I said above that not only does the argument trade on certain ambiguities, but that some distinctions are not as sharp as they frst appear. So consider again some of Nagel’s early moves. Our efforts to explain meaninglessness fail, he says, because we realize, on refection, that contrary facts will make no difference. Not only is it the case that the universe doesn’t, but also it couldn’t give us what we want. But is too much lumped together here? Very plausibly, whether we are big or small, at the centre or at the periphery will make no difference to meaning, but what of other considerations. Suppose I question meaning because we’ll all be dead in a hundred years, or because we’re destined endlessly to repeat our mistakes, or because there is no God, and we are alone in the universe. Can we really say that here too, contrary facts would make no difference? This, I’ll argue, is less clear. First, recall the sorts of distinctions that fgure in Wolf’s account. She wants to say that commitment to some worthwhile cause – famine relief, world peace, grown-up politics – can help give life meaning. Nagel is going to agree with some of this: Those seeking to supply their lives with meaning usually envision a role in something larger than themselves. They therefore seek fulflment in service to society, the state, the revolution, the progress of history, the advance of science, or religion and the glory of God.22 But while allowing that people are able, if all goes to plan, to live the sorts of lives that on Wolf’s account give meaning, Nagel insists that what he calls the backward step can still be taken. For:

Meaning

171

any such larger purpose can be put in doubt in the same way that the aims of an individual life can be, and for the same reasons. It is as legitimate to fnd ultimate justifcation there as to fnd it earlier, among the details of the individual life. But this does not alter the fact that justifcations come to an end when we are content to have them end – when we do not fnd it necessary to look any further. If we can step back from the purposes of individual life and doubt their point, we can step back also from the progress of human history, or of science, or the success of a society, or the kingdom, power, and glory of God, and put all these things into question in the same way.23 So then nothing hangs on the size of the scheme we commit and contribute to: There does not appear to be any conceivable world (containing us) about which unsettlable doubts could not arise. Consequently the absurdity of our situation derives not from a collision between our expectations and the world, but from a collision within ourselves.24 There are various claims here, carrying varying degrees of conviction. We should agree, I think, that something like the backward step can always be taken, and agree further that there is, and can be, no ultimate justifcation for anything we do. And given Nagel’s spin on the term, we can agree also with the last of his claims above; the way of the world will make no difference to absurdity. But for all that, we can doubt whether this has much at all to do with the more familiar questions and doubts about meaning, or indeed about our ordinary grip on the absurd. For here, as in passing I suggested earlier, facts about the nature of things will have an impact. So whether the world will end sooner or later, whether there is or isn’t a God, whether the good are rewarded or the wicked go unpunished, whether there’s room for more progress or we’re now in some global decline; all of this will bear on our thoughts about the meaning of what we do. Moreover, such thoughts can be altogether legitimate. Nagel appears to suggest, in the passage above, that it is simply up to us, given no ultimate justifcation, as to where to draw a line, and when to conclude that some activity is justifed, or has its point. But this is to fall back onto something like the subjective view. I can, surely, be content ahead of time, or remain content for far too long. Someone who believes, for example, that the world will end tomorrow but believes nevertheless that their efforts to save the tiger continue to be meaningful has made a mistake. Linked with this subjectivism is the curiously self-centred character of Nagel’s account. We get deeply involved in our lives, but then step outside and see them from afar. And hence the clash of perspectives. But it might be remembered that we form views about other people’s lives also, and here it seems more appropriate to think of a sliding scale. I might think about friends and family, people in my team or town, all those living around here and around now, the Aztecs, the Neanderthals. And I might speculate on the value of lives to come, wondering what it will be like for my grandchildren, or how the world will be in 500 years, or later still when the earth is dead and we’ve shifted galaxies. Of course, I can say, of all these people, that they too are likely to take two perspectives on their

172

Meaning

lives, but while I might to a considerable degree share in the commitments of those close to me, the more distant the lives the more I can view them only with detachment. And so my thinking about these lives, and the extent to which they are meaningful, is much less likely to be infected with this perspective shifting than is refecting on my own life. In sum, then, Nagel’s claims about absurdity engage only a very little with ordinary fears about life’s lacking meaning. Even if we grant there is no ultimate justifcation for anything we do, and grant further that we can look on at least our own lives from two contrasting perspectives, the ordinary distinctions between more and less meaningful lives – the Wolfan distinctions – remain in force. Isolation, learning that death will come soon, a sudden loss of faith – these are among the familiar circumstances whose onset can undo our lives. We might doubt whether there is any meaning when looking at things globally, and from afar, while still allowing that there are real and signifcant differences on the individual or local scale. But there are more than individual circumstances to take into account. The approach of an asteroid, the outbreak of a nuclear war, rapid and irreversible climate change will each threaten all our lives, and so compromise meaning on something like the global scale.25 Still, we are not considering here deeply embedded features of the human condition, but contingent, though wide-ranging circumstances which might sometimes, but might never obtain. There is, then, a middle ground between the local and the global. Widespread societal, historical, or cultural changes can impact on meaning at a level between that of the individual on the one hand and the species on the other. In a society where religious belief is widespread, I’ve suggested, meaning may be more easily found than where it is uncommon. And contrast a place or period when it is believed the world will continue for a good long time with one where its destruction is thought to be imminent. Again, meaning will be affected. Consider, briefy, some actual examples. Concerns, and doubts, about the meaning of life appear to have been not uncommon during the religious upheavals attendant on the Reformation. Shakespeare gives ample evidence of this, as too do Montaigne, Rabelais, Breugel, Donne. Indeed, when faith is in question, or nearing collapse, worries about meaning may be more prevalent than when it is either frm on the one hand, or pretty much absent on the other. Or contrast peace with war. We might think, again, that Nagel is being harsh in his dealings with Camus. Find yourself in France in the 1960s, not long after the Nazi occupation, with the Algerian crisis in full swing, your country a likely battleground for an impeding nuclear confrontation, and it is not unreasonable to think that the future, and the future for all of us, looks bleak. Nothing will matter in a million years is one thing, nothing will matter in less than a decade is quite another.

God Many people, as Nagel observes, have wanted to connect meaning in their lives with the existence of and their faith in God. How does this go? That there are intimate connections here is clear. But it is going to be less clear as to their

Meaning

173

details. We might think that either religion makes all the difference to meaning, or it makes some difference, or it makes no difference whatsoever. I’ll say it makes some difference.26 For several reasons I consider here only traditional and still somewhat familiar forms of Christianity, though the points to be made carry over pretty much into other monotheistic religions. Suppose this religion is true. Then a certain account of the world, its contents and workings, will be correct – its origins are different, less fortuitous, and more recent than the atheist would have it, and whatever the length and shape of its future, it won’t, it seems, be destroyed by some random event. If religion is true then our lives are in important ways different. First, they don’t end, or don’t altogether end, in death; and second, the good and evil that we do is noted, and then appropriately rewarded or punished, either in this life or the next. Many of those who believe religion is true will allow that it is diffcult to infer its truth from what we can see of the way the world is – they will allow it can appear as if random events might occur and that cosmic justice is absent. But truth is one thing, evident truth another. If this religion is true then the chances of our living meaningful lives – and I’m thinking now just of our present and familiar lives – are increased. There is a longer, overall better, and more secure future ahead of us than there might otherwise be. We won’t think, as with an imagined variation in size, that differences here will count for nothing. But though I’ll resist Nagel’s sceptical stance, I want to keep a distance also from John Cottingham’s too robust account of religion’s contribution to meaning.27 He claims that in a universe made by God and tilted to the good, meaning is possible. And this tilting may be necessary. It is, he says, ‘doubtful’ whether we can live meaningful lives in an indifferent universe.28 This isn’t at all convincing. An architect builds a hospital aimed at the poor. But on the day of its opening it is destroyed by a meteorite. Our architect ‘bitterly declares that his entire effort was pointless – a tragic and futile waste of energy and resources’.29 Cottingham sympathizes with this; we hope not only to travel but to arrive, and failure here impacts on value and meaning. Assuming we accept this, still, neither the example nor what sits behind it does anything to make a case for God. Agreed we want to succeed. But success is possible in a godless universe, and isn’t guaranteed even if God exists. And unless God is intervening in the world on a regular basis it might seem that the path of the meteorite, and the destruction of the hospital, is fxed and bound to happen, even if unanticipated, either way. More plausible, and less ambitious, is the suggestion that the chances of success, and of fnding meaning, is greater in a universe set up with our overall well-being in mind. A difference, then, but one of degree rather than kind. Suppose now that not only is religion true but you believe it is true. This will very plausibly make a further difference to the probability of your life’s having meaning. First, your faith is likely to encourage a certain resilience in the face of adversity. Circumstances which might otherwise defect from meaningful pursuits – illness, fnancial misfortune, injustice – will perhaps be seen by the believer as temporary. Cottingham’s architect, for example, is less likely to view his efforts

174

Meaning

as pointless, and will be more inclined to start again. Second, you may well tend to fasten on somewhat different pursuits, in light of your faith, and ones where meaning is more likely to be found. Some measure of self-sacrifce in order to help others might, to the believer, seem on various counts appropriate – helping others is more likely to be possible in an overall friendly universe, there’s comfort in knowing other believers will share your perspective, and in the long term your efforts here are likely to bring you some reward. Again, I am noting only tendencies. And again Cottingham overstates his case, appearing to hold that only the believer will be able to fnd meaning in life. Contrast a concern for worldly success with a commitment to spiritual values: ‘The practices of spirituality… are able to give meaning to the lives of those who adopt them, not in virtue of allegiance to complex theological dogmas but in virtue of a passionate commitment to a certain way of life’.30 You might think that spirituality is open to believers and deniers alike, but Cottingham makes it tolerably clear that spirit and religion are on his view deeply intertwined.31 And yet the clearer this is, the less likely many of us are to accept that the recommended life is necessary for meaning. Suppose, in contrast, that although you believe religion is true, and in light of this lead a certain kind of life, it is in fact false. What now for meaning? We need to consider frst, if religion is false, what is true in its place? I’ll assume that we have here the familiar secular story, at the centre of which is a broadly indifferent universe, rather than some fancy account involving, say, devils who will, in an afterlife, torment all and only believers. Given some such account meaning may well suffer. Given the neutral account, any impact here may be harder to gauge. But again, we might usefully make comparisons with the experience machine, and appeal to the pull of hedonism. As your mental states are unaltered whether inside or outside a machine, so here everyone’s mental states, believers and doubters, are the same whether or not God, and his paraphernalia, exists. More accurately, your mental states in this life remain the same. If religion is true, then plausibly life of some or other kind goes on for longer, and generates more mental states, than if it is false. Yet this, as only rarely will it impact on the present, is of little relevance. Intuitively we will think that Bach, Milton, Giotto had meaningful lives whatever religion’s truth.32 Similarly for the thousands who, prompted by their faith, have worked in schools, leper colonies, disaster areas, and the like. In contrast, think of those driven only to fasting, mortifcation of the fesh, the endless chanting of psalms. These lives may be meaningless, but are very arguably meaningless whether religion is true or false.

Does meaning matter? Allow that meaning, at least at the local level, is possible. Is it also desirable? Should we want our lives to have meaning? Nagel doesn’t take any explicit view on this. It is desirable, on his account, that we recognize life’s absurdity, but both Einstein and the Sudoku player are able to do this. Still, it might be a reasonable assumption that he is overall favourably disposed towards meaning. Wolf’s title appears to promise a discussion of this important issue, yet for the most part she

Meaning

175

addresses the question not in its obvious guise, but asks instead whether it matters that we understand what meaning is.33 This is clearly quite different. And related to that is a further question about meaning’s distinctiveness. This is the place to start. Very near the beginning of her account, and before the emergence of the composite view, Wolf asks if, in matters relating to practical reason, we can be motivated by anything other than morality or self-interest. Some have thought not, but she insists they are wrong. And she gives examples: When I visit my brother in the hospital, or help my friend move, or stay up all night sewing my daughter a Halloween costume, I act neither for egoistic reasons nor for moral ones. I do not believe it is better for me that I spend a depressing hour in a drab, cramped room, seeing my brother irritable and in pain, that I risk back injury trying to get my friend’s sofa down two fights of stairs, or that I forego hours of much wanted sleep to make… the butterfy costume my daughter wants to wear in the next day’s parade…. But neither do I feel myself duty-bound to perform these acts…. Rather, I act out of love.34 Wolf makes a lot of love in her account, without fully acknowledging35 that it takes importantly different objects. The situations here concern love for other people, and none of them strangers. We can agree that in these cases neither morality nor self-interest prompts involvement. So we can agree, it seems, that there is a further important sphere of everyday life. Should we agree also that these sorts of acts, or activities, motivated by reasons of love, give our lives meaning? There is at least an intimate connection: Proneness to being moved and guided such reasons, I believe, is at the core of our ability to live a meaningful life.36 This precursor of the composite view comes at the end of the frst lecture’s frst section. Meaning, even if connected with loving, is distinct from morality and self-interest. And it has thus far been underexplored. Wolf returns to this topic of meaning’s distinctiveness later, at the end of the frst lecture, then in the second, and then again in response to her commentators. But the goalposts have shifted slightly, with happiness often replacing self-interest as one of the rivals to meaning. This apparently makes little difference; there can be meaningful pursuits which are distinct from both morality and happiness. But isn’t there a problem here? Don’t we need examples where meaning remain aloof not just from this or that pairing, but from all three of these competing concerns? This isn’t going to be easy. Baking, fxing the Halloween costume, cello playing are all likely to contribute to Wolf’s happiness.37 The absconding painter, the mountaineer, the committed poet all pursue self-interest, even if not self-preservation. The aid worker or school teacher can have morality, as much as meaning, in their view. Meaning might well fgure in these activities, without being a thing apart.

176

Meaning

Is meaning distinct from these other notions? Wolf and I have both said so.38 But all we can mean by this, I think, is that there are some differences between meaning, on the one hand, and all of morality, self-interest, love, and happiness, on the other. We can’t mean there are many differences or that the notions or concepts here are wholly distinct. But, of course, the degree of difference can vary from case to case. Love might be at the core of meaning, while morality is at its periphery.39 Does it matter that we draw the right distinctions here and, in particular, correctly grasp the concept of, and (partial) distinctiveness of, meaning? In her closing comment, Wolf insists again on the relation between objective value and meaning. Without the former we won’t understand the latter. And: ‘If we cannot understand what meaningfulness is, our interest in it will diminish and may eventually disappear altogether’.40 My sense is she thinks this would be a bad thing. But is it true? Philosophers are typically more interested in what they can’t understand than what they can understand. And, as she’s earlier allowed, ordinary people can want and gain meaning whether they understand it or not.41 The most that this allows is something decidedly insipid; understanding meaning matters to some, but not to others. Turn now to what I’ve said is the more obvious question: does meaning itself matter? Should we want it, both for ourselves and for others? Consider some unexceptional lives, or lives where unexceptional pursuits play a central role, but which appear nevertheless to ft with Wolf’s composite view. Martin enjoys his garden; Nancy reads, and thinks about, quality newspapers; Oscar and Patrick like to play chess together. And Susan? I visit my friend because he can use the company, or at least the assurance that his friends care about him…. I study philosophy because it is interesting and mind-expanding, or, because in my case, it is part of doing my job well; and I bake because I take pride in my skill as a baker, because I love good food and want to share my enthusiasm for it with others.42 We can criticize, or pity the stone roller or Sudoku player for their entirely worthless pursuits, and thus for wasting their lives. Such criticisms are out of place here. Martin, Nancy, Oscar, and Patrick, like millions of others, have worthwhile lives, moderately successful, reasonably content. And so we might agree that none of them, and nor indeed Susan, are sacrifcing their all to the pursuit of morality, or, in contrast, are wholly self-interested in what they do. Should we think, then, that theirs are meaningful lives? Other relevant contrasts are less clear cut. Much that they do is connected with love, and for most of the time they appear to be happy. If meaning weren’t at all distinct, then we would perhaps be required, in light of this, to believe their lives are meaningful. But given distinctness, then this won’t follow. And I doubt we should think their lives are meaningful. For as well as involving attraction to the attractive such a life will also, I’ve suggested, have a certain shape or structure, involve us with a worthwhile and suitably sized project, present some sort of challenge. But this is missing here, and these

Meaning

177

uncomplicated lives are not going anywhere, with one month, one year, very like the next, little to aim for, and not much at risk. Does this matter? Would it be better if, in addition to, or in place of happiness, these, and the millions of similar lives, were meaningful? It would matter if the people here were to pursue only self-interest or only morality. Such a life would be seriously incomplete and much improved by the addition of meaning. But it is far from clear that meaning would offer similar gains to the happy life, or that there is any reason for someone not inclined to want meaning nevertheless to pursue it. And nor does the disvalue of its opposite provide such reason. If lives are either meaningful or meaningless, then in avoidance of the overtly negative verdict we’ll opt for the alternative. But we should resist the forced choice. As we might be neither happy or unhappy, successes or failures, smart or stupid, so too where meaning is concerned. We might be properly situated in the middle ground. And a distinction made in an earlier chapter lends support to this. We might think a meaningful life is in part shaped by categorical desires, and so with reasons to go on living. Having merely conditional desires, no matter what for, and no matter how well these are satisfed, won’t give us meaning. But the meaningless life, plausibly, is one where categorical desires are either straightforwardly frustrated or where, because it is evident they will be frustrated, they are no longer formed. And so a life lacking both such desires and the desire for such desires – the kind of life which, on Nagel’s account is all that is available to an animal, and which, I want to suggest, can count as a decent life for a human being also – is neither meaningless nor meaningful. Martin enjoys his garden, and Nancy her reading, and so long as they’re alive they’ll hope for these pleasures to continue; but they’ve no new projects on the horizon, nothing they particularly want to do that they’ve not done many times before. There’s certainly no reason to bring it all to an end, but death, if it were sudden and unannounced, wouldn’t be a bad thing. They lack categorical desires. And it is perhaps the same for Susan with her baking. Even if we agree that chocolate cakes are objectively valuable, still a string of such cakes, each as good as the last, each bringing pleasure to her family and friends, doesn’t, so far as meaning is concerned, amount to much.43 And if she’s not around to make them, others no doubt will. Am I right to deny there’s meaning here? Does it really require more than that we have some sort of passion for worthwhile things? Again, we go wrong in thinking that everyday terms can be unambiguously pinned down. But we can note the several differences between Martin’s life, or Patrick’s life and those of Gandhi, Schweitzer, Churchill, Nietzsche. These differences are real, and important, describable in detail whatever our fnal verdict on the meaning question. But this isn’t to suggest that nothing hangs on what we say here. For there is a danger in holding both that meaning is, as I’ve suggested, not that easy to attain and also, as Wolf appears to hold, that it is important nevertheless. For this combination of views can prompt an excess of ambition and striving, lead to our undervaluing what we have, defect from the pleasures of the moment and in the end leave us disappointed and dissatisfed. And this ambition for meaning is only

178

Meaning

in a relatively few cases going to be realized. Only a few of us can be successful architects, or physicians, cellists, or philosophers. Only a few of us will make any signifcant and other than feeting difference to the things we care about. Most of us, no matter what our efforts, will leave the world very much as it is.44

Summary The meaning question, I’ve said, needs to be reined in and presented in a more modest form. But then we can make useful comment on what sorts of activities will tend to contribute to one life’s being, overall, more meaningful than another. Much of this useful comment is provided by Susan Wolf, in those lectures that I discuss at the chapter’s opening. And her key claim about where meaning is to be found – in an attraction to the attractive – is one that commands overall agreement. A good deal of what I offer here is restricted, then, to clarifcation on the one hand and some fnessing of detail on the other. Where this detail is in most need of further exploration, I’ve argued, is in that area which, near this book’s beginning I identifed as both important and problematic, that concerning the subjective/objective distinction. Something similar to this features in Nagel’s account. We could see him as claiming that in truth, in fact, or objectively speaking, all our lives are meaningless, or absurd, and irredeemably so, even though inevitably we fall prey to taking ourselves seriously, and thinking that what we do matters. And then, as an ancillary point, he wants to say, against Camus, for example, that this shouldn’t too much concern us. But, as I’ve interpreted him here, this would be a mistake. Rather, his contention is that we go wrong in seeing our lives either as straightforwardly meaningful or meaningless. We need, for accuracy, both perspectives held in combination. Hence his distinctive take on absurdity. And hence absurdity and meaninglessness need not to be confused with one another. My aim, however, has been for more than exposition. One problem with this, I’ve suggested, is its wilful distortion of ordinary terms. Another, more important, are the claims about inevitability. Suppose our demise is imminent, I’ve said, and meaninglessness will hit harder. Suppose there is a good God, and it might recede. The frst of these suppositions is explored in more detail in the book’s last chapter. The second is taken up here. And so an aim in this chapter’s second half is to consider how religion – and I’ve wanted to distinguish between knowing, believing, and just having it true that, say, God exists – might impact on meaning. And this impact, I’ve argued, may well be non-negligible. Finally, here I turned to Wolf’s second question, one that I claim she doesn’t properly address, of whether meaning matters. First, I elaborate on her account a little, adding now to an attraction to the attractive some notions of shape and struggle in order for meaning to emerge. And then I suggest, as an alternative to meaning so understood, a more modest notion of a happy, decent, and worthwhile life. We shouldn’t complain if we achieve something along these lines. Asking for meaning may be asking a bit much.

Meaning

179

Notes 1 You might, for example, google flms on frst, the meaning of life, second, the value of life, to see these differences. 2 Anyone doubting this need only look at the relevant entries in the Stanford and Routledge encyclopedias for sensible discussion and substantial bibliographies. 3 See, for various examples of what I’m suggesting here is the mistaken approach, Eagleton (2007). 4 Wolf (2010: 9). 5 My starting point gives at best a caricature of the subjective view. We might doubt there are any cases where believing p is suffcient for p’s truth. But we can usefully plot relations between some key terms. You claim to get pleasure from the taste of whisky. It could be pointed out that in fact it’s brandy, but will nevertheless allow that the claim to pleasure, if made sincerely, will be true. You say you’re happy because, after some years in the doldrums, your career, relationships, health, are all going well. Here, if you’re wrong about the external circumstances you’re very probably wrong too about the happiness. It may in part depend on, but involves more than, internal states. You insist you’re a successful poet. Belief and truth are here poles apart, with your feelings about the matter having no bearing on your status. Meaning, I think, sits somewhere between happiness and success, with the case for its involving considerable objective elements being, in the end, relatively secure. As with happiness, if someone is asked why they claim their life has meaning, they are more likely to identify, and directly, certain external circumstances than appeal to some inner feeling or belief they have about these circumstances. But it may be that we allow a wider range of outside factors to impact on happiness than on meaning. So then the elitism charge is more likely to be levelled against claims to know, objectively, where meaning is to be found. Still, Wolf is surely right to keep subjective elements within the picture. Attraction to, enthusiasm for, some project or activity is necessary, even if not suffcient, for us to achieve meaning in life. 6 Wolf (2010: 17). And see Taylor (1970) for the source of, and a contrasting take on, this well-travelled example. 7 Wolf (2010: 25) for the introduction of this term, and then used occasionally thereafter. I‘ll continue to refer to the Composite View. This name covers both her view as is, and that view when modifed in line with my suggestions of the following section. 8 See Wolf (2010: 25) for a string of examples of allegedly meaningless, even if engaging, activity – Sudoku playing, goldfsh feeding, novel copying. Lawnmower racing has to wait until some thirty pages later. The concession I refer to comes in response to comment by Nomy Arpaly. She asks us to rethink the goldfsh case. While in most circumstances we should think the ‘Goldfsh Nut’ deranged, we might consider a ‘retarded child’ whose intellectual and social development is much improved by caring for a fsh (2010: 87–89). This is surely plausible, and the outcome desirable, but I see no reason to think the child’s life thereby becomes meaningful. Consider how Alzheimer’s sufferers may be helped by relating to a robot. 9 See Wolf (2010: 77–78) for Adams’ comments here. Wolf’s response (2010: 110) is perhaps more sympathetic to Adam’s challenge than is warranted. 10 Nagel (2010: 11). 11 And contrast handmade copies of War and Peace with replicating the later Titians. We might agree with Wolf (2010: 25) that the former provides no route to meaning – this is purely mechanical and mind-numbing work, while the latter demands technical abilities, an eye for detail, historical understanding, and arguably more. 12 Wolf (2010: 60). Take these sentences just as they stand. We might agree that the frst is true, perhaps trivially so, but then insist that the second doesn’t follow. 13 In Nagel (1979b: 11–23). This chapter, ‘The Absurd’, frst appeared in journal form (Journal of Philosophy 1970); references here are to the later version. See also

180

14 15 16 17 18

19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

27 28 29

30 31

32 33 34 35 36

Meaning Nagel (1986) for much fuller development of the two perspectives view and the ensuing tensions within our divided selves. Nagel (1979b: 12–13). Nagel (1979b: 13). Nagel (1979b: 13). Nagel (1979b: 14). See Nagel (1979b: 21–22) for explanations of a) why the life of a mouse would avoid absurdity, and b) why attaining a condition in which absurdity is avoided or diminished seems to be ‘the ideal of certain Oriental religions’. What appears to be implicit here is that the demented, the comatose, and those whose lives are over before personhood develops also avoid absurdity. Nagel (1979b: 19–20). As he says in a footnote, this view about the resilience of scepticism is one that others will contest. My sympathies are with Nagel here, but nothing in my argument hangs on this. Nagel (1979b: 23). For the target here see Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus. Nagel (1979b: 16). Nagel (1979b: 16–17). Nagel (1979b: 17). I say ‘something like’ the global scale to mark a difference between space and time. The asteroid approaches. All our lives are now rendered meaningless. But this doesn’t detract from the meaning that the Romans or Mayans enjoyed. Suppose it makes all the difference. It might guarantee meaning or make it impossible. Some difference? It might help with or hinder meaning. I consider and defend the view that it will tend to make some positive difference. A longer discussion would investigate in more detail arguments for its having a negative effect. See Cottingham (2002), especially the later chapters. Cottingham (2002: 66). Cottingham (2002: 66). And note the later comment: ‘Now if the ultimate nature of reality contains no bias towards the good as opposed to the vicious, if there is nothing to support the hope that the good will eventually triumph… the very idea that some lives can be more meaningful than others begins to seem a fantasy’ (2002: 72). Similarly: ‘the pursuit of meaning… requires more than the rational engagement in worthwhile projects; it requires a certain sort of religious or quasi-religious mindset’ (2002: 85). If this position is to be defended then ‘quasi-religious’ will need a generous and liberal interpretation. And see the comments on spirituality below. Cottingham (2002: 90). The argument here involves contrasting doctrine and praxis, and elevating the latter over the former. But spiritual exercises focus on meditation and prayer (2002: 88), and the spiritual life involves, inter alia prayer and worship, seeing life as a gift, and acknowledging the role of a creator (2002: 90–91). Doctrine appears to be well implicated in all this. Notice also that though Cottingham agrees with Wolf in emphasizing the role of love, for him it must be ‘of the self-giving kind’ (2002: 91). Imagine that Bach has occasional doubts. He thinks, ‘If there is no God, my life, and my work, is meaningless’. We can be confdent that he is simply mistaken. The title of Wolf’s second lecture was, and in the book remains, simply, ‘Why it Matters’. But in a subsection the earlier unadorned reiteration is altered, in the printed version, to: ‘Why It (the Concept of Meaningfulness) Matters’ (2010: 48). Wolf (2010: 4). There is some acknowledgement; we can love the wrong things. But this isn’t my point here. We can love the cello also. Wolf (2010: 7).

Meaning

181

37 But even if both are implicated here, Wolf elsewhere attempts to elevate meaning over happiness. We are more forgiving of spending on a cello than a TV, she says (and similarly skipping work for a lecture, rather than a hot bath) even though both lead to happiness. Meaning is the tie breaker. But it can be objected that plausibly the cello offers happiness but the TV only pleasure. 38 If you doubt that she insists on this, consider references to meaning’s distinctiveness on e.g. (2010: 2, 32, 53, 63). 39 What the discussion, and in particular my challenge to Wolf’s view, has implied, of course, is that love is necessary but not suffcient for meaning, while morality is neither necessary nor suffcient. 40 Wolf (2010: 63). 41 ‘Many people manage to live meaningful lives without giving the idea of meaning a moment’s explicit thought’ (2010: 48–49). 42 Wolf (2010: 50). 43 The point here is not that baking, pursued relentlessly and successfully over the years, isn’t worthwhile, but rather that it isn’t meaningful. It is, perhaps, too free of struggle. Recall God’s delight in the return of the prodigal son. 44 Wolf recognizes the danger here, but suggests we should persuade people that one kind of failure might well accompany success. She failed to fnd the cure for cancer but managed nevertheless to do important scientifc research. He never made it as a cellist but did well as a teacher (2010: 105–107).

9

Immortality

If life is, and will continue to be worth living, then death is bad. And when it’s good, most of us want it to continue. Death, if it looms, is best postponed. If life can continue endlessly to be good, then death is always best postponed. We might want then to live forever. There are well-known objections to this. I consider those objections here. But, I argue, they are far from decisive. An attractive version of the immortal life can, I claim, be made out.1

Preliminaries Many religions promise something for the future. We die, and then in some or other form live again, and this time forever. Often this new life involves us having a very different body, perhaps something unimaginably different, or perhaps no body at all. Often too our thinking, insofar as we continue to have thinking, is much changed; and we become perfected, or at one with the universe. All in all, we are transformed. None of this is my concern here.2 Instead, I am concerned, as many of us these days are concerned, with thinking not about life, and then death, and then a new and different life, but rather with avoiding death altogether, and continuing with something like the life we already have. So imagine you are offered the elixir of life. Will you take it? You need to get clear about three things: frst, what it is you want, second, what the elixir will deliver, and third, what attendant circumstances might be like. Some people are terrifed by the thought of going out of existence. A world that ceases to contain them is not one they can bear to contemplate. Such people have no need of eternal life. We can claim that they will exist when dead, and suggest that mummifying or freezing, soon after death, will give them what they want.3 Suppose, though, that being dead is what you fear.4 Again, no elixir is needed. Utilize cryonics, and arrange – presumably at some considerable expense – to have your body frozen before you die, and thereafter to be forever maintained. You now have what you want. There is room for a question here. Are you, when in this frozen and non-dead state, alive? Or do you occupy some intermediate position? If the aim is simply to avoid death the answer to this question won’t be of great concern.

Immortality

183

Most of those wanting immortality are looking for more than to avoid death. They want more of life. Suppose those who are frozen remain alive. Then if the concern is simply with life, these people also get what they want. They get what they want, too, if the body isn’t altogether frozen but is nevertheless very much shut down, with vital functions perhaps aided and sustained by machines. But the concerns are rarely this meagre. Mere biological life isn’t the aim. Rather the concern, often, is with a psychological life also – people want more of the life of mind; they want to continue, and forever, to have experiences. Again, it might seem possible for such a desire to be satisfed in a somewhat attenuated fashion. Perhaps some will think that merely having experiences is itself a good thing, and worth having, whatever their content.5 And perhaps things can be arranged so that you feel something or other just once or twice a day. Most, however, will want considerably more than this, looking for experiences which are frst, overall good, and second, constitute something like a human life. But suppose the choice is thirty more years of the life you are living, or an abrupt end to this, and an infnitely long wholly new life, a good life, and a human life, but one that is, however, psychologically disconnected from the life you live now. Very few, I think, will take the elixir under these conditions.6 How connected is this extra life to be? If you’re very happy with your life now, you might want something closely resembling this life to be ahead and into the distant future. If you’re less happy you will countenance change. Still, what is very likely is that you want to remain, and continue as, not someone or other, but as the same person you are now. And you want to persist with something like the same life.7 Suppose an elixir appears to offer this. You might be tempted. But you should look more closely before succumbing. Is it guaranteed to work? And does it work simply if it gives you eternal life? What about ageing? You probably won’t want to live forever if anything like the familiar ageing process continues unabated. Ideally, perhaps, you’ll be able to select and stick at some favourite age from hereon. And there are two further issues, more complex, and related to each other, that need also to be considered. Not only do we age but we are susceptible to accidents and disease. Does the elixir give you also some sort of omnipotence – you simply cannot go blind or lose a limb – some marvellous powers of recuperation – eyes recover, and limbs promptly regrow – or do such susceptibilities remain? The frst two options are not easy in detail to imagine, and in any event take us a long way from a recognizable human life. The third option will appear to render this elixir distinctly unattractive. But there is here an important question about the modal character of your immortality. Are you going to be necessarily immortal, someone who simply cannot die, or is death something that still might occur? If the former, then irreparable damage from outside certainly needs to be ruled out. You don’t want to have to live on forever in a seriously incapacitated state. But again, forever without any possibility of damage is highly fanciful. Perhaps then we should suppose the elixir will offer only contingent immortality – ageing is gone, but other human frailties remain, so that in principle, and with excessive care, you could go on forever, while in practice your life might be considerably longer than

184

Immortality

now but might, depending what risks you take, equally be short. A different sort of contingent immortality is in possession of those who can choose to end life, but are safe from having an exit thrust upon them. Suppose damage occurs and cannot effectively be repaired. These people can elect to carry on nevertheless or, instead, to call it a day. Going on forever is possible, but the opt-out is always available. An elixir which, once taken, commits you irreversibly to living on should surely be approached with great circumspection. It might lead you to something very like the traditional hell. And if this danger is ruled out, either by superstrength or super-healing, the resulting life is still suspiciously different from anything we know now. In contrast, a life which is otherwise close to this, but where the inconvenience and indignities of ageing are removed, and where, as a result, death is no longer inevitable, might seem altogether attractive. Even more attractive, for many, will be the intermediate position, where death is yours for the asking but is otherwise removed. Yet there is a caveat here. Giving up on a fnite life, when things are not working out, is something that in some circumstances we have reason, and are able, to do. You’ll die anyway in fve years, and it is pretty much certain that the intervening period will be bleak. Giving up on forever is going to be different – it might be exceedingly diffcult not to suspect that in the long run things will improve. I said that there’s a third factor to consider involving the attendant circumstances of your immortality. Assuming that you want something like your current life to continue, but forever, then you probably want some sort of stability and familiarity to persist in the world about you, perhaps with some quasi-immortality for landscapes, cities, weather systems, and with food supplies, libraries, and art collections all to accompany you into the future.8 And what about other people? Will they too be immortal, or will forever be yours alone? This is evidently an important question and will be revisited below. Right now it is enough to note the relations here. If others are immortal it might seem more likely that your surroundings will retain their familiar guise – they will have no more incentive than you to alter things. But if they live, age, and die in familiar ways, with familiar patterns of innovation and disruption along the way, then, unless you can continue to adapt, your environment is perhaps likely soon to become unsettling and inhospitable.

Approximations Those tempted by the elixir are most likely wanting to be, and to know, that they are immortal. But it needs to be considered what value there might be in something falling short of this. You want more life. And you want it to be good. An early issue of the elixir offers less than forever, but a considerable extension nevertheless, say to 10,000 years. You get a good deal of what you want. It might be objected that you get here only a tiny fraction of this – forever is a very long time – but it may be that this is not quite right. Compared with 80 or 90 years, 10,000 years is a very long

Immortality

185

time. And as, perhaps, you might have some faint idea of what living 10,000 years would be like, but no idea at all of what living forever would be like, then this hyper-extended life might be as good as you can reasonably hope for. Suppose, however, the concern is not so much to gain life as simply to avoid death, then this long life fails to deliver. What you fear will come, and assuredly, even if its coming is delayed. There’s a further point to be made about what in one sense can be seen as just a partial success. We might at frst think that we want always to live, but then on refection fnd this not to be the case. Almost none of us wants to be alive forever, or at all times, but at most forever more, or at all future times. This connects, of course, with the earlier point that what we want is something approaching more of the same. Plausibly, the person I am can survive and go out of existence later, perhaps much later, perhaps never at all. But the person I am cannot have come into existence earlier.9 Those who want simply never to disappear or die might be puzzled by this. How can it be so very bad for there to be a future time when I don’t exist, given that it’s not bad that there’s a past time from which I am equally absent? Those who want more life will be less puzzled – more of this life can only be located in the future. And now thinking on this may cause the death fearers to revise their view; simply not existing can’t be that bad, and so perhaps it is after all the loss of life, the ending of all this, that upsets them. The contrast here, between forever and forever more, links to a contrast that surfaces often in religion or mythology. God, or the gods, are typically understood as living at all times, and neither coming into, nor going out of existence. Human beings either both begin and end, or they begin and, acquiring then immortality, cease to end. But now it should be noticed that portrayal of the gods, especially when they have more, rather than fewer, human characteristics, is often made in such a way as to suggest that their lives are shallow, their moods fckle, and their concerns essentially meaningless. This might prompt some reservations about the value of immortality and suggest that such reservations have long been around. What, though, in religion and mythology, of humans who acquire immortality, becoming to some degree godlike? The picture here, obviously germane to what is to follow, is more complex but it can be claimed that our attitude is ambivalent – it isn’t wholly clear that we can easily tell stories in which even acquired immortality delivers a satisfying and meaningful life.10 And, of course, getting clearer here forms much of the business to follow. Consider further respects in which things may fall short. You want for it both to be true, and for you to believe, that you are immortal. You get a part of this if either you believe it (even though it’s false) or it’s true (even though you don’t believe it). What should we think of these partial successes? Suppose, as many claim, that an immortal life would be bad for us. I’ll suggest later that if we are immortal but don’t know it then these alleged problems will recede. If, in contrast, we believe falsely in our immortality then there is a more complex picture; some of the alleged problems will arise anyway, while others will remain dormant. Suppose instead, and as others argue, the immortal life might be

186

Immortality

good. If we are, but don’t believe we are immortal some of its benefts will not be enjoyed. The fear of death, for example, will remain. If we believe falsely that we are immortal then here too we will gain some benefts while failing to gain others. The fear of death, for example, will be removed.11 Generally, then, we might expect a mixed picture. But, I’ve suggested, there are reasons for thinking it will be better to disbelieve in immortality, when it is present, than to believe in it, when it is absent. Moreover, and as will emerge, it may be best overall if we are immortal, but in some ways don’t fully believe it.

The immortality problem Even if many want, or think they want, immortality, many more have doubts. Is this really a life for us? And these doubts have, at least in the recent philosophical literature, tended to cluster around two concerns in particular – frst that the immortal life will be boring, second that it will be trivial. Live forever, the frst objection goes, and inevitably you’ll fnd yourself doing the same things over and over again. Unendurable boredom is certain to set in. And you’ll want nothing more than to end it. Live forever, according to the second objection, and you’ll be overwhelmed by the endless opportunities ahead. If in any way you mess up – exams, relationships, careers – you can always try again. Nothing will really matter. The frst of these objections is connected, and famously, with Bernard Williams; the second I’ll link in particular with some recent work by Samuel Scheffer.12 Both need exploring in more detail. And there’s a need, too, to consider the relationship between them. Boredom The setting is an early 20th century fction. An elixir, and apparently in as good a form as one could possibly hope for, is in the possession of a middle-aged woman, the opera singer Elina Makropulos. I say middle-aged but though she appears and in many ways acts thus, she is in fact 342, and has been taking this elixir for the last 300 years.13 Though it may seem that her life is good, she decides not to swallow her next dose, but to die instead. Why? Her trouble was, it seems, boredom: a boredom connected with the fact that everything that could happen and make sense to one particular human being of 42 had already happened to her. Or, rather, all the sorts of things that could make sense to one woman of a certain character.…14 The qualifcation here – though I need to say more about it below – is important. Williams isn’t going to insist that boredom will accompany any and all versions of the immortal life. It might be avoided by those who already are dull, too boring to become bored, and might be avoided also by those whose character is frequently changing, who live ‘psychologically disjoint lives’.15 It might be avoided

Immortality

187

too by those who live always in the moment, and are never concerned to look forwards or back. But it will inevitably infect those whose lives are worthwhile, and who want those worthwhile lives to continue. Such people, and this is perhaps a feature of maturity, are of a somewhat settled disposition, have a more or less stable character and, as a result, have in turn consequently limited interests and concerns. For such people – and the assumption is that many of us are of this type – immortality holds only an illusory appeal. Or so it is claimed. Now there is certainly something in this, but there are several details that warrant more examination, and several respects in which Williams overstates his case. First, he is misled, or at least is in danger of misleading, by the weight he attaches to this example. EM is bored beyond tears, and wants out, at 342. So her problem, apparently, isn’t with immortality as such but with a life only three or four times the length of those that many of us think are way too short.16 It’s hard not to suspect there’s something about her particular situation, and her particular character, that leads to this early exit. Williams notes that her apparent age is his, at the time of writing, and it’s hard too, not to think he identifes somewhat with her, and might then be over-generalizing from the peculiarities of their shared condition. Many, it can be supposed, will bore less easily. But Williams insists that hers isn’t a special case,17 and that all of us, if immortal, would face the same problems. This is less than satisfactory, and somewhat puzzling, in two respects. It’s just unconvincing about EM; if it weren’t special then The Makropulos Case would be rather less interesting as a work. And no invention of this kind is going to persuade us that a mere three and a half centuries is, for all of us, unbearably long. Let me stress this. EM is not simply bored, but bored to a degree where she prefers, and chooses, death. That is extreme. And we might, I suppose, be persuaded that boredom is inevitable, without agreeing also that it will be intolerable.18 But even granting that there’s nothing special about her situation isn’t it, if a feature at all, a special and contingent feature of human beings in general that they do eventually get bored? And if so, why can’t we simply, as with ageing, write it out of the immortality scenario?19 Williams has an answer to this; we’ll see below whether it is satisfactory. A second concern derives from what appears a curious oversight in setting out the alternatives to boredom. Envisage your character remaining as it is, and boredom looms; envisage abrupt changes, something psychologically disjoint, and you have no reason to want to carry on. But what about a character that changes gradually, perhaps in response to shifting circumstances? Why can’t EM, and indeed any of us, prolong an enthusiasm for life in that way? Not only does this seem to offer a way through the diffculties, but it better corresponds to our psychologies in the actual world, where one and the same person will, over time, develop new interests and concerns, and undergo some considerable but nevertheless gradual changes in character, personality, and outlook on life.20 Neglect this, insist on fxedness, and boredom’s threat will loom larger than it should. Again, there may be some sort of explanation. Williams says, of someone hoping for immortality, and considering what it might bring, that

188

Immortality the state in which I survive should be one which, to me looking forward, will be adequately related, in the life it presents, to those aims which I now have in wanting to survive at all. That is a vague formula…. What we can say is that since I am propelled forward into longer life by categorical desires, what is promised must hold out some hopes for those desires.21

This is not straightforward, and in part because a key notion here, that of categorical desires, is hardly perspicuous. But I considered this earlier, and the upshot of that discussion can remain in place. So what might be agreed here is that someone who lacks categorical desires isn’t propelled into the future, and has no reason, or at least can acknowledge no reason, to go on living. Someone who has such desires, and has things they want to do at some future time will, in contrast, have reason to take at least some steps to continue with life.22 So far so good, but here, I think, Williams goes wrong, For we needn’t agree that someone who wants to be immortal must have, right now, things they want to do in a thousand, a million, a billion years time. And so we needn’t agree, further, that the desire for immortality makes sense only for someone whose character will be constant throughout. Consider Max, who wants to be alive in thirty years’ time, anticipates then that he will have desires relating to the next thirty years, and so on endlessly. Max believes he will never want to die. There is reason for him to take the elixir, even without long-term plans. And this reason is sustained, even if he acknowledges that what, in the future, will propel him into the further future are interests, projects, and concerns that right now leave him cold. Assuming that character changes gradually then it will be the same person – Max – who wants then to live, rather than someone else. There’s a third concern. At one point Williams insists that ‘Nothing less will do for eternity than something that makes boredom unthinkable’.23 Someone is contemplating the elixir. A worry about boredom is raised. It’s not enough, apparently, for them to insist that they won’t get bored. They need to be persuaded that boredom isn’t remotely possible, not even imaginable or conceivable. That seems to be setting the bar uncomfortably high. How are we to understand this? Start with an explanation of the point I left hanging earlier. We can’t simply eliminate the possibility of boredom (as we might, it seems, eliminate ageing) while holding on to the idea of a life worth living. Williams insists that such a life, by its nature, is one in which boredom may set in. You might think the possibility of the occasional dull afternoon one thing, that of limitless unendurable boredom another. Yet even assuming this further possibility must also feature in the worthwhile life there still isn’t, so far, a problem for immortality. For the possibility might not be realized. But perhaps the thinking is this; unless you can be altogether certain that unendurable boredom won’t set in you’d be strongly advised against accepting any elixir. For a life in which boredom goes on and on without end would be worse than nothing. Now if we are considering a necessary or irreversible immortality there’s something in this. But if even an immortal life can be ended – you’re offered a package of the elixir and its antidote – then the mere possibility or thinkability of boredom is no obstacle whatever. The

Immortality

189

importance of the distinction here is perfectly general. As I’ve said, immortality with no opt-out is to be treated with great suspicion until all possibility of all serious evils – evils so great you’d prefer death – is eliminated. With an opt-out such possibilities become manageable. A diffculty for Williams here is that he seems well prepared, evident in his discussion of EM, to acknowledge that immortality might be ended. And so the mere possibility of evils is, you would think, tolerable.24 On various counts, then, it seems that Williams’ bleak portrayal of immortality is less than persuasive. There is no reason to agree that boredom will affect people as profoundly or as promptly as it does EM; the restrictions on character change, and with this, limitations on opportunities for new and different ventures, is unmotivated. And the demand that boredom be unthinkable is excessively stringent. The case against immortality is far less tight than it aims to be. Still, a case might be fawed while yet far from worthless. Even if we think the case is somewhat exaggerated, and deny that, inevitably, we’ll be faced with an eternity of unendurable and unending boredom with, moreover, no possibility of escape, still Williams does enough here to make the idea of immortality far less attractive than at frst it may seem. And, as I’ll explain below, a somewhat revised interpretation of Williams’ argument presents the would-be immortalist with more challenging problems. Triviality A different critique of immortality, less familiar, is overall more successful, even if, in one guise, it does get off to a bad start. Williams, I’ve argued, overstates his case. Scheffer in some ways does the same. But there is also a key respect in which he rather underplays his hand, and is less persuasive about the downside than he might have been. Perhaps a part of the explanation for this is that he seems, from the outset, curiously keen to pick a fght with the alternative account, insisting that Williams fails to identify any problems with immortality as such – any diffculties that boredom throws up attach themselves just as well to the extended life.25 This is fair enough, but does Scheffer do any better? Certainly that is his intent: By contrast, I want to consider some diffculties with immortality itself. In other words, I will advance reasons for thinking that we need to die, not because otherwise we would eventually succumb to a problem that is already inherent in the conditions of human life, but rather because an eternal life would, in a sense, be no life at all.26 How will we get to this? His basic idea is, as he says, fairly straightforward. Life as we live it has a beginning, a middle, and an end, with many activities, challenges, and pursuits intimately related to these different stages. Most if not all sexual practices are inappropriate for young children, while jumping into puddles, with or without the proper footwear, is unbecoming in an adult. There are

190

Immortality

time-related differences regarding ‘joys and accomplishments’, then, but other things – ‘loss, illness, injury, harm, risk and danger’ are also in important respects linked to our being in, and our experience and awareness of, time. Our grip on such terms, Scheffer says, is sustained only because life ends with death. There is something in this, and something of signifcance, but in wanting so much to stress the difference between his account and that of Williams, Scheffer misses parts of his target. Having, or not having, an end to life might sound like a critical distinction, but is this really so? A life of a million years might easily be supposed to have a childhood and an old age very much like, and as abrupt as, those we live through today, but yet with a vastly extended period of maturity. Knowing this, then how I think about and prepare for the time ahead – what I do, what plans I make for the future, what joys and satisfactions I might anticipate – will be vastly different from how such things stand now, when this time is short, and the end is always near. It’s hard to see how there will be any signifcant further difference attendant on my learning that rather than a million years, I have forever. Similarly, it’s hard to see how death is going to make all the difference where ills or evils are concerned, such that just when it is absent our lives become critically changed. Again, imagine not forever, but just a million years. The young age as now until they hit adulthood, while the old are rejuvenated and the sick are healed. And damage – you walk in front of a bus, or fall off a cliff – is quasi-miraculously repaired. Loss, illness, risk, and danger are, in this new world, all thin on the ground, and this is so even if in a million years it will all be over. Scheffer goes wrong, then, in not wanting both unending and the distantly ending lives under his purview. And then after unnecessarily narrowing the target he hits it too hard. Why would a life without death be, as he claims, ‘no life at all’?27 Would it be no life from the outset, as soon as I take the elixir, or would it cease to be a life, after say the frst billion years? If the latter, why wouldn’t a two billion year life similarly stall after a million years? And if, as with EM, I have access to an opt-out would this give me back a life? Or only if I avail myself of it? Similarly, why would the very meaning of terms like loss, injury, or risk ‘be called into question’28 by the absence of death? And are the meanings here in contrast fully secure if I live for just millions of years? There are extravagances here, then. Yet behind them there lurk more modest, defensible, but nevertheless important claims. These centre, as I’ve said, on triviality, and it is enough to bring that to the forefront that our lives are very much longer than they are now. So consider a world where the familiar pressures of time are off. And focus frst on that version where everyone is in the same boat, and the long life is enjoyed by all. The same accomplishments – learning the piano, or golf, or making the perfect omelette – will count for less, and perhaps bring us less joy, less satisfaction, when we have more than enough time to devote to them. What might now seem to offer important and worthwhile career paths or life projects – medicine, or counselling, or reducing global inequalities – will be less attractive, because less needed, in a world where physical and psychological ills are less evident, and where attending to them is less urgent. Choosing the right partner in life is less important when, if you get it wrong, you can have

Immortality

191

countless further liaisons, and when there is no need anyway to think in terms of lifetime commitments. Encounters with the arts of the past will have at best mild entertainment value, as the concerns that lay behind their making – with death, ageing, war, the diffculties and importance of love, adapting to fast-changing worlds – become increasingly alien and hard to understand. Further additions to the art canon, lacking engagement with such psychological complexity, will be somewhat facile, thin, and tending to the decorative. And though losses, harms, risks, and dangers will all remain, their frequencies and importance will be much diminished. With Scheffer then, as with Williams, there are, despite the excesses, sound points remaining. A world where everyone is pretty much secure through a vastly extended adulthood, whether or not there’s an eventual ending with death, is one in which life promises to be mostly trivial, shallow, and less than engaging. The relation between these two critiques should be noted. Start with an apparent structural similarity. Boredom is a feeling in us, elicited in reaction to a perceived feature of the world – the repetition of events. And the feeling that our lives are shallow, and decisions unimportant, is also brought on by a perception – here of the endless time ahead. But there are important differences. First, ‘feeling’ is notoriously ambiguous, and picks out, in the frst of these cases an emotional condition in us, and in the second a belief or recognition. So, it might be said that once you become aware of the vastness ahead then you will believe, and it will be true, that triviality sets in – pressures to act are relieved, and your deliberations become unimportant – whether or not you are distressed about it. Awareness of repetition, until it leads to boredom, isn’t similarly problematic. A second difference follows concerning the occasion of this awareness. Boredom, we should think, will take some time to surface. Even if you know that you will, eventually, have seen Hamlet countless times, your frst encounters will be as novel and as involving as they are now, when death is close. Triviality, in contrast, will threaten early in your life.29 Once you realize you have centuries or more to master your scales – there is no pressure to get to music college soon, your fngers won’t stiffen within decades, there’ll always be free time in your diary – then the pressure is off. And thus there’s a third difference, related to opt-outs. If life can be ended then perhaps there’s no reason not to take an elixir now, just because eventually you’ll be bored. But as the triviality problem will be evident from the outset, so too are reasons against. Consider also the still unsettled question of whether immortality is yours alone or whether it’s a shared condition. The assumption has been that we’re in this together, but if we’re not then this will make for signifcant differences where triviality is concerned, yet interact with boredom to a lesser degree. Insofar as others continue to be injured, to suffer and to die in familiar ways, then the immortal has ample opportunity for non-trivial engagement with their lives, and is perhaps susceptible himself to feel estrangement, grief, and loss. And as further generations come and go so will change, invention, additions to history and culture continue as now. You are in this case perhaps less likely to think of existence overall as trivial or shallow. But as your life, and the lives of others contrast markedly, so loneliness and alienation are

192

Immortality

likely to increase. Boredom, in contrast, might affect you whatever the fate of others. If they remain mortal it may take a little longer for boredom to set in, but you can be bored by endless innovation as much as by stasis. And even if there are worthwhile things to do, in helping others, you might fnd these endless demands unutterably tedious and dull. Objections and counters These arguments against immortality have by many been thought unimpressive. Surely life is a good, and it is only natural, and rational, to want more of it. And against the immortality sceptics or curmudgeons30 it’s been insisted variously that different sorts of boredom, and then again different sorts of pleasures, need to be distinguished; that personal idiosyncrasies are playing a bigger role than is acknowledged, that less familiar visions of an immortal life should also be considered; and that we have more inner resources, adaptability, imagination than is often allowed.31 These objections, to varying degrees, all carry some weight, but neither alone nor together do they demolish the arguments against. There are two counters to be made; one of them can be stated briefy, while the other will take more time. Consider the many arguments against the inevitability of boredom. It can be complained that these, in the main, just don’t take seriously enough the vast differences between shorter and somewhat longer lives, on the one hand, and very long or endless lives on the other. It is easy enough, to say, for example, that you can’t imagine tiring of sex, or ice cream, or glasses of water, or learning to play new musical instruments, but as you very probably can’t begin to imagine living for a million years in any event, this isn’t a very weighty reply. Similarly, you might suppose there are countless interesting and important things to do, places to visit, people to meet. But the numbers here are all of them fnite and low: centuries, rather than millennia, will allow for considerable inroads. Williams’ emphasis on the case of EM – someone who gives in really rather soon – may in part be responsible for his critics neglecting properly to consider the vastness of time ahead. And his insistence on inevitable and intolerable boredom similarly allows for objections which, however, sidestep the proper target. For it’s one thing to argue that I’d never be bored to death and another that immortality is worth having. So attend instead to a different strand, one that has not so far been foregrounded, and the case against immortality might become more secure. Right at the essay’s opening, and on several occasions later, Williams insists that a life without death would be meaningless,32 and thus not something we could have reason to want. Scheffer claims to have offered a different route to the same conclusion, but stresses instead the related notion that all our key values, those that make life worth living, give it meaning, are threatened or undermined when that life has no end.33 The contentions here need some unpacking. And we can ask three questions. What, for these writers, is meaning? When is it lost? How important is this loss?

Immortality 193 Even though neither of them spells out in any detail what he takes a meaningful life to be, both, I think, would be broadly sympathetic to that account offered in the last chapter. Thus, as before, some enthusiasm for, and some success with, worthwhile projects. And so given immortality then both components are under threat. Our attraction to and engagement with worthwhile projects will diminish, in part as soon as we realize the opportunities for such engagement is now unlimited, and in part as time passes, and the psychological effects of repetition kick in. There will be less enthusiasm for doing things. And, at least in the world where everyone is immortal, there is less of importance than needs to be done. On both counts, then, the immortal life will strike against meaning. How important is this? Should we think that we ought to want a meaningful life, and that anyone satisfed with less is selling themselves short? Or is simply a brute fact about us that this is the life we all, or mostly, do want? If either claim is true then we have reasons not to want immortality. It isn’t altogether clear, but it at least appears that both Williams and Scheffer incline to think that meaning matters. Yet earlier I raised doubts about such claims, suggesting that this concern with meaning can put us at odds with an equally legitimate and more readily satisfed concern with happiness. For those whose lives are meaningful, and who want that meaningful life to continue, immortality, it seems, offers no reward. This isn’t to say that an immortal life would be worse than nothing. Some such lives may be tolerable enough, not suffused with boredom, perhaps pleasant, and perhaps ones we might be able to imagine ourselves living. An animal might live such a life, and so too might someone who ‘truly lives in the moment’.34 Even someone who is more aware of time’s passage, who makes plans and has some categorical desires, might want such a life, hoping, for example, to enjoy forever a heady mix of music and drink.35 Someone might, I suppose, simply want and gain pleasure from the mere fact that they stay alive. But Scheffer can still object that such a life is trivial and shallow, and Williams can reiterate his claim that even if boredom doesn’t kick in – for absent from such lives are the levels of engagement and commitment which, when too often aimed at the very same objects, lead to ennui – this life lacks meaning. Moreover, this can and should be acknowledged by those happy to live such a life – I can surely want the good times to continue even while granting that it’s not really important that they do so. So the objections to immortality – it is incompatible with meaning – remain in place. There is one fnal point to be made here, relating to the distinction drawn in the previous chapter between a life that lacks meaning, on the one hand, and a meaningless life on the other. If I’m right to link meaning with enthusiasm for projects, then it will seem that a life can lack enthusiasms, and thus lack meaning, and yet be worth living nevertheless. A meaningless life falls below this – even if you don’t yet desire it there is, you recognize, no reason to resist death, and nothing to counter any of the various circumstances – profound boredom, loneliness, pain – which in time make it desirable.

194

Immortality

Solutions Living a life has us situated in some world – at some place and time in the panoply of things, people, and events that are there to be encountered – and then responding, reacting to this world in some way. We can select for ourselves neither the world, nor our reactions to it, even if we can play some part in the shaping of both. Living an immortal life, the claim has been, won’t altogether work for us, and will deliver us to an existence which, even if pleasant, will lack meaning. If matters here are to be improved then either the world – and thus the sorts of interactions that are on offer – or our reactions and responses, need to be changed. For Williams, one thing that can’t in any satisfactory way be altered is the tendency, in any long-lasting life, to boredom. Given a world of repetition, some limits relating to character change, and, as I’ve added, some proper attempts at engagement, then boredom sooner or later is inevitable. Most of the alleged solutions to the immortality problem tinker with this, imagining circumstances where repetition is diminished, or fashioning accounts where, though fully aware of repetition, our boredom threshold is lowered. Here’s a different response.36 My boredom at seeing Hamlet for the twentieth time depends not just on repetition, and my having seen it those nineteen times before, but also, to some considerable extent, on remembering, and in some detail, what I’ve seen. Wipe out the memories and I see it each time as something new. And, of course, it’s the same for visits to Paris, games of chess, Mahler, breakfast cereal, seminar discussions. So much, then, for boredom. Obliterate memories of the past and there’s no reason not to go on, and in the same vein, forever. This, though, is a too radical solution – someone with no memory is again someone who lives too much in the moment. That life is not one we want, and perhaps not even a life for one of us, a person. But one needs, to get this solution off the ground, not an entire absence but only some failures of memory. I can remember having seen Hamlet a handful of times before, and still enjoy seeing it again. Indeed, it may be better this way – for many of the things we experience subsequent encounters are richer and more satisfying than the frst, with complexity in our response depending on memory’s operation. Consider now the triviality problem. The world offers me endless opportunities to revisit my career, my friendships, my travels.37 There is thus less pressure now to get things right. Recognizing this, I see that my decisions about what there is presently to do are lacking in importance. The danger, then, is that life seems trivial and shallow, and lacking in meaning. Again, there are several wellknown attempts to deal with the problems here,38 and again there is a simpler solution. If I am simply unable fully to grasp that these opportunities lie before me, unable to anticipate or see ahead of time how they offer me endless scope for trying again, revising, making amends, and how therefore they cancel the importance of what I am to do now, then triviality will recede. Again, there’s no need to rule out all hope of anticipating one’s future situation. It is only when this vision is unimpeded, and stretches a long way forward, that the problems emerge.

Immortality

195

These solutions are, of course, linked. Both the differences between knowing about and remembering our past, on the one hand, and knowing of and anticipating our future, on the other, depend on our abilities imaginatively to see ourselves at times other than now, to recollect or foretell, and in some detail, how it was, or will be for us then. Imagine, then, that you have less imagination. These abilities will be reined in, and resultant feelings of boredom and the shallowness of life will be reduced. The links go further. Consider again Williams’ claim that someone of a fxed character has, in effect, limited opportunities for what they might meaningfully pursue. I queried but didn’t outright reject this claim. But insofar as it is defensible, and in effect rules out some possible futures as, for me, live options, it brings together memory and anticipation. It’s not simply that these two forms of projection stimulate roughly parallel but independent negative responses in us. Rather, my having detailed memories of countless past repetitions promises, as I see ahead, to repeat itself into the future. My problem isn’t just that I’m bored now, nor even that I will be bored in times to come, but that I see now how longstanding this boredom has been, and see no alternative to its endlessly continuing. Loosen memory’s hold, reduce the effcacy of anticipation, and this palpable threat to meaning very much recedes. There are surely real strengths to this as a way of addressing the immortality problem. For to suppose there might be signifcant limitations to our powers of imagination doesn’t involve any radical and fanciful departures from either the actual world or those versions of the immortal world that are most likely to offer what we want. On the contrary, we are already creatures with modest powers of projection and recall. And what might be taken often to be present as a subtext in discussions of immortality – creatures thousands of years old remembering all they did before, seeing themselves way into the endless future – involves a double fantasy, offering a gratuitously altered model of what these hyper-extended lives would be like. Here’s a second strength. A familiar objection to the experience machine, as, like the elixir, a device to give us more of a life that we want, is that it will involve us in having false beliefs – I think I am in Arabia, wearing silk, eating sherbet, and hostage to dancing girls when in sad truth I am in some laboratory hooked up to a machine. Should we mount a similar objection here? No. I don’t claim, falsely, to have seen Hamlet only once or twice before – I know I’ve seen it hundreds rather than a handful of times. But it is simply that I don’t remember. Similarly, I know I can some centuries hence be a priest or politician, but can’t imagine myself in these roles, can’t see how they offer me genuine opportunities. And so they don’t interfere with my choices, and the perceived importance of those choices, now. Links with reality are, then, maintained. There is, it will seem, a downside. For surely the powers of memory and imagination are good – it is reasonable and natural to want more of them. So having to posit the cultivation of handicaps, in order to cope with immortality, has something unsatisfactory and self-sacrifcial about it. We shouldn’t, however, be too quick in agreeing with this. First, the context here, where, in a nutshell the worry about immortality is that we can have too much of a good thing, is one that itself

196

Immortality

should warn against any facile and thoroughgoing assumption that more is better. Second, a poor memory, understood as an evil, typically has two prominent features. It involves inequalities – the degree of memory failure varies considerably from person to person – and, understandably, we don’t want to have a worse memory than those around us, suffering the relative disadvantages that will bring. Nor do we want to suffer its unpatterned and unpredictable occurrences – crystal memories of the distant past, only a blur for yesterday, sudden losses of important information that just moments ago was accessible. There’s a similar unhappy randomness that can impact, if to a lesser extent, on the imaginative grasp of time ahead. It is not, for example, helpful for a sufferer from some terminal disease to be captive to clear visions of an unhappy death, and not to apprehend the several good years still, and before that, to come. What I am supposing might be of real assistance where the immortality problem is concerned is, then, not simply an extension of what we have, or how we are, now. There are tweaks to be made. And I’m supposing that we might all undergo equal and systematic failures of memory and imagination, such that the more distant the past, and the further away the future, the less precise our grip. I remember, let’s say, very well all of last year, reasonably well a decade back, nothing at all from a century ago. And though I anticipate in some detail certain events of next week, medium and longer-term futures are proportionately less accessible and of lesser concern. The result here amounts to what we might call a moving envelope model of time. Rather than seeing always that we have forever ahead and, as time passes, an always increasing expanse behind, our horizons will, though always shifting, always be limited. Simplifying a little, we can suppose that we will always remember, though fading to the margin, the last ffty years that have passed, and always imaginatively project ourselves, again with declining precision, into the next ffty years ahead. The horizons move as we move, and the vistas never overwhelm. Utilize such a model, and immortality’s promises are in large part fulflled, its problems in the main dispensed with. You’ll never die, and you know this. Insofar as that was a prime concern, in contemplating the elixir, you get here what you want. You live forever and know this. But perhaps you don’t get here what you want. It doesn’t seem to you as if you are living forever, or even for a very long time. It seems, from the envelope, as if your existence is bounded, and, other than in some abstract fashion, as if there is only a limited time to come. Is this a shortcoming? My suspicion is that more people simply want life to go on and on, never ending, than want not only the reality but also the appearance of a very long life. Remember Max, who takes the elixir as he predicts he’ll never want to die, rather than because he has detailed plans for the further future in hand. If what he does makes sense, and many are like him, then, after all, many are getting what they want here. The model allows too for the sorts of gradual change, and thus changes in interests and concerns, that occur within our current and limited lives. If you live forever, rather than to 80, you are likely over time to change much more than is now the case. But only if the changes are abrupt, or if they take you beyond the range of a human life, should there be reservations about that.

Immortality

197

Can this envelope existence not only sidestep some problems, but really offer us a meaningful life? This is harder. Consider some variants. Suppose you are alone as an immortal. Many activities that are now often meaningful – fghting disease or helping the poor – are available. Nor are the immortals hampered by acute feelings of having done this countless times before.39 As an immortal among mortals you are perhaps able to have children and fnd meaning in seeing them develop and grow. You’ll see them die too, of course. That may well be sad, and bad for you, but is unlikely to strike at meaning. Suppose everyone is immortal. These sorts of meaningful lives are unavailable, but perhaps there are others, linked, say, to advancing maths or science or philosophy, or writing valuable novels or plays.40 Suppose such options dry up as progress is made, and stimuli for innovation and creativity in artistic endeavours become infrequent. Still, the immortal can forever struggle with Handel or fnd new things in Proust. Is this meaningful? Imagine yourself in this situation. You are seriously engaged with worthwhile and valuable works. But you know, though there’s no detailed recall, that you’ve been here many times before. And only because you lack this recall can you enjoy your activities now. It may be that we just have no frm intuitions about what to say in such a case. But this life isn’t in any obvious way one without meaning.41 Can such an existence be preferable to one we might, let’s say if lucky, enjoy today? The key difference is that right now, death gets closer, and comes to us, whether or not we want it in the end. Can this be a good thing, making this mortal life better than the alternative? That alternative no longer threatens us with boredom or feelings of triviality, but even so, we might write in, as an additional safeguard, the opt-out option. Is a life where death is within your control, and can always be delayed better than one where it is not? Many will suppose it is. Reality There is no elixir of life nor will there ever be. The problems of immortality are ones we’ll never have to face. And even if signifcant life extensions for some of us may be on the cards, surviving for thousands of years is perhaps still thousands of years away. Most of us will have, at best, a life of something under a century. That is supposed, often, to be in some respects a bad thing, and hence the impetus to immortality as a means to a remedy. Is it bad? And can it, by less extravagant means, be made better? A life of 80, 90, or 100 years isn’t a short life. It is, of course, short relative to the life of an oak tree, but compared with a butterfy it’s long. It’s much shorter than, conceivably, a human life might be, but it’s much longer than many such lives actually are. The problem, for many, is that life seems short. It seems to us that we are just for a brief time upon the stage. This actual life will end with death. Insofar as that is a problem it’s one we can’t do much about. But also, it seems as if it ends in death – we are too often aware of this, affected, perhaps weighed down by it. Consider the sorts of things people say when, for some reason or other, they become aware of life’s apparent brevity: ‘It will soon be over’, ‘Where did all the

198

Immortality

time go?’ ‘It seems like only yesterday…’. And, of course, there are connections here. Near the beginning of life, when there’s little behind, there can seem a good long time ahead. Notoriously, things seem to accelerate with age. As, say the last thirty years, on looking back, seem to have passed so quickly, so the thirty ahead will, we fear, too soon have gone. Are there things we can do, strategies we might adopt, that could impact on how things seem to us, such that life doesn’t seem so short? I’m going to suggest, of course, that some version of the moving envelope model, some restrictions on the powers of anticipation and recall, will aid us here. But certain other suggestions need frst to be aired. It is simple. We should do more, pack more in to the time available. Perhaps we can sleep less, speed up, multi-task. Then there will be more to look back on, and more to be ftted in to any period ahead. Does this help? Not with the short term. The more you cram into the day, or the week, the more quickly it will seem to pass. Nor is it clearly better in the longer term. Having had a busy life is unlikely, surely, to hamper the feeling that time has just rushed by. And believing you’ll be busy until you die isn’t going to make death seem right now to be further away. Nor, in a hasty overreaction to this, should we do less. Try this, and time now goes more slowly, indeed might seem to drag, but in looking back and ahead still the end points are close. A considerably different strategy will have us planning less, living more like an animal, or in the moment. But this is not a life for us. An animal is not a person. And to live just in the moment is not to live the life of a person. A third option, more complex and demanding, might be to plan out the future in some detail, arranging matters, as far as is possible, so that desires end more or less as life ends. This will make death less bad when it comes, and the apparent brevity of life more tolerable. And the approach here might be combined with procedures recommended by Parft,42 wherein as we get older, redirecting our gaze can compensate for the evidently limited time ahead by attending more steadily to times past. Memory, and accessing memory, is a source of pleasure, and one that we might take advantage of as we age. Perhaps, though, there is something desperate and calculating about this – clearly we are attempting to make the best of a bad job. The approach advocated here borrows elements from several of these suggestions. I might call it the double envelope model. We live, all of us, within a limited period of time and are often aware, to some considerable extent, of both its ends. Through much of our adult lives we can both remember a fair bit of childhood, and at the same time anticipate the years, and the decline, ahead. As time passes we shift further from the beginning and closer to the end. It might be said that we move through this unmoving envelope. Suppose now that even though we know about these end points our powers of memory and anticipation, as before, are limited. We have a clear grasp of things, say, just ffteen years either side of now, while events of twenty fve years away are always inaccessible. We are in effect within a moving envelope which is itself within, and smaller than, the still envelope constituting the whole of our life. What effect does this have? The suggestion is that life will seem longer than it does now, when, at least often, we

Immortality

199

grasp more, and more sharply. When those boundaries, which though we know them to be there, are accessed either unclearly, or not at all, they will seem to us to be further away. Consider a spatial analogue, and looking over a landscape on a somewhat foggy day. You see less, and less clearly, as trees or hills are further away. The effect is to increase the apparent distances between things and to make the space in front of you seem bigger. See things clearly, see more, and the prospect is fattened, distances disappear. There might seem to be a puzzle now in considering together this suggestion, along with the earlier discussion of immortality. Limit memory and imagination and an immortal life will, I’ve argued, seem shorter than otherwise it would. The suggestion here is that if the starting point is an actual and mortal life, adoption of the same strategy will make life seem longer. That can seem paradoxical in its own terms, and at odds with what allegedly happens where immortality is concerned. How is this resolved? The critical points are, frst, the blurring of boundaries and, second, the different relations between the time available and the reach of our desires. In both models, I am supposing, we won’t see clearly where life begins and ends. The effects of this differ when coupled with different end points. The fear with immortality is that there will seem too much time to fll, at least if we are to sustain psychologies appropriately resembling those in our current life. The envelope model, limiting our gaze, brings down the apparent time to manageable proportions. An actual life can seem too short. The model here, though operating in the same way, starts from a different position. Focussing again on what is near to hand, the view of more distant periods is occluded, and their true location – here alarmingly close – is disguised. Nature, culture I’ve said that life seems to us to be short, and that we want more of it. But how widespread are such desires? And what accounts for them? We might wonder whether people in all places are as committed as many of us are to extending their lives. We might wonder too – and this will be the focus here – whether such concerns have been prevalent at all times. I’ll suggest that this hankering after immortality is relatively recent (and perhaps also relatively local) and is linked with changes or developments in both ideology and technology. That we want more time is itself, and in various ways, a product of the times. I’ll suggest also that what we want here is in some ways its own undoing. Immortality arrests time within us. And this is most likely then to spread into what lies without. Start with the hankering. It might at frst seem that interests in immortality are both wide-ranging and long-standing. Aren’t there evident concerns in religions and mythologies with our gaining, in one way or another, immortal lives? And shouldn’t we see our current concerns as just a secularized version of the same hope? It is more complex. While belief in some afterlife has a central role in many traditions this, as I suggested at this chapter’s opening, is usually construed as being very different from anything we might have here on earth. Moreover, it is typically seen as a separate and detached existence – beyond our

200

Immortality

understanding, and failing to intersect with our current lives. We are not going to have, nor should we hope for, encounters or conversations with the dead.43 Sitting alongside this understanding of the life to come are implicit prohibitions on our wanting something like immortality on earth. Although literature has many stories in which mortals gain superhuman powers – often, but not exclusively related to a longer life – these usually end badly, with their protagonists, and also their readers, having learned something of the hubris in wanting to overstep deep-rooted and God-given boundaries.44 This long prevalent picture considerably shifts around and after the enlightenment, when both growing religious scepticism and enthusiasms for scientifc and technological innovations encourage greater probing of the limits of our existence. Frankenstein, though not concerned with immortality as such, offers a relatively early exploration of our increasing but non-magical powers over matters of life and death. Orthodoxy further retreats post-Darwin, and it becomes more and more diffcult to counter optimism about what naturalistic and rational investigation might uncover. Various real and signifcant medical advances, many but not all focussed on limiting the spread of disease, boost life expectancy considerably and only rarely encounter the ‘playing God’ objection. And it is within this new, different, and in many ways liberated milieu that an interest in spiritualism develops. With its claims allegedly supported not by faith but by reason, belief in meaningful encounters with those beyond the grave spread widely in the late Victorian period. The crucial point here is that the dead are understood to be both able and willing to contact and converse with the living. So even though disembodied, their psychologies are the same as ours – immortality no longer in all respects calls for a new beginning.45 The general picture, then, in the early 20th century, is one in which many are increasingly concerned with living on, either in a disembodied or an embodied form. Optimism is far from thoroughgoing, however, and reservations about meddling remain. So although there is a substantial growth in literary fctions dealing with immortality, with most of these given a contemporary and quasi-real world setting, in many of them, including, in both its versions, The Makropulos Case itself, the endless life is far from unambiguously good.46 Even if there has been some shifting since, with narratives more often upbeat, and cryonics, transhumanism, and various life extension schemes getting, apparently, growing support, this ambivalence persists with the recent philosophical debate for and against immortality itself providing evidence of this. I’ve said here something about why, with – though over-simplifying – a shift from religion to science, investigation into immortality is, as time passes, increasingly permitted. But we can ask now about why it seems also to be increasingly desired. An answer – again over-simplifying– involves our self-concern. If such a concern is, as often alleged, a feature of the modern period – say, from the Renaissance on – then so too are adjunct ways of noting and identifying this self and recording its changes over time. Autobiographies, journals, diaries and the roman a clef emerge as important literary forms at the beginning of the period, and comprise a signifcant and much encouraged part of writing today. But though

Immortality

201

words provide access to many aspects of the past, pictures, even if they can’t do more, do it differently, and with a detailing and immediacy that is hard to surpass. Until relatively recently very few people would have had any image at all of their younger selves, and the skills of portrait painters, for those who could afford them, were often neither aimed at, nor succeeding in, genuine likenesses. Again, the 19th century, and the invention and rapid spread of photography changes this, with the situation today in which most of us have far more images of ourselves than we can manage, catalogue, or recall. It’s hardly surprising that there is increasingly a concern with ageing when one’s past and prettier self is now, forever, and often publicly, on view. The focus thus far is on what we know of our earlier selves, and how technology now buttresses memory to such an extent that some effort, and some rejection of prevailing social norms, is needed to let the past go.47 And it’s the same with the pasts of others. The proliferation of books (and within them the number and quality of illustrations), flms, sound recordings, and TV programmes provide now detailed and penetrable accounts of how things – both momentous events and the humdrum of daily life – were in earlier times. In the internet age, digitized versions of these resources are even more readily available, often at effectively no cost, and in a manner that seems to encourage constant browsing. Many of us probably know more about ancient Rome than did any of the Romans; we’ve seen more good art than anyone alive before the 20th century; we’ve heard more, and better, performances of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms than either the composers or their contemporaries. What is the effect of all this? The upshot is that in many ways what was until recently an unavoidable focus on the here and now is replaced by a situation in which a form of time travel (and space travel also) is available to, and hopes to capture, all of us. For some the choices are unmanageable, resulting in either endless and indiscriminate picking at surfaces, or – in reaction to this – staying just with the comfortable and familiar. For others, sustained and coherent exploration of both times and places distant from now is possible to degrees undreamt of previously. And there is, of course, just a lot more stuff that is, or seems, worth exploring. Whereas until relatively recently persons of learning could hope to make considerable inroads into their culture’s resources – there were overall simply fewer things in existence, and much of it was of little contemporary interest – all of us today are fully aware that we know only a very little of what is worth knowing. This quasi-time travel can, even if to a considerably lesser degree, take us forward as well. It might seem at frst that we have today few projects as long term as paving the Roman Empire, or building a gothic cathedral, but the same technologies that access the past can look into the future also. We have some, and want more, knowledge regarding climate change, the management of nuclear waste and energy more generally, population issues, and the trajectories of asteroids. And popular culture – perhaps flm in particular – feeds and feeds on these concerns, such that many of us today are much more habituated to speculating on the future of life on earth and, of course, imagining ourselves within it.

202

Immortality

Earlier I suggested how looking into a foggy landscape, where impeded vision distorts and increases apparent distances, might serve as a metaphor for limits to memory and anticipation, and a focus more towards the present. I can revisit the image. With current technologies it is as if we can in a helicopter zoom up close to and investigate any point, and as if too, with all this hovering, there is no longer for us any frm base or home. Much of this is undoubtedly attractive. It is hardly surprising if, given now so much we might do, so many times and places we might explore, we want to remain alive, and young, and in good health, in order to do it.

Summary I’ve come down here, though tentatively and with qualifcations, in favour of immortality. Many of those who oppose it, and certainly the writers most focussed on above, adopt the curious position of holding that life as we live it now, with disease and death ever present, and the latter often much earlier than we’d like, is probably the best we can hope for – any substantial change and we forfeit meaning. There are perhaps residues of religion in this – it is and should be thus. But it would be a strange coincidence if such harmony were naturally to prevail. And it is hard to believe that living forever would be intolerable, worse than nothing and, in all its guises, altogether meaningless. Things might be better, then. And I’ve wanted to suggest that we can construe either an immortal life, or even a much extended life, in various ways – matters involving ageing, illness, control, and company might all be modifed to improve what, in fantasy, is offered. In particular, I’ve argued that relatively modest adjustments to our already faltering memories and imaginations will take the sting out of the best known objections to immortality. The threats of boredom and triviality are at their most acute where recall and projection are improbably effective. Impede these, and the threats recede. There isn’t need to think that what we have is the best there might be. Nevertheless, what we have we are, perhaps, more or less stuck with. And so, in later sections, my concern has been to explain how just those adjustments we might make to better cope with immortality will serve also to improve for us the limited lot we now enjoy. Rather than fully remembering our pasts, and in detail anticipating our futures, it will be better for us if we are more inclined to live, not in the moment, but closer to the here and now. And such localizing of our perspective, I claimed, is even more likely to beneft us given recent and increasing cultural pressures to look further, live longer, stay younger. For us, at least, not much of this is going to happen.

Notes 1 The argument of this chapter derives from, and often resembles that in Belshaw (2015), much of the work for which was generously funded by support from the John Templeton Foundation.

Immortality

203

2 Recall that in Chapter 1 I connected a very similar account of a non-earthly existence with the best reading of the Sanctity View. 3 See Belshaw (2009) for discussion and defence of the view that the dead exist. 4 See Philip Larkin’s ‘Aubade’ (in his Collected Poems) for a moving articulation of this fear. 5 In his essay ‘Death’, Nagel (1979a) appears to suggest that having experiences, irrespective of its contents, is a good thing, and a reason to avoid death. Look more closely, however, and the strongly counterintuitive position – a life of wholly bad experiences is always better than no life at all – isn’t advanced here. Rather, Nagel claims only that the positive value of experience can offset some degree of badness in experience’s contents. But perhaps this is counterintuitive nevertheless. 6 Suppose that you either die later today, or take the elixir, with these promises. Many more will take it, thinking there’s nothing to lose. That may be right, but even so there’s still nothing to gain. 7 These are, I suggest, the sorts of things most of those interested in immortality, here and now, are likely to want. Religions often promote very different accounts of the immortal life. Though of course I have doubts, there’s no room here for discussion of whether these are coherent or attractive. See Chappell (2009) for one example of such an account. 8 One objection to immortality, not infrequently encountered, is that the whole notion is deeply incoherent. Nothing will go on forever – the laws of physics will see to that. This isn’t a good objection. We are – as most discussants acknowledge – already in fantasy land in imagining our living for even a thousand years. There’s no reason not to take the fantasy further. 9 See, for a defence, Belshaw (2000a, 2000b). And for a different position on this, Brueckner and Fischer (1986). 10 Rosati (2013) comments on this but insists also, in a lengthy footnote, that many people do long for an immortal, or at least an extended life. I’m a little uneasy about lumping together those wanting to be around forever with those hoping to hit 100 in tolerable health. 11 In saying this I assume the model under consideration has us as either necessarily immortal or with death in our control. Immortals who can still suffer accidental death may fear it more than we do. 12 Williams (1973), Scheffer (2013). While Williams was very much treading new ground, concerns similar to those raised by Scheffer can be found elsewhere, including, as he acknowledges, Nussbaum (1994). 13 Scheffer is puzzled by Williams’ claim as to her age, and says the opera and play report her as being 337. Is this right? She is allegedly born in 1585. The dates of the frst productions, 1922 and December 1926, might explain the apparent discrepancy. 14 Williams (1973: 90). 15 Williams (1973: 84). There is parallel here with Nagel’s claim, discussed in the previous chapter, that there can be lives that avoid absurdity, but not that we would want. 16 Might we suppose that the problem is immortality, and that if she’d known she would in any event be dead before, say, 800, she wouldn’t have given up? This seems implausible. 17 After frst hazarding that ‘perhaps she still laboured under some contingent limitations’, he says, ‘Against this, I am going to suggest that the supposed contingencies are not really contingencies’ (1973: 89). This fts with the earlier claim (1973: 83) that the situation ‘suggests that it was not a peculiarity of EM’s that an endless life was meaningless’. 18 A further point; her boredom will, absenting death, go on forever. Or will it? Williams doesn’t, so far as I can tell, make it clear whether on his account boredom, once it sets in, is there forever. But on two counts this seems unlikely. First, our ordinary experience of boredom is of something that comes and goes. Moods tend to change. Second,

204

19

20 21 22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

Immortality the immortal life goes on for a very long time. On some readings, given enough time, everything that can happen will happen. And as there is nothing incoherent about supposing boredom someday might end, so we should expect this sooner or later to happen. Non-terminal boredom is, perhaps, something we might be more inclined to endure. Moreover, it may be in part just one of ageing’s side effects. And nature may simply be kind in making us less inclined to new or even repeated enthusiasms as we are less able to pursue them. A younger person insists they’ll never tire of life. Someone considerably older plays the wisdom card – just you wait and see. There is, it might seem, little or no support for hypotheses about inevitable boredom to be gleaned from any observations about how things stand in the actual world. It may be that fner distinctions are needed here. Perhaps, after maturity, character changes little. But this is consistent with dropping whole series of long-standing interests, and developing others. Williams (1973: 91). My suggestion, then, is that the desire for some future state, whether or not this is in itself reasonable, gives us reason or grounds to pursue the means to achieving this state. And I’m not clear, of course, that Williams would go this far. Williams (1973: 95). There might seem to be a fnal overstatement that needs mention here. Williams appears to claim, at both ends of his essay, that there is something paradoxical in our dealings with death – on the one hand it seems always better avoided; on the other, and as the discussion purports to show, our mortality is a good thing. We can’t win. But there’s too much mystery-mongering here, and in fact space is left for the surely plausible claim that it is perfectly possible to die at about the right time; when one is done with the important business, and before tedium sets in. For there’s no necessity to bad timing. And as well as simple good luck, we can imagine that we are all able – perhaps encouraged – to choose when to die. See, in particular (1973: 91), and then the reiteration at (1973: 93). Scheffer (2013: 95). Susan Wolf is particularly good, in her commentary, at identifying and querying these excesses in Scheffer’s account. See Wolf (2013: 119–123) in particular. Scheffer (2013: 97). Scheffer himself notes this difference, saying of EM’s predicament that it derives from the backward rather than forward-looking features of her situation (2013: 91). Fischer is, I believe, responsible for introducing this fne term (subsequently taken up by many) into the immortality literature. See his (1994). So see Bortolotti and Nagasawa (2009), Bortolotti (2010), Burley (2009a, 2009b), Chappell (2009), Fischer (1994, 2013), and Wisnewski (2005) for various attempts, none of them I think entirely successful, to counter the curmudgeons. Thus, ‘Immortality, or a state without death, would be meaningless’ (1973: 82), ‘It was not a peculiarity of EM’s that an endless life was meaningless’ (1973: 83), ‘an endless life would be a meaningless one’ (1973: 89). ‘I have been arguing that our confdence in our values depends on our status as mortals who lead temporally bounded lives and that immortality would undermine that confdence. This argument provides a different route to Williams’s conclusion that death gives meaning to life’ Scheffer (2013: 99 to 101). An important detail; on my interpretation of the immortality problem it needs to be emphasized that it is not the mere fact that we have an endless life, but our recognizing this that leads to meaningless. Neither Scheffer here nor Williams in the claims referred to in the previous note make this clear. Nevertheless, I don’t suggest there’s any disagreement on this; it is, I think, implicit in their accounts.

Immortality

205

34 See Elizabeth Harman (2011: 730). Harman considers this in relation to the badness of death. It seems that the impoverishments of such a life are underestimated, and that for one who lives this way it’s true both that death is not bad and that life is meaningless. Fischer (2013) suggests that if we live a bit more like animals and ‘chill out a bit’ (352), we might better cope with an immortal life. Well, yes, but again I doubt this is the life for us. And see Scarre (2006: 60) for similar distinctions between pleasant enough lives and lives for us. 35 Jeremy Wisnewski (2005) has suggested someone might happily enough spend an immortal life learning to play, to a virtuoso level, whole orchestras of musical instruments. This might be engaging, constantly absorbing, and charges that it will inevitably become boring might be resisted. There are a lot of instruments, many will take decades to master, new ones will be developed as time goes on. Suppose we accept all this. Isn’t this still, no matter how much fun, a pretty pointless life? It isn’t the life of Heifetz or Casals or Brendel, but longer and better. Someone devotes their life to an instrument now. This involves commitment and sacrifce, a constant struggle, an inevitable and foreseen decline, with perfection always just out of reach. They select and engage with a repertoire, just some part of what is available, that itself derives from and refects similar struggles, and attempt to convey some of this to an audience that shares with them this ambivalent and uneasy relationship to the human condition. The immortal counterpart, where all such compromises and constraints are absent, reduces this profound and deeply demanding art to a mere hobby or pastime. And Corliss Lamont insists that even after drinking it for 63 years he still ‘loves water’ Lamont (1965: 33). Even if he loves it (or loved it) enough to want to go on living in order to love it some more, this doesn’t strike me as making any signifcant contribution to a meaningful life. 36 Donald Bruckner (2012) is someone who has in not a dissimilar fashion considered the workings of memory in the immortality debate. 37 Again, there’s an assumption here that the world is pretty much stable, with other people in the same immortality boat. 38 See Nussbaum (2013) for valuable refections on this. 39 You know you’ve done such things countless times before, but people today know that others have done such things countless times before. What impacts there might be on meaning are perhaps roughly comparable. 40 See again Wolf’s critique of Scheffer and her suggestions for doomsday activities: Wolf (2013: 122). 41 Your project is learning, and committing to memory, all of Beethoven’s piano sonatas. That this will be, for you, a worthwhile and meaningful activity is hardly undermined by someone’s pointing out that Brendel, Pollini, Barenboim, and others have already done this. Why then should it be an objection that you have already done this? 42 Parft (1984: 174–177). The suggestion here, that we might proftably be selective in our memories, choosing to remember the good, interestingly compares with mine, that we should come to remember the relatively near. 43 This isn’t, of course, an altogether uniform picture – there have, for example, long been beliefs in ghosts, visions of Jesus, Mary and saints, and the rituals and festivities of hallowe’en. But in the main the dead involved here are troubled spirits, perhaps temporarily escaped from purgatory and needing some help from us to move on. Moreover, many such beliefs reveal pagan infuences, and are often met by established churches with suspicion. The happily dead, within at least the prevailing Western traditions, are far gone. 44 Consider, for example, Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus and, more directly connected with immortality, Swift’s Struldbrugs in Gulliver’s Travels and Tennyson’s eponymous protagonist of Tithonous. The interest in both texts, with respectively comic and tragic

206

Immortality

overtones, is in winning immortality without at the same time putting a halt on ageing. 45 See, for much more on both spiritualism and communism – and we might think of these as concerned, respectively, to discover and to create immortality – Gray (2012). 46 Other examples include Dracula, She, and Dorian Gray. 47 Here Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tapes, concerned, of course, with sound rather than vision, constitutes a notable investigation of this backward concern, aided by technology.

10 Extinction

Suppose extinction occurs. Will something bad occur? And, supposing it does, is this something we have reason to regret, and, if possible, try to prevent? Supposing we do, then we might ask, how much reason? These questions presuppose answers to others. So we frst need to ask, just what are the things, or sort of things, that go extinct? And what needs to happen to these things in order for extinction to occur? What, then, is extinction? I’ll start with these preliminary questions. And I’ll frst consider extinction in broad terms, as affecting a whole range of living things. But the bulk of the chapter is concerned with our extinction. Most people are agreed that this will occur sooner or later. Is this then bad? How bad is it? What is bad about it? Or might it, as some have supposed, be a good thing?

Species Death and extinction are closely connected. The sorts of things that become extinct – most obviously biological species – have members – individual organisms – which are precisely the sorts of things that die. Species themselves don’t die, but they do, as we say, and marking this link with death, die out. But though the connections are close, there are profound differences here. The sorts of things that die are very often medium sized three-dimensional objects of familiar kinds. But just what a species is appears considerably harder to explain. Certainly it isn’t such an object. Nor is it some number or collection of such objections – we can instead talk here of a population. One suggestion might be that a species is something like a blueprint or set of instructions for the generation of the relevant individuals, but this doesn’t seem quite right either. Better – though still not good – is to think of a species as akin to a recipe plus ingredients. Get from these, suitably manipulated, a cake; and get from the species, when all goes well, more organisms of this or that kind. If the species is, as this might suggest, some kind of abstract object, then there are implications for its location. Tigers exist in space and time, but the species tiger (Panthera tigris) is better thought of as having a temporal but not a spatial location. It would be odd to say the species exists where and only where individual tigers exist. And it would be odd, too, to say the species has

208

Extinction

grown in size, either as the individual members themselves grow in size or as the number of such members, and so the size of some population, increases. Probably the central diffculty with the notion of a species concerns boundaries. Consider any two individuals. What are the conditions under which these are members of the same, or alternatively, of different species? Stay with cats. Some people claim that the animal lurking in their garden is a tiger. What could render this claim false? Certainly we have profound grounds for doubt if the animal – let’s allow it is an animal – looks nothing like a tiger and has altogether un-tigerish dispositions. It is, apart from the ears, very much smaller, has no stripes, seems to prefer carrots to all other food, and is noticeably timid. Most of us would think it a rabbit. But suppose it does look and act like a tiger, and not only superfcially. As it’s an animal it has inside blood, familiar organs, some content to its stomach. It seems to need food, water, sleep. Still the claim to be truly a tiger requires more. We discover now that however friendly it is, it is unable to successfully mate with other tigers. The problem isn’t illness or age but rather, as it seems, some genetic mismatch. Foxes cannot breed with wolves, and unions between horses and donkeys produce infertile offspring, asses or mules, which are themselves members of no species. Similar frustration here – nothing happens, or not enough happens – will offer further grounds for denying that this animal and the true tiger belong to the same species. But suppose instead that there are produced healthy tiger-like offspring which can in turn mate with each other, or with members of the parent species, and generate even further individuals. There is a third consideration. It is often claimed that for two animals to be members of the same species, they must have a common ancestry. Imagine this animal, whatever its appearance and whatever its potential for offspring, is itself the offspring of two further animals, neither of them tigers, both of them engineered towards this express purpose. Or, more fancifully, imagine the Martians have built it from scratch and then fown it into suburbia. Again, it seems, this will defeat the claim for it to be a tiger.1 This third consideration stands apart from the other two. Our interests in and concerns for life generally, and then with species and their loss, is skewed towards the present and the future. Of course, there are interests in the past too, frst insofar as it throws light on the present and future, and second, though to a lesser extent, just for its own sake. But much of our attention is practical – we are concerned for how extinctions will impact on lives now, and then on lives to come. So then it matters that there are organisms of a certain kind that will play a certain role in our and in other lives, and it matters too that these organisms are able to generate further organisms of the same or a very similar kind. But for such practical purposes it matters not how these organisms came to be. A relatively simple example; some yeast is important to cheese production. The yeast is under threat. Imagine scientists are able to synthesize a yeast with the same properties. Cheese production continues as before. Similarly, though less simply, Martian tigers might, whatever their origins, be able to stem the disappearance of tigers here on Earth. Suppose this is so. Will this show that tigers from both planets are, as it turns out, members of the same species? We can abandon the

Extinction

209

third consideration and give a revised account of species membership. Or we can insist that history matters, maintain that there are two species involved here and allow, as probably we will, that from them a third species, whose members are indistinguishable from their ancestors, will emerge. Either way, we should allow that all these animals are of the same kind. All talk of kinds, kinds of things, this and that being of the same kind is, surely, best seen as loose. And that there are only slight, and non-systematic differences between these animals, regarding both appearance and behaviour, will warrant our lumping them together. But suppose there is resistance here too. Even then, we can still insist that these creatures are as good as tigers, and that what matters in extinction is here avoided. If history counts, we can say, then some of our species talk marks distinctions without important differences. The discussion here has focussed on cases where, even if a species is lost, the badness of extinction has been avoided. But we shouldn’t think that extinction concerns only species. Most obviously, as for example with dinosaurs, it can occur at a higher level – genus, order, family, or class – in the taxonomic tree. But it seems it can occur at a lower level also. We talk often enough of extinct breeds – of cattle, pigs, or sheep – of extinct varieties – of tomatoes, grapes, and so on. These kinds of extinctions don’t require the loss of a species, even if the kinds of things lost are themselves species members. But even this isn’t in all cases necessary. Imagine, for example, that certain changes occur so that horses and donkeys are no longer capable of interbreeding. Then we might talk of their hybrid and sterile offspring – asses and mules which are not themselves species members – also becoming extinct. And, of course, there’s talk too – none of it obviously improper or merely metaphorical – of extinct volcanoes, languages, cultures, and crafts.2

Extinction Organism die, and species die out, or go extinct. While death is, for many practical purposes, well enough understood, there are diffculties in giving a precise account of the conditions of its occurrence. And matters are much the same with extinction. But the connections between dying, on the one hand, and dying out, on the other, are close enough for us to expect some parallels where these diffculties are concerned. Close, but not intimate. For a start, extinction doesn’t require – as some might assume it requires – mass death. Millions can die while the species remains healthy. Conversely, the species can become extinct on the basis of only a few deaths. Numbers gradually dwindle, appear to stabilize at a very low level, and then this tiny population disappears. Nor does extinction require any premature death. These few might live out their lives, but, if they fail to reproduce, they and the species will disappear together. Does it require death at all? Think of a species, as I’ve suggested, as a number of individuals having between them the wherewithal to reproduce. Then extinction occurs at least when there is loss both of the individuals and the wherewithal. But are both losses necessary? Suppose that there is among living members mass infertility, or that only

210

Extinction

males survive. Reproduction is halted, but individuals live on. We might wonder precisely when extinction occurs. In a reverse puzzle case we retain just the wherewithal. There are no oak trees but there are acorns. Or DNA is extracted from the last acorns before they disappear. Or scientists are able to study the DNA and then map the codes into computers. Thereafter they can refashion the requisite substances. So then we are able to generate future individuals from materials which, in the cases sketched here, are unambiguously derived from individuals who were themselves species members. In middling cases we retain individuals throughout even though we lose life. Consider cryonics. Some rich people are frozen and buried deep underground, prior to a nuclear war in which everyone else is killed. These people are neither dead nor properly alive. What was a young mammoth is discovered deep in the Siberian permafrost. Scientists hope to extract DNA and from that to engineer mammoths back into existence. Suppose the hopes of scientists are realized. Then in all these cases there are two periods where there are living species members in existence, interrupted by a period where there are none. We might ask, has there been, in such a case, a temporary extinction, or perhaps, no extinction at all? Consider frst certain analogous situations with death. We might think it is at least logically possible for someone to come back from the dead. Resurrection stories appear to make sense. Perhaps this is physically possible too. In a different cryonics case some of the recently dead are frozen in an effort to stave off decay. The hope is for technological developments that will allow these dead to be restored to life. But in more mundane situations we think differently. Whatever their patients may claim, doctors now will deny that they can bring people back to life. Rather they will maintain that if a condition is reversed, and life restored, then the patient was never dead. But there is some debate.3 It is the same with extinction. We might argue that extinction is at least in principle reversible, and so implies only that there are no species members alive now, or we might insist further that extinction doesn’t occur until the wherewithal is gone. Under the frst option there can be temporary extinctions, under the second many of our extinction claims, as they demand permanence, will be provisional. The case for temporary extinctions is strengthened by our acknowledging of local extinctions. Wolves are not extinct, but there are none alive now, living in the wild, in the UK. There is some talk of reintroducing them. If we do that then what was a local extinction will have been reversed. We are unlikely to claim that wolves are extinct around here only on condition that they never return. Similarly for the extinct breed and or variety. It may be less straightforward but presumably these too can be reversed, with the selective breeding programme adopted initially now mimicked the second time around. Might we think of all our extinctions as being, at least so far as we know, merely local, and so all of them, in principle at least reversible? It may depend on what exists elsewhere in the universe. Recall now the Martian tigers. And imagine now that some centuries after earth tigers disappear, tigers from some other planet, some other galaxy, are fown in to replenish our stocks. In contrast to cases just discussed above, the new individuals here, I am supposing, are not causally connected to the old.

Extinction

211

So we might wonder whether a local extinction has been reversed, or whether, throughout the universe, Panthera tigris has disappeared, with a different species here taking its place. Although, as I’ve endeavoured to explain, there are puzzles relating to our ideas about both species and extinction, these puzzles are not deep. In the various situations outlined here, we know, or so I envisage, all the relevant facts, including the fact that in some cases a quick yes/no answer to extinction or species questions is less helpful than a longer response. Still, in most of what follows the complications adduced here can be set aside, and we can take it that quick answers are available. Extinction, I’ll assume, involves irreversible species loss, and such loss, in turn, implies the disappearance of a fairly clearly delineated kind of thing. The questions now are about whether and how this matters. The badness of extinction Species die out and become extinct. Is the extinction of a species bad for that species? We can ask, is anything bad for a species? Individuals can be healthy or sick, or in a good or bad condition. Often we are able, even if we have no reason, to do what is in their interests. And we can thereby promote their wellbeing. Can we say the same things about a species? Suppose some individuals, themselves unaffected, are carriers of a fatal and infectious disease. Culling might be needed to preserve the possibility of long-term species survival. Are the wellbeings of different kinds of things in competition here? It might look that way, and might appear that we are here putting the health of the species above that of its members. Culling is good for the species, bad for the individuals. Conversely, a failure to cull is bad for the species while good for these individuals. But it is hard to see how we can avoid cashing out what is good for the species in terms of what is good for individual members of the species. We cull these now to ensure viable numbers of healthy specimens later. Concrete individuals are what matters. So then any talk of extinction being bad for a species needs to be understood in terms of the non-appearance, or at least the non-fourishing, of future species members. Can it be bad that a species goes extinct? It might be thought that tiger extinction is bad for tigers and, as this matters, so the extinction matters. But I want to postpone discussion of the issues here until the next section, where I consider our extinction. The focus right now can be on the consequences of an extinction for members of some other species. Suppose there are bad consequences, and we decide this badness matters. Then, other things equal, it is bad that the species goes extinct. Consider bees. Their extinction of bees would be bad for us, but hardly for us alone. It would be bad too for the members of many other species whose wellbeing depends on the industry of bees. Bees are needed in order to pollinate a variety of plants, and so to ensure the survival of these plants, and so aid the other animals that for food, shelter, and so on depend on these plants. Assume that the survival and well-being of at least some of these things, some of the plants, some

212

Extinction

of the animals, matters. We have reason, either for our sake or for their sake, to care about them, their numbers, and their well-being. As promoters of such well-being, bees have instrumental value. And so we have reason, then, to care about bees. The situation is different with tigers. It would be bad for us, but perhaps not bad for many others, were tigers to become extinct. Indeed, their disappearance would, other things equal, be good for those animals which would otherwise fnd themselves turning into tiger food. The longer term and broader consequences of tiger extinction is guesswork. Some people believe tiger parts have magical or medicinal properties. Most of us have no such beliefs and no use for tigers at all. Nevertheless, we very much want them to continue to exist. They have for us some sort of personal or aesthetic value. Such values are complex, and their components hard to pin down. But not many of us will care only about the surface appearance of the tiger. We almost certainly prefer them alive to dead, and increasingly would prefer a glimpse in the wild to a closer encounter in a zoo. They represent for us something of the power, the otherness, the long history of the natural world. So we might feel something of value is lost if tigers have to be reintroduced into a habitat where earlier they were found, if their numbers are so small that they cannot without our assistance fnd mates and breed, or if they cannot be free to roam and kill. Even if we can be persuaded that Martian tigers are of the same species, we would still regret the need, assuming we want tigers on earth, to fy in specimens from elsewhere. And these personal or aesthetic values, I want to stress, are important. Even if we don’t have good reasons to care about tiger extinction, still it would signal some failing or defect in us if we didn’t care. Suppose these animals go extinct. How bad would this be? One question is about the availability of substitutes. Suppose that hornets can replicate the work of bees. Then, depending on their respective numbers, their survival will compensate for the loss of bees. And, as implied earlier, there is a more direct question about numbers. The mass death of bees, especially if this proves irreversible, might make more of a difference than their fnal loss. Here, and in most of what follows below, I’ll assume that extinction involves mass death, and that both will have considerable impacts. But the case of tigers is different. Numbers are already low. Impacts elsewhere will be small. And, as I’ve suggested, we are unlikely to allow that there are substitutes. The extinction of tigers would be bad, but not that bad. Thus far the examples are of individual organisms – peach trees, chaffnches, human beings – which suffer as the result of some extinction. But there are further consequences to consider. Species loss is often said to be bad for biodiversity, or for the environment, or for climate change. Where the last two are concerned, the unwritten assumption is that these are better in one condition than another. And then claims about particular species are relatively easy to assess. We might say, for example, that loss of rain forests – and, a loose implication here, the species within rain forests – will increase the rate of climate change, and that will be bad for us and many other species also. Similarly for claims about the environment. But what we might say about biodiversity will take more time.

Extinction

213

Assume biodiversity increases only insofar as the numbers and differences between species increases – it isn’t aided by breeding fancier pigeons or frillier tulips. Assume also we are considering global rather than local diversity. A third assumption – we want the different species each to have a signifcant representation. This is vague, but the idea behind it clear enough. We don’t get effective diversity by having millions of species housed only in zoos and a near monoculture elsewhere. Then other things equal extinctions reduce diversity. ‘Other things equal’ is important here. Our extinction will reduce diversity in the short term, but probably lead to increases in the medium-longer term. Is biodiversity good? It has instrumental value. Disease in one crop is less important if other crops are available. We may continue to fnd new sources of food or medicine in hidden plants and animals. And these consequences of biodiversity can beneft not only human beings, but other plants and animals. But is biodiversity valuable also in other ways? It is, to many, of personal value. Many people like the idea of a world full of marvellous creatures. It may be, as with tigers, that something is amiss in those who are not even remotely thrilled by some image of the jungle, teeming with life. But many will claim that biodiversity has as well, and much more importantly, intrinsic value. Is this true? I’ve so far not mentioned such value in this chapter, though much earlier I expressed some reservations about it. Those reservations can resurface here. And there are reasons for doubting not only that it has this value but also, despite what they might frst say, that many people really believe it has this value. If it is in this way valuable then the more such diversity the better, independently of both its causes, its character, and its effects elsewhere. But contrast a universe containing one arid planet with one containing a planet teeming with billions of different micro-organisms from which, we’ll assume, nothing will develop. Why is the second universe to be preferred? And consider our beliefs. As implied here, the diverse worlds which attract us are usually those with many medium-sized plants and animals, colourful, beautiful, and living in considerable harmony. Then there is the bias to and acceptance of the natural. Few people want to increase biodiversity by deliberately engineering into existence new organisms. And many are much more concerned about threats to diversity caused by human beings than losses attributable to natural causes. Finally, there is the conservative element to our thinking. We might want biodiversity, roughly as it is, to extend as far as possible into the future, but few of us think it would be particularly good if it extended further back into the past. What might be implied by all this is some sympathy for what is often disparagingly called anthropocentrism. The claim here is not that human beings are at the centre of the universe, or that we are the only things that matter, or that we matter more than anything else, or that we are the superior species, or that we have a higher moral status than anything else. Various of these claims have been considered and rejected earlier. And I’ve consistently maintained that animal pain matters. But what might usefully be acknowledged is that our own predilections and preferences shape much of what we do and think about the natural world, and not all of this is materialistic, chauvinistic, or short-sighted.

214

Extinction

Grant this, and it may be easier then to accept that more things out there have an important and overall benign value for us than are valuable just in themselves.

Our extinction Would a bad thing happen if human beings disappeared from the universe? Consider frst effects elsewhere. Many believe that our extinction would be good for members of many other species. Badgers and hedgehogs would be able to cross roads, no one would shoot at songbirds, tigers and rhinos wouldn’t be hunted for spurious medicinal properties. On a larger scale, the ocean wouldn’t be flled with junk and rainforests would no longer be destroyed for short-term gain. Nearer home it would in some ways be different. Parks and gardens would be neglected and many of the plants in them would die. Pets and farm animals, dependent on our attentions, would suffer. Unless there are knock-on effects for other animals, the bad effects on plant life wouldn’t matter. But the pains caused to animals would give us reason, if we knew extinction was coming, to attempt remedial steps beforehand. Consider now the effects on human beings. Would extinction be bad for us? It is going to be worth distinguishing here between different groups of people, existing at different times. Suppose extinction occurs, fairly suddenly, in 2050. We can ask if this is bad for any of those alive in 2050, those who would have come into existence after 2050, or those whose existence is over before the extinction takes place. And start with the future people. Assuming they would have good lives, some will think it is bad for these people that they never come into existence, and are never able to live and enjoy those lives. But, as discussed earlier, it is hard to sustain this view. Suppose we stick with it, the further question is of whether this matters. Only then would we have reason to regret, or try to prevent, on these grounds, this extinction. The view here, concerning bad effects on these future people, needs to be distinguished from another view concerning intrinsic value. Assuming new lives would be good then the sum of human happiness, given extinction, is less than it would otherwise have been. We might doubt that this is bad for those who are prevented from living but still hold that it is a bad thing, bad in itself, intrinsically bad, or bad for the universe. As I’ve expressed scepticism about intrinsic value earlier, so I want to be sceptical here too. What about the people who are alive when extinction occurs? They suffer, as a result, a premature death. Assuming they had a good life and this would have continued, then extinction is bad for them. We might doubt that this is any worse for them, however, than had they died a similar death but from a different cause. Suppose two rabbits die, one in an extinction event, and the other in the mouth of a fox. There are no reasons for thinking the frst suffers a worse fate. But it may be different with people. Finally, consider those who live and die before this extinction occurs. The rabbits whose lives are over by 2049 are wholly unaffected by the impending disaster. But again, it may be different with people.

Extinction

215

There’s more to say about future people and intrinsic value. But this can be set aside until later in the chapter. There’s much more to say about present and past people, and this is best pursued here. Two views In different contexts, and at different times, both James Lenman and Samuel Scheffer have considered the effects an impending extinction might have on people alive now. They appear to agree about a good deal, but there are important differences between them. Scheffer’s is the more recent and in some ways the more detailed account. And, usefully, he plots his discussion around a pair of extinction scenarios. In the frst, you learn that an asteroid will destroy the earth thirty days after your death. In the second, you discover that absolutely everyone has become infertile and no new children will be born.4 In the frst, millions of people, but not you, will die prematurely. In the second, no one dies before their time. Let me add to this a detail – you are not among the last to die. Both the doomsday and infertility scenarios will, according to Scheffer, have a profound effect on us, threatening our values, and our confdence in those values, in a variety of ways. So, the claim is, this extinction, one we know to be imminent, will be bad for us. This claim is, surely, broadly correct. Knowing that our extinction looms will undoubtedly have signifcant impacts, most of them adverse, on how we live our lives. But in many ways Scheffer exaggerates the novelty and importance of his claims. And, in addition, he skips over important details. One of these concerns imminence. Extinction a month after your death is nearer or further depending on how old you are now. Most of those in their twenties will worry less than those in their eighties. Another concerns the difference between the two scenarios. Scheffer focuses on infertility as it rules out our concerns about extinction being linked to the premature deaths of those we care about. Our values are undermined, he insists, nevertheless. But there are bigger differences. In the frst scenario everything is destroyed, while in the second nothing is destroyed. And infertility affects only humans. So the natural world survives and very likely fourishes. But human achievements – Proust, Tintoretto, indeed the whole of Venice – also survive. Many will believe, then, that much that is of value will continue to exist. Many, facing extinction, will take some comfort in this, and not a few will view this new world as improving on the old. Scheffer thinks they must be mistaken: to live in a world without other people would be to live in a world without value, a world in which nothing, or almost nothing mattered. In fact, I would choose not to live on as the only human being on earth … .5 Now it may be that a case for something like the intrinsic value of art and nature is hard to make out. I certainly won’t push it. But in a world with non-human animals, a great deal – their pain, and plausibly also their pleasure – surely does

216

Extinction

matter, and has value. And – different point – even if Scheffer would rather die than exist alone, there’s no good reason to assume this would be a widespread reaction. News of impending extinction is very likely,6 Scheffer says, to strike you as devastating whatever the life you are living. The world may well then seem to be characterized by ‘widespread apathy, anomie, and despair … and by a pervasive loss of conviction about the value or point of many activities’. And ‘Even such things as the enjoyment of nature, the appreciation of literature, music and the visual arts; the achievement of knowledge and understanding; the appetitive pleasure of food, drink and sex might be affected’.7 We might have doubts about this. Differences relating to the interplay between, frst, the two scenarios, and, second, variety in ways of living will make for different impacts. Start with this variety. Imagine your life’s project is to put a brake on the population explosion, or to fnd the cure for cancer, or develop the driverless car. Or again, it is to save the rhino or the tiger, or to keep Antarctica near to pristine. Or, differently, you want to write a book or symphony, or become self-suffcient in vegetables, or bring up your children in a halfway decent fashion. Or perhaps the very idea of a project strikes you as strange – you’re happy with walks in the country, someone else’s symphonies, a bottle of wine.8 And now contrast the scenarios. Imagine there’s news of the asteroid strike. We can surely be confdent that most of those engaged in long-term and other-directed projects would be challenged by this news. It would be simply irrational, faced with extinction, to continue to work on the cancer cure, or care about traffc, or the numbers of people. But given only infertility then rhinos, tigers, glaciers (and similarly Venice, Mount Rushmore, what remains of Palmyra) might still be saved, be worth saving, and also to seem to us to be worth saving. It is perhaps less clear how short-term and self-directed projects will fare, or how mere pleasure seekers might cope. Will we, as Scheffer suggests, simply give up? Or will we carry on, though with certain adjustments made in the light of such unnerving news? Among the commentators, Susan Wolf is particularly exercised about this, contending that in such circumstances we may well put energy into caring for one another, and might ‘create and perform music and plays… plant gardens, hold discussion groups, write books and commentaries’.9 Scheffer is sceptical, in part because he thinks that the need for more mundane activities to support this gets overlooked, and they’d be high among depression’s casualties.10 Much of this, on both sides, is extraordinarily speculative. And Scheffer in particular seems to have things the wrong way around. He insists that refecting on the imaginary extinction scenarios can ‘show’ or ‘tell’ or ‘reveal’ to us things about our values.11 But isn’t it rather that what we already know about these values suggests to us how we are likely to react in such circumstances? We already know that we care about things other than our own experiences, and (perhaps especially if we have children or younger friends) about events after our death. And we already know – because we know that we are to some non-negligible degree rational – that commitment to many projects will be abandoned or amended as circumstances change. But we know too that we are well able to discriminate,

Extinction

217

and if with infertility there are worthwhile projects still to be pursued then some among us will be strongly motivated to continue. Further, we know also – and this derives from our fairly extensive grasp of human psychology – that most of us tend to recover from adversity even when there is no clear reason to do so. Unsurprisingly, it’s observed that though frst reactions are likely to be downbeat, many people bounce back after receiving from the doctor some terminal diagnosis. Scheffer queries the analogy – bouncing back is more straightforward when ‘the world of value’12 survives, less so when it doesn’t. I’m in the middle here – all analogies break down somewhere, but this one is far from uninformative, and gives us, I think, some reason to suppose that apathy and anomie will pass. Other analogies are closer. Annihilation has, obviously, never occurred, but it’s been believed that it was about to occur, and perhaps too it’s been close. As is well known, people feared doomsday relatively often in the Middle Ages, with 1500, in particular, being widely thought of as the year in which the world would end. How deep was their despair? This is surely to some extent documented. Much closer to home, the threat of nuclear annihilation seemed real to many during the cold war. This affected values, caused some depression, but on nothing like the scale that Scheffer envisages. Even during the Cuban missile crisis, when many doubted there would be a tomorrow, there continued to be trains, bread, music, sex.13 And, of course, in these situations things are worse; people expect not only future lives but their own also to be cut short, and in ways far from pleasant. Scheffer’s gloomy predictions – he thinks that were extinction to loom nothing would even count as a good life, and the very idea of things mattering would be lost to us14 – need, then, to be reined in; while it is perhaps clear enough that such a rupture will affect us deeply, at least in the short term, it is far from evidently plausible to suppose that values and meanings will be altogether irrecoverable.15 Lenman, it appears, will agree with the bulk, if moderated, of Scheffer’s account. We have concerns beyond our lives, and want continuities between the generations. News of an imminent extinction would alarm and distress us.16 But there is a key difference. Recall that in the previous chapter I wanted to distinguish between those who do, and those who don’t know about immortality. And we might consider a parallel distinction here. The focus so far has been on extinction’s effects on people who know that it’s coming. But imagine the asteroid hit, a month after your death, is completely unannounced. What then for its effects on your life? It will make no difference whatsoever to what you think or do, but might it be bad for you nevertheless? Lenman appears sympathetic to the idea of posthumous benefts and harms: It was good for Darwin that his ideas on evolution were vindicated by modern genetics; good for Mallory that Everest was eventually climbed and good for those fghting the Nazis that the Nazis were fnally defeated.17 The claim, then, is that I might be benefted or harmed by events occurring after my death, even when I don’t know those events will occur. Is this true? Some related claims are less controversial. Suppose my life’s work is to save the tiger.

218

Extinction

At the time of my death I believe I’ve had some success. But a month later all the remaining tigers succumb to some disease. Posthumous events make it true that I’ve failed to achieve my aims. Many will agree that these events make it true also that I’ve wasted at least a good part of my life. Certainly, if I’d known that their extinction was inevitable I’d have lived, and worked, differently. But the claims that an unheralded post-mortem extinction might take from life’s meaning, or might simply be bad for us, are more controversial, and fail to fnd overwhelming support. But suppose we allow that extinction can be bad for those who die before it occurs, and who, further, are ignorant of its occurring. Who among the dead might be so affected? The Romans described their capital as the eternal city. Would an asteroid hit soon, obliterating Rome, be bad for those Romans? Even staunch defenders of posthumous harm need to take into account the effects of distance. Suppose the Romans believed that their forum, the Colosseum, Tivoli, would last forever. In the frst place, this was an irrational belief. In the second, it almost certainly made no difference to anything they did. Had they known that in time they’d be destroyed they’d have built these things nevertheless. The value, meaning, and point of what they were doing couldn’t depend on events thousands of years into the future. Take an intermediate era. You say that extinction in 2050 would be bad for the Victorians. I ask what, more precisely, you mean. And then I judge those claims as true or false. This point concerning posthumous harms, whether or not it is convincing, is one where Lenman offers an advance on a matter that Scheffer considers – whether we now should care about extinction soon. Elsewhere he considers issues that Scheffer ignores, including one I posed earlier, of whether our extinction at any time would be a bad thing. But then, in an interesting way, he appears to sidestep it: one day, certainly there will be no human beings. Perhaps that is a bad thing, but it is a bad thing we had better learn to live with. The Second Law of Thermodynamics will get us in the end in the fantastically unlikely event that nothing else does frst. We might argue about whether and how much this inevitability should distress us but that is not my present concern. Rather, I want to ask whether, given that any given species will at some time disappear, it is better that it disappear later rather than sooner. More particularly, given that it is inevitable that our own species will only endure for a fnite time, does it matter how soon that end comes?18 And this question is answered in the negative. I’ll explain frst why Lenman thinks it doesn’t matter when extinction occurs, and then, in the next section, offer reasons for thinking he is too hasty in pushing further questions to one side. The issues considered above concern what we might think of as the local effects of extinction – in particular the ways in which it is bad for those living at, or not long before, the time of its occurrence. These local effects occur, and given certain dubious assumptions about the stability of both life’s quality

Extinction

219

and population sizes, equally occur, whenever extinction takes place. So if we attend to these effects and no others, then we can agree, as Lenman claims, that it doesn’t matter when the extinction happens. Of course, as he explains, we all have reasons for resisting this. We all want to delay extinction, if not for as long as possible, at least for a good long time. So none us are indifferent to timing. What is needed here is a distinction between subjective and objective, or engaged and detached perspectives. From our position within life we very much care that extinction doesn’t come soon, but if we stand back and look at things disinterestedly we see that all peoples, at all times, equally care about this. From this more distant perspective there is no reason to put ourselves frst. It isn’t worse, if we suffer, than if some later population suffers. There may be doubts here. We might agree, if we are concerned just with effects on those at or near the extinction event, that timing is irrelevant. But it will seem to many that there are other effects that need to be considered. Suppose it were the case that extinction is bad for at least many of those living before – the Romans are harmed by extinction now. Then, other things equal, the earlier extinction comes, the better. For then history is shorter, and there are fewer people to be harmed. Not many will think this. Many more will have something like the opposite thought, concerning not past but future people. Absenting extinction, there will continue to be new people coming into existence. Extinction prevents these lives from being lived. That is bad. So other things equal, the later extinction comes the better. For then history is longer, and more of these good lives are lived. I said earlier that there’d be a need to return to the business of future people. The return is now. How bad? Why bad? Suppose we become extinct. Many of us think this would be bad. Some people think it would be very bad indeed: I believe that if we destroy mankind, as we now can, this outcome will be much worse than most people think. Compare three outcomes: (1) Peace (2) A nuclear war that kills 99% of the world’s existing population (3) A nuclear war that kills 100% (2) would be worse than (1) and (3) would be worse than (2). Which is the greater of these two differences? Most people believe that the greater difference is between (1) and (2). I believe that the difference between (2) and (3) is very much greater.19 Parft is assuming, as he explains, that it is possible, absenting such a war, that human civilization, which has thus far existed for only a couple of millennia, could continue for another billion years. So, ‘If we compare this possible history

220

Extinction

to a day, what has occurred so far is only a fraction of a second’. And he offers two explanations of why this extinction might be bad; frst, what it costs us in terms of human happiness, second, the loss of ‘ideal goods’ – ‘the Sciences, the Arts, and moral progress, or the continued advance towards a wholly just worldwide community’. Of these, Parft is most concerned about the abrupt curtailing of advances in non-religious ethics. He doesn’t, however, explain where the badness lies. In what way is it bad that there comes an end to lives, happiness, achievements, advances like ours? We frst need to consider this. Then we can look further at the claim that this would be very bad indeed. Consider frst intrinsic value. If you think that human lives, or human achievements, have this sort of value, then you’ll think that other things equal the later extinction is better. But these ideas of intrinsic value are suspect. Not so many of us think the more achievements – say, paintings made, stars discovered, or mountains climbed – the better. Nor do we think that, other things equal, the more planets there are teeming with happy human beings the better. Suppose, however, the focus isn’t on individuals but the species. And we hold that our species is intrinsically valuable. This has fewer counterintuitive consequences. As I observed earlier, a species is best thought of as temporally but not spatially extended. It continues to exist, in a reasonably robust fashion, so long as there is a viable breeding population. There are no implausible views about numbers here.20 Nevertheless, there is hereabouts one oddity, mentioned earlier and worth revisiting. If our species is intrinsically valuable then it will seem that the earlier we evolved, the better. Perhaps not many will be inclined to believe this. We can consider also, but then quickly set aside, an appeal to instrumental value. We become extinct, but pets and domestic animals continue. Or there is, on a distant planet, some species of underdeveloped people who need our help. In such cases our extinction would be bad, as it would be bad for these others. Let’s just assume there are no such cases. Suppose, instead, we think in terms of personal value. I said earlier that it might be bad for us, because understandably we care about them, even allowing it’s not bad for the universe, if tigers go extinct. Might we try to understand the badness of our own extinction in similar terms? This isn’t straightforward. The disappearance of tigers hundreds of years after our own extinction isn’t going to be bad for us, even if we do know it’s coming. Why should we think that our extinction, in the distant future, is bad for us now? One thing to note here is that our extinction, in contrast to that of other species, represents the loss not only of things valued but also of valuers. Might that make a difference? Think again about the badness of death, and differences here regarding human and animal life. I’ve argued that a painless death isn’t bad for an animal because there is no future life the animal wants to enjoy. But where human persons are concerned death is bad when the life ahead is one we’re planning to live. Lenman misses some of this. As a result he fails to see how it might have implications for our extinction: If someone dies aged twenty-fve, that is tragic because it cheats them of the normal and natural span of a human life. If someone dies age ninety-fve,

Extinction

221

though we mourn their passing, their death is not tragic in the same way or for the same reason. But it is implausible to suppose that human history – or that of any species – has a natural narrative structure in the same way as a human life. We might have taken it to have such a structure if we had some large philosophical vision of human history as making sense in terms of some readily discernible goal which it might be tragic not to attain. I take it very few of us today are gripped by such a vision. If human beings go on for countless millennia, today will seem to have been the childhood of our species. If we disappear tomorrow today will seem (to some imaginary observing aliens) to have been its old age…. The individual human tragedy of dying young has no obvious analogue in the career of our species as a whole.21 But death at 25 not only deprives us of good years ahead – the premature death of an animal similarly does this – but often brings to an end a personal story that is just beginning to become interesting. That is its tragedy. And now although there might not, in the history of a species, be any analogue for the natural shape of an organism’s life, the question remains as to whether narrative shape, not given through nature alone, but a manifestation of culture, might fnd some equivalent in the trajectory at least of our species. It does surely seem, in the frst place, that there are stories to be told about particular civilizations or cultures. These can develop or grow, peak – and these peaks can be differently sized – become moribund, disappear at quicker or slower rates. It would have been a matter for some regret had the Persians conquered Greece when that civilization, as it appears now, surely appeared then, and would have appeared to observing aliens, was beginning so marvellously to fower. Worse to put an end to this in 490 bc, after Marathon, than three hundred years later, when the Greeks are effectively Romanised. It was bad for Aztec society to be obliterated by the Spanish early in the 16th century. These and similar examples don’t involve any species loss, of course, but as noted earlier there is some leeway in talk of extinction, and certainly a kind of extinction occurs when a society collapses in such a fashion even if individuals live on. What of now? We might think, and some of us might hope, that we are today reaching a point where something akin to a global civilization is home to us all. Certainly there are global communications, transport systems, agriculture, trade, an art market; near global styles in music, dress, architecture; two or three dominant languages, much consonance in both scientifc and moral thinking. An asteroid hit will end lives, eliminate species, wipe out this culture. Will that be bad? It will depend on how things would have been, had we, and it, survived. We might think, and fairly clearly Parft does think, that extinction now would represent the premature ending of our story, and that were it to continue to unfold then various additions to both happiness and progress would likely be made. We might think, also, that any abrupt curtailing of this story is a bad thing – bad for us if we know of it, and bad for those at or near its occurrence, whether they know or not.

222

Extinction

To better test whether or not you think this would be bad, consider an amended account of nuclear war and its survivors. The war will start in two hundred years. Everyone will be killed. But scientists can build an embryo factory deep in the earth’s crust. After a further two hundred years, and the dust has settled, machines will trigger and maintain development of these embryos, and new people will come to be. They’ll have access to information about and items from the world that was destroyed. And there’s every reason to suppose that things can be picked up more or less where they were left off. Will you want human life, and human culture, to continue? I should explain the amendments. The human extinctions considered thus far dismay and depress those at, or near, the time of occurrence. Their lives, and their hopes for and investment in the future, are undermined by the extinction. They have their own reasons for wanting life to continue. But in the current scenario this is not the case. They, their friends, children, and grandchildren die in any event. Moreover, although in broader shape our civilization will continue, we can assume that the particular plans and projects these people had are all casualties of the war. If we set aside any contentions about intrinsic value, hopes for a post-war reconstruction are best seen as a fairly disinterested concern that our story continues. I say fairly disinterested as it is after all our story; someone might want a continuation here while being indifferent to a war, and possible recovery, on Mars. And I can note here a virtue of the scenario, an important difference between this and the suggestion that our species has intrinsic value. That suggestion, I’ve said, though it avoids the claim that more is better, still appears to imply that earlier is better. Not so here. Consider again an individual life. We might well want, and with good reason, for ourselves or our friends, a later death. But there is, as I’ve said, and understandably, not much appetite for an earlier birth.22 The thought is, given this life, a continuation is good. Similarly with the human story writ large. It is hard to believe that this, the thing we care about, could have had an earlier beginning. The virtue, to spell it out, is that the counterintuitive contention is not made. My belief here is that many people would want these embryos to be hatched, and, though interrupted, for the account of lives, our doings, to continue. In contrast to the case of the distant planet, and awesome lives, considered much earlier, what is foated here is not the possibility of a new world, existing alongside our own, but continuation, or not, of the only world we know. It would be surprising if there were not, for this, many more takers. So, we’re likely to think, I’ve said, that extinction is bad and want life to continue. But is it, as Parft claims, very bad? He insists it would be much worse to lose 100% of the population than to lose 99%, and so have enough survivors to re-people the planet. And whether the survivors themselves experience the war, or, as with the amendments, come fully into existence only later will have little bearing on this. Very bad without them, much better with them. But is this right? What should frst be noted is that any avoiding of an extinction is only temporary until the next threat surfaces. It is surely extremely unlikely our species will survive for a billion years. The difference between losing everyone and almost

Extinction

223

everyone in the war might turn out to be slight – a small population struggling on for just a couple of centuries before disappearing. And then the greater difference is between peace and a war in which almost all are killed. Assume, however, that if extinction now is avoided then with time many billions more of good lives would be lived. Assume, too, that there continues to be progress, itself good, in the arts, sciences, ethics. Goods are worth paying for. Parft presumably agrees. He gives, though, no indication of how much we ought to be prepared to pay for this. But if extinction would be very bad, in making for the irreversible loss of these goods, then presumably it is worth paying a considerable amount to avoid it. How much? 1% of the present world population, heading now for eight billion, is a large number. Presumably far fewer than 1% are needed in order to ensure a viable future. Assume, then, that a few hundred survivors, or a few hundred embryos, is enough for a new beginning. How important is it that these people live? Suppose we have a choice. We can halt the war and save the lives of many billions who will thereafter live good lives. But because of the war’s effects, these will be the last people. Or we can allow the war to continue, in which case the billions will die, but some – and these won’t now be the last people – will live.23 It may be that Parft thinks we should sacrifce billions of extant lives in order that hundreds will live and, later, many billions of new lives will be born.24 Certainly he says nothing to suggest that this isn’t a consequence of his view. But it is far from obviously correct. Supporters of Symmetry, holding that future lives are as important as existing lives, will agree with Parft here. But friends of the Asymmetry, weak or strong, and most of those claiming to follow only common sense, will take a different stance. And Parft doesn’t fully explain or offer arguments in favour of his view. I’ve missed something here. If extinction is avoided then there are gains for both human happiness and human achievements. In focussing then on moral progress, Parft perhaps prevents further distinctions. further complexity, from being noted. But what if we must choose between them? Human beings are, and live the lives of, highly intelligent animals. In many ways we are little different from the frst members of Homo sapiens, living perhaps some 250,000 years ago.25 We are not so different, also, from members of other closely related species, such as Neanderthals and Denisovans. In other ways there are considerable differences between people now and people then. We have several thousand years of what we might still call civilization behind us. So we have particular languages, industries, cities, arts and sciences, and already some moral progress, frst to our credit, and second as shapers of our own and future lives. People today continue to live in many ways the lives of animals, but in many ways too the lives of social and historical beings. We continue to make things, paint, draw, dig gardens, explore, experiment. And we continue to value and engage with things that others have made and discovered. Consider again Scheffer’s extinction scenarios. And add to them some new information. The asteroid will soon hit earth, destroying everyone and everything. But scientists are able, beforehand, to send into space a rocket targeted at some distant but very habitable planet, and loaded with both human embryos

224

Extinction

and the equipment to trigger and then sustain their development when, some thousand years hence, this planet is reached. What they are unable to do, however – there just isn’t space – is include in the rocket examples or evidence of human culture. The new people will in effect have to start over again. But there is reason to believe they will be able to live good lives. A second planet – equally distant – offers assistance with infertility. Before the last of us die we beam information about our fate out into the galaxies. We’ve reason to believe there are similar life forms out there, and we invite these people – they are not human beings but they are people nevertheless – to come to earth, engage with, admire and look after Venice, the tigers, lots more besides and, in effect, to kick-start our civilization where, with our demise, it was left off. In one scenario the species continues, but all of culture is lost, while in the other the reverse; our species becomes extinct, but not only does the record of culture survives – even in the original infertility scenario artefacts and libraries remain untouched – it is both appreciated and then further developed by the newcomers. Most of us will agree with Parft that a nuclear war, destroying everything would be overall a very bad thing. Most of us would much prefer, in place of this war, that both human beings and human civilization survive. But if we can’t have both? Perhaps most people will put culture before nature here.26 And it might appear speciesist to do otherwise. Martian tigers, even if they are not of the same species as earth tigers, might be as good as tigers, and might even be tigers. And Martians, or more distant aliens, might be as good as Homo sapiens. They will at least, as I’ve said, be people. Recall Parft’s concern. These people, we can assume, will be as capable of making moral progress as are earth people. Imagine we are faced with a different choice. The artefacts and libraries remain but there are no people, of any species, to engage with them. We choose between this world – in effect an abandoned museum – and one where, via triggered embryos, there are human beings but nothing of our culture. Most will prefer life to art.

The goodness of extinction The assumption thus far has been that so long as extinction is avoided things will carry on very much as before. So most human beings will continue to have good lives, and lives which in many cases, at least in a modest sense, will have meaning. Civilization will continue to exist and will continue also to develop. If so, our lives might even get better, last longer, and gain in meaning. Extinction, in putting an end to this, will be a bad thing. Not a few, however, will think this unconscionably optimistic. Most of those who don’t will at least allow that the assumptions here are doing a fair bit of work. Might our extinction turn out to be a good thing? We’ve said it will very likely be good for other species. We can ask now, might it be good for us also? Suppose human life will cease to be worth living. We begin to suffer from an infectious disease which is then passed on to future generations. It causes problems from adolescence on, allows for procreation, but then makes for a drawn out and painful

Extinction

225

death in one’s early forties. There is no cure. Better that we all die out than that we live these miserable lives. But we can ask, as well, a further question. Even if life remains worth living might it still be good for us, or better for us, to become extinct? Alternatively, might it be good in a further way; good for the species, good for the universe, or just a good thing simpliciter if human beings altogether die out? It may be that there are reasons for thinking this will be good. I said earlier that cultures or societies can develop, peak, and decay at different rates and in different ways. But then I focussed only on examples where we might imagine things ending prematurely, or before their time. Arguably there are contrasting examples. It might be thought that Chinese civilization was in something of a fallow period through the 18th and 19th centuries, or that the so-called Dark Ages went on for too long. Not much, in either case, would have been lost had reforms or revolution come much earlier than in fact they did. And, I want to suggest, some of us might suspect that our civilization today is past its best. Take a long view. We mostly agree about the past. Human beings have been in existence for some thousands of years. In the early days things were diffcult. We struggled to make progress, even to survive, but were encouraged by small successes, and visions of a better world ahead. And, as we might believe, things have improved. There can be disagreement about details, but it is undeniable that over the past couple of centuries in particular there have been, on the back of the scientifc revolution, profound developments in agriculture and medicine, leading to massive increases in life expectancy and overall population health. Industrialization and globalization have brought about a proliferation of material and consumer goods, both functional and decorative, that have made life easier and more pleasurable for billions. Economic, social, and moral reforms have prompted increasing equality, communication, understanding between peoples. But what of the future? Some people – Parft is among them, and Stephen Pinker their best known proponent27 – expect there to be further advances still to come, and for things to continue to get better. Others fear that we may already have plateaued. They note the emergence of new diseases as, in response to medical advances, bacteria and viruses mutate into less tractable forms. We seem unable even properly to tackle climate change. Threats of war, terrorism, civil unrest are ever present, and aided both by the ceaseless development of new weaponry on the one hand, and reservations about countering such threats, on the other. Even if most lives are worth living, the future doesn’t look good. Suppose these pessimists mostly have things right. It may be that, even supposing we manage to carry on, we are destined to make endlessly the same mistakes, disasters followed by some reconstruction, partial recovery, until the next disaster strikes. Human society will never break free from the obstacles put in its way by human nature. We might think, better that we become extinct than that we go on forever in such ways. Suppose, though, that the more optimistic vision prevails, and that we reach a time where disease, war, shortages are history, where no one struggles with a miserable job, where genetic defects and idiosyncrasies are engineered out, where we get much of what we want, and when we don’t, then there are

226

Extinction

synthesized substitutes ready to hand. But this isn’t, it might be thought, so much a sketch of a perfected world as of one in which we are altogether infantilized, living our long and trouble-free lives in some version of playschool, offered pleasure and contentment but kept from anything remotely profound. Again, we might think that extinction is better than this. What remains elusive is any plausible picture of a long term and sustainable future in which people have lives that are both worth living and meaningful. This needs more detail. So consider a single life. Your death is bad, I’ve said, when it brings to an end an unfolding good life that you want to live. And, plausibly, and in a similar fashion, our extinction is bad when frst, most lives are worth living and second, our collective story continues to be one worth telling. But if there’s no more of this story to come, no more progress or development, but just one or other version of a stagnant world; and if any ending, as in the fction above, can be painless, then the objections to extinction fall away. More is needed, however, to show extinction in such circumstances would be good, or at least better than continuing. New lives, if started, will, I’m here assuming, be worth living. So why should we choose to stop them? In an earlier chapter I suggested that a concern with meaning is overrated, and that we might be content with a life that affords us ordinary pleasures and happiness. Assume an animal can have a pain-free existence. Then there is no reason to end its life. And, on the larger scale, there is no reason to want, either for their sake, or for the sake of the universe, the extinction of creatures whose lives are not burdensome. But consider again the shape of a life. It has been argued that not only the sum but the distribution of well-being matters. A life that gets better, as it goes along, is preferable to one that gets worse.28 Similarly, we might think that a life that gains meaning as it unfolds is preferable to one which has meaning and then loses it. Consider now the James Dean Effect,29 less straightforward, where the sums of well-being differ. You choose between shorter and longer versions of the same life. The frst is very good, full of meaning, and signifcance throughout, with high levels of well-being. And then it ends, prematurely and abruptly. The second is like the frst, except that it continues for another three decades, less good, now with little meaning, but still worth living, and so with greater well-being overall. So think about James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Shelley. And contrast these brief lives with those of Rimbaud, or Orson Welles, or Berkeley where, after an early fowering, there are some decades of ordinariness. It seems to many that the shorter life is to be preferred, and that living on spoils things. Ben Bradley insists that this is a mistake, and that death is bad when it takes from us a good life, even when that life is less good, less meaningful than it was previously. And he suggests an explanation for the mistake: Perhaps we tend to be misled by our aesthetic intuitions; Dean’s actual life makes for a better story than the imagined longer life, but this clearly has nothing to do with whether it is a better life for him…. Of course, some people may desire to live a life that makes for a good story, and given an appropriate theory of well-being living such a life might be better for such

Extinction

227

people. But… not everyone cares about such things, and it is not clear why they should if they do not.30 There’s a good deal here that might be agreed with. But it is true also that not everyone wants to keep going so long as life is on balance good, and here too it’s not clear why they should want this. And it may be that I have more sympathy with aesthetic concerns than does Bradley – I said earlier that it might be thought odd if someone has no interest in wanting there to be tigers, and it might be similarly odd if there’s no pull to the short sweet life. Agreed, though, that when it comes to it, it would be surprising if, given the choice, there weren’t in many of us a strong tendency to carry on. So we shouldn’t assume that what we, as onlookers, might want for a life corresponds to what is wanted by the person whose life it is. But as I’ve set up this extinction scenario, such tendencies are written out. Our carrying on is prevented by the war whatever then happens. So aesthetic considerations, broadly construed, can be given full rein. And not only, or so I suspect, will many fnd them appealing, they can be opposed only by some different sense of what might appeal. There are sentiments, then, and explanations of these, but no clear reasons either way. What might be noted now, and fnally, is a difference between the optimistic and pessimistic accounts of what our future holds. On the darker reading of the optimists’ account, all our lives, even if not immortal, are in ways similar to those outlined by Scheffer, much trivialized. So the future is one in which individual meaning is no longer possible. But this is less obviously so on a generous reading of the pessimist’s account. We are, I said, destined repeatedly to destroy and repair our world. But imagine these cycles are a thousand years apart. Most lives will fall within these periods of reconstruction. And most people will have plenty of opportunities, and calls upon them, for purposeful work – developing agriculture, coping with the weather, fnding the cure for cancer. But contrast, frst, doing such things for the frst time, and doing them when they’ve already been done countless times before. And then contrast knowing, with not knowing, about these repetitions. Recall the moving envelope model of immortality. I offered this as a way of combatting the boredom and triviality charges, and so making way for meaning within the unending life. But I acknowledged it can be objected that the absence of real frst-timeness, whether or not this is realized, might at least compromise the claims to meaning. And it is the same here.

Summary The main business of this chapter has been with the value of human extinction. Will it be good or bad a) for us and b) for the rest of the world, if, or when, our species becomes extinct? But before addressing that question there have been, or so I’ve claimed, several preliminary questions needing to be addressed. What then, is extinction? And what are the sorts of things that can become extinct? I’ve wanted to offer, in the opening sections, modest and defensible answers to these questions. Extinction occurs when there is lost the wherewithal

228

Extinction

for generation of further instances of a certain kind. And it is predominantly focussed on the disappearance of biological species. Our extinction, then, will involve the ceasing to exist of the likes of us. But there is a pair of critical points to note here. We might wonder, frst, just when extinction occurs. Will Martian tigers be tigers, or a different kind of thing? And we might wonder, second, to what extent the existence of substitutes – Martian tigers instead of tigers – will mitigate extinction’s badness. Consider our extinction. I’ve expressed some sympathy here with the views of Scheffer and Lenman – extinction soon will impact negatively on lives now. But, as in the preceding chapters, there’s been an attempt here to tease out the implications of differences between truth, knowledge, and belief, where some impending change is concerned. And extinction is bad for us, I’ve suggested, mostly because we know, or believe, it will occur. The unfolding of our own, our children’s, and other familiar lives will, as we now understand, be abruptly terminated. Our commitment to and confdence in the future is undermined. Certain of the preliminary issues resurface here. How bad will our extinction be? Suppose aliens or cyborgs take over where we leave off. If they share our values and concerns, then this will to some extent soften the blow. Indeed, if we have to choose, it may be we prefer this to an option where, after some catastrophe, a handful of survivors, bereft of all their moorings, somehow struggles on. So culture, rather than biology, might be our predominant concern. The fnal sections explore some parallels between extinction and death. Both, coming in ahead of time, are bad. But would we want to go on forever? Immortality, many have argued, would be bad for us. Death gives shape and meaning to our lives. Perhaps, too, extinction is necessary for meaning.

Notes 1 For the critical texts in a long running discussion, see ‘The Meaning of Meaning’ in Putnam (1975) and Kripke (1980). 2 For more on all of this see Kitcher (1984), Okasha (2002), and the entries in the Stanford Encyclopedia on species and on natural kinds. 3 See Belshaw (2009), both Chapter 2 and the Appendix. 4 See Scheffer (2013), p. 18 and following for the doomsday scenario, p. 39 and following for infertility. 5 Scheffer (2013: 79–80). 6 This is my gloss on Scheffer’s central contention here. But any alert reader will note that he talks variously, and not clearly consistently, of things that would occur, that it is plausible to suppose would occur, that might occur (see especially pp. 23 and 42) if one of these extinction scenarios were to obtain 7 Both Scheffer (2013: 40). 8 See Lars von Trier’s flm Melancholia for a scenario where wine drinking appears, to some, to be the best way to face doomsday. 9 Wolf, in her comment, ‘The Signifcance of Doomsday’, Scheffer (2013: 122). 10 Scheffer, in response (2013: 186–187). 11 See, respectively, (2013: 55, 28, 27). Scheffer says also that these scenarios highlight, make evident and make clear various of our beliefs about values and confdence in those values. There’s a clear parallel here with Nozick’s experience machine where,

Extinction

12 13

14

15

16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24

229

similarly, there is room for the suspicion that our beliefs drive, rather than are formed by, our reactions to the example. Scheffer (2013: 188). It might be objected that these cases are different. The world didn’t end on these earlier occasions, and so no one could have known it would end. So there was room always for hope, and thus limits on despair. But of course its being true that the world will end is neither necessary nor suffcient for an incapacitating conviction that it will end. I want to stress that Scheffer is very clearly construing imminent extinction’s consequences as extreme. His actual words here: ‘We cannot assume that we would know what the constituents of a good life would be in such a world, nor can we even be confdent that there is something that we would be prepared to count as a good life’ (2013: 43). ‘Humanity itself, an ongoing project, provides an implicit frame of reference for most of our judgements about what matters…. Indeed, I believe that something stronger is true: we need humanity to have a future for the very idea that things matter to retain a secure place in our conceptual repertoire’ (2013: 60). And recall my allegations, in the previous chapter, that he similarly exaggerates the downside to immortality. Scheffer has things the wrong way around in a further respect. Much of his discussion here, and the infertility scenario in particular, sits upon his reading of P.D. James’ dystopian novel Children of Men (which, as he notes, is better known to many through Alfonso Cuaron’s flm of the same title). But now insofar as the psychologies depicted therein strike us as plausible, it is because of what we bring to bear on our encounter with the text – there is nothing really to be learned from fction. Lenman (2002: 261). Lenman (2002: 262). Lenman (2002: 254). Parft (1984: 453). See also Parft (2011: 612–630) and his (2017b: 436–437). Lenman appears to overlook this distinction. Consider rhinos. He fnds implausible the view that there should be, at any given time, as many of these animals as possible. But as that is implausible so too, he claims, is the view that there should be rhinos for as long as possible. Similarly for human beings. And so there are no grounds, other than partisan grounds, for preferring our extinction to be later. Is the view about synchronic numbers implausible? Curiously, Lenman seems to allow that rhinos might be intrinsically valuable but doubts that anything follows from this. As I argued earlier, if we allow this value, then it is hard to see why there shouldn’t, other things equal, be as many instantiations as possible, through both space and time. But as I doubt the value, so I doubt too we should want as many rhinos, or anything else for that matter, as possible. This, however, concerns individuals. It is different with species. As I said earlier, it seems the latter are best conceived as temporally extended, rather than spatially extended entities. So while assuming that individuals are intrinsically valuable seems to commit us to a more (and more now) is better view, the intrinsic value of some particular species has no such counterintuitive consequences. Lenman (2002: 259). See Belshaw (2000a). We obviously need some fctions to make any of this plausible. Imagine the way to stop the war is to overcome the antagonists with some gas, which cuts both aggression and fertility. If it continues then the most aggressive and most fertile survive. Should we kill billions in order to save hundreds when, from those hundreds, more billions will follow? Some will think killing is justifed in such a case. Others will disagree. But I want to sidestep this concern. So understand sacrifcing here as requiring only that we let the billions die. We – as decision makers – didn’t start the war, and stand aside from any direct involvement in their deaths.

230

Extinction

25 Is this really when our species began to exist? The New Scientist suggests 195,000 years ago, Wikipedia 300,000 years ago. 26 Results of non-scientifc student polls give some support to this. 27 Parft (1984: 454), (2017b: 436–437), (Pinker (2011, 2018). Parft’s optimism is cautious. He has no doubt we are capable of great things, extending into the far future, but is aware we may fail to achieve them. 28 But we might plausibly claim this only for human lives, given that only they can want, notice, and be pleased by improvements. 29 Bradley (2009: 157–162). 30 Bradley (2009: 160–161).

Appendix 1 Dworkin and reconciliation

Life’s Dominion contains both philosophical and political dimensions. Dworkin’s claims about and arguments for life’s having intrinsic value are dealt with in the main text. His political concerns are briefy discussed here.1 A key aim of the book is to bring together the warring factions in the debate about abortion as it was and still is played out particularly in the US. Dworkin’s reconciliation project involves fnding common ground between the opposing sides, and then, once that is acknowledged, in building on that ground’s importance. And a central claim is that the antagonists have misidentifed what in fact separates them. The dispute isn’t, as often it seems, about rights, interests, or personhood (and if it were, Dworkin claims, then it would be thoroughly intractable) but rather about our understanding of sanctity. For, he insists, both sides in fact agree not only that human life has some special importance or value, but that it is in some recognizable manner sacred. And progress is made if, within the spectrum of positions available here, there can be some shifting, by both sides, towards what lies in the middle. Suppose we characterize the debate as pro-life vs pro-choice. On the one hand is the unbudgeable insistence that abortion is never to be permitted, whatever the circumstances. On the other is the claim that a woman can always, and legitimately, choose to end the life of the fetus within her. Both sides might give some ground; the frst making exceptions in the case of rape or incest, or where the mother’s life is threatened by that of the fetus; the latter by granting that late term abortions cannot be unproblematic. We might, then, imagine this reconciliation project enjoys at least a partial success. But this still leaves a very substantial area over which disagreement will remain. The bulk of those most hostile to abortion will see Dworkin’s account of sanctity as far too attenuated to refect their core position. Even if a case can be made for our needing to value and respect life, much more is involved, they will insist, in holding life to be sacred. Nor is it diffcult to spell this out; whether ultimately defensible or not, their frm conviction is that abortion – and thus the deliberate ending of a human life – is, exceptional circumstances apart, categorically wrong.2 In denying this, they will maintain, Dworkin is fatly opposing their core principle. He isn’t so much fnding a middle ground as camoufaging his support for their opponents.

232

Appendix 1

So there is still real disagreement between the two sides. Moreover, whatever ultimately the rights and wrongs of abortion, the pro-life body, I want to argue, has the better grip on several of the terms central to the debate. Dworkin offers, and his argument rests on, generous interpretations of these terms. Thus he insists that we can properly talk of sanctity even after eliminating its religious connotations,3 and construe it simply as holding that life has some special value and ought never to be wasted. And then to say that life is sacred is to insist it is inviolable, he claims,4 introducing here another term his opponents might welcome. But it is hard to see what he can mean by this, given that he allows life can be ended for what many will see as fairly trivial reasons. He offers, however, a partial counter to this, urging us to think of life in both its biological and biographical senses, and involving both natural and cultural processes. So then if a woman chooses abortion over restrictions to her career, she is not sacrifcing a life to the mere pursuit of pleasures, but rather putting one form of life over another. She is respecting, rather than overriding, the sanctity principle.5 But the pro-life lobby will simply disagree. Consider again the opening moves. Is it as easy as Dworkin would like to set aside the pro-lifers’ claims about rights, interests, or personhood? We can imagine extremist positions. Pro-choicers say that a woman can do whatever she wants with her body, no matter what the status of the thing attached.6 Their opponents insist that as life comes from God there is no question of our ending it. But many on both sides will agree that the status of the fetus matters. Whether it is a person, whether it has interests in staying alive, or what manner of psychological development it has attained – all of this is surely of relevance to the entire debate. And I see no reason for pessimism here. Those on Dworkin’s side should dispute the issue in a straightforward manner, and have confdence that they can win the argument. A fnal point here. Dworkin is very fond of this agreement talk. His project is allegedly not revisionary but simply draws attention to, and then follows through on views over which there is, he claims, already convergence. We agree, for example, that we should respect life, that it has intrinsic value, that its frustration is always bad. And there is much more we allegedly agree about. But who is ‘we’? It is never altogether clear whether he includes himself in these various claims. The case is strengthened by its appearing so. But it can be hard to believe that he believes much of what ‘we’ believe.

Notes 1 In Belshaw (1997) I discussed both. 2 The pro-lifers who concede there are exceptional circumstances run the risk of being charged with inconsistency if they nevertheless continue to claim that the fetus is a person, and/or has a right to life. There can be dispute about how successful that charge will be. 3 Dworkin (1993: 25).

Appendix 1

233

4 Dworkin (1993: 25, 70, 73). 5 And what needs to be noticed here is that whereas for the fetus it is a matter of life or death, the mother’s career will not be an all-or-nothing matter. There might be longer or shorter delays in advancing this career, alternative careers, a waning interest in a career, and so on. 6 See Judith Jarvis Thomson’s notorious violinist argument (1971).

Appendix 2 The experience machine

Nozick asks us to imagine an experience machine. You think about the kinds of experiences you would like to have, pre-programme the machine to provide them, then enter the machine. Suppose you want to climb Everest but are put off by the cost. You pre-programme the machine to give you Everest experiences. Then you enter, foat in a tank, and have electrodes ftted to your brain. And it seems to you that you are climbing Everest. But Nozick says that when we think about this machine carefully we realize we wouldn’t use it. So then we realize that more matters to us than experience. Machine life just wouldn’t work for us. We’d no longer be a certain kind of person. Instead we’d become an indeterminate blob. Entering would be a kind of suicide.1 The key claim here, we’ll realize that more matters than experience, is, I think, not true. The other claims may be true, but only if we are to consider just one particular version of the machine. Other versions will be more attractive. The problem concerns pre-programming. Suppose you are a timid person. In fact, an hour or so after leaving base camp, you’ll lose your nerve and return home. You will never have the experience of climbing Everest. Character, rather than cost, would prevent this. But if the machine is successfully pre-programmed, according to your instructions, then you’ll have the experience of climbing. How will this go? As you seem to leave base camp you’ll seem to want to turn back. So it will then seem you are being forced up the mountain. This isn’t the experience you wanted. Or you believe you’ll enjoy Bayreuth, and the entire Ring cycle. In fact, halfway through Die Walkure’s frst act you will be utterly bored. In reality, you’d leave. In the machine you are somehow fastened to your seat. Machine life, in this scenario, becomes a form of torture. Perhaps I have this wrong, As you pre-programme to appear to climb, so also you pre-programme to appear to enjoy. You will in the machine become a different sort of person. But again experiences are all fxed. It seems that climbing Everest was so enjoyable that you want to do it a second time, solo, without ropes or oxygen. But if that wasn’t written in beforehand, you’ll be unable to attempt this. So this is still wrong. Say you enter for two years. You have to pre-programme all your experiences, all your reactions to those experiences, for that entire period. You don’t have to think very hard to realize you’d neither want nor be able to do

Appendix 2

235

this. We don’t want to pre-programme life. We shouldn’t want to pre-programme the machine.2 In a better version of the machine, scientists are constantly in attendance. They stimulate certain experiences and note your reactions. They deliver further experiences in light of those reactions. Their aim is to give you overall good experiences, hanging together in a credible fashion, in light of your broad preferences stated beforehand. Might you, in the machine, cease to be a certain kind of person? This might happen. The experiences you undergo somehow change you. But this might happen in life, also. Still, you can cease to be a certain kind of person without becoming a blob. You might still think that machine life, even with this better machine, is not right for one of us. Things are not going well for your cat, a certain kind of animal, if it is reduced to being a hooked up cat head, and nor are they going well for you, a human animal, in similar circumstances. And this, in both cases, no matter how it seems from the inside. But does it matter to you that you are a human animal? Is this something you have reason to care about? Of course, caring about it doesn’t show you have reason to care. So imagine you have a sick aunt. Right now she is in a coma but will soon recover. Doctors ask you to choose between two futures. In one she continues with her life for another six months, all of them happy, and then dies a painless death. In the other she is put into one of these better machines, before she recovers. There, and because excellent care is always available, she continues for another six years, all of them, as we predict, happy, and then dies a painless death. During this time she has appeared to do many of the things that she most wanted to do. In this twist on The Cure, there is no psychological discontinuity, even if there is a profound, but by her unnoticed, physical discontinuity. Suppose your aunt is inessentially a human being, though essentially a person. Then it is hard to see how she is worse off in the machine than out of it. Someone may think that in imposing this choice on her you’ve wronged her, interfered with her autonomy. But then this is harmless wrongdoing.

Notes 1 Nozick (1974: 42–44). And for a longer discussion than that provided here see Belshaw (2014). 2 Griffn (1986: 9) objects to the experience machine that it takes away from us – what he insists we want – control over our lives. But we have, and indeed want, only a degree of control. And as avalanches can get in the way of really climbing, so seeming avalanches can, in my version of the machine, put a stop to seeming to climb. And without at least the risk of an avalanche, climbing Everest would just be no fun.

Appendix 3 How bad is death?

Epicureans claim that death is not bad for the one who dies. Their position is very general. Death is not bad at all. It is never bad. Whether the thing that dies is a plant, a penguin, or a person makes no difference here. Strongly opposed to this is the view that death is always very bad, the most terrible of evils. But even this view is likely to be restricted. I know of no one who thinks it is a terrible evil whenever a plant dies. Restrict it to people. Still, this view is implausible. Most of us will think that how bad it is to die will vary from case to case. I’ve wanted to agree that Williams is right to connect death’s badness with categorical desires. But I’ve wanted then to add that such desires are necessary, though not suffcient, for death’s being bad. So this doesn’t yet describe any circumstances in which death is bad. Still, this is surely plausible; death is bad when it prevents the satisfaction of some categorical desire when that satisfaction would otherwise occur and the result overall would be good for you. At least in this case, death is bad. So then it isn’t bad, because it prevents such satisfactions, when they would have been prevented anyway. And it isn’t bad when it prevents such satisfactions if these satisfactions would have been bad for you. You want to live in order to destroy your enemies. But if you do this your remorse will be unendurable. One objection is that even in this best-case scenario still death isn’t bad. Another, more modest, is that even in such a case it might be impossible to say how bad it is. Take these in turn. Suppose you desire to make peace with your enemies tomorrow. Right now your desire is unsatisfed. But not many will think this is bad for you. You expect it will be satisfed soon. Tomorrow comes. You meet and converse with your enemies. Peace, and your desire is satisfed. This is good for you. War, and your desire is thwarted. You had, and still have, the desire for peace, but realize now, and with regret, that this is not to be. And it is bad for you when a desire is in this second way unsatisfed. Suppose now that you die during the night before the meeting. So again your desire isn’t satisfed. Nor will it be. Death removes not only the possibility of satisfaction – you are not in a position to make the case for peace – but also the desire itself.1 Is it bad for you when such desires are in this way removed? Epicureans say no. Most of us say yes. Should we reconsider?

Appendix 3

237

Think more about desire removal. You are wanting a career change. But on refection you see this as a bad idea. Or your partner, happy with the life you now have, has you drugged and then hypnotized into a rethink. Or again, for apparently no reason – though of course there will be some explanation – your enthusiasm just fades. There are here three ways in which a desire might be removed. And then think about afterwards. Often, when a desire is removed it is replaced by some alternative desire; and having here decided to stick with your job you want to make the best of it. Sometimes it isn’t, and your life is perhaps a little emptier, and your less driven or motivated, than before. What are the connections here with death? Most of us don’t choose to die, and don’t choose to give up on desiring. But nor does death choose to kill you. The blanket removal of desires, due to death, is typically unwilled. Losing desires is not in itself bad. Replacement with alternatives which are then satisfed can provide you with an overall beneft. But if they are not replaced? We will think it bad if someone loses some of their interest and enthusiasm for life, even when there is no pain, frustration, or regret as a result of this.2 So then death, in removing all desires, all enthusiasms, and giving nothing in their place, still appears often to be bad. Suppose now that it is agreed that death is sometimes bad for those who die. We can ask, how bad is it? Answers to this will help inform how we should respond when death threatens. But can reliable answers be provided? We can, in some circumstances, rank one death against another. You are 30, with a good life, and with further good life to come. With luck you will live to 80. We can say it would be worse for you to die at 40 than at 60. We here compare an earlier and later death for the same person. If death is bad because it deprives us of a good life that we want to live, then the more of this good life it costs us, the worse it is. Can we make comparisons between people? It might seem so. Janet and John should both live to 80. Janet is 30 and John 60. They are in a car crash together, and both seriously injured. Other things equal, it is worse if Janet dies than if John dies, as she will lose more of the good life to come. But a fair amount hangs on this ‘other things equal’. Can we compare death’s badness with other evils? David and Jonathan are both 30 and should both live to 80. Both are hit by stones. David dies instantaneously while Jonathan survives for twenty years in a coma and then dies. Neither fares better than the other. Other things equal, the badness of death is the same as the badness of a coma followed by death. Both death and coma are privative evils.3 What about other sorts of evils? If death were the worst of all evils, then certain decisions would be straightforward. It would be worse than torture. Veronique is about to be captured by bandits and then will be raped and tortured for two weeks before rescue arrives. She can avoid this by finging herself from the castle walls. But she chooses instead to live and, as a result and as we might hope, has more pleasure and happiness in her life as a whole than had she died. Still, we can’t say that this was therefore the right decision, and one that she ought to have made.

238

Appendix 3

Or consider a more mundane case. A painful operation now, with considerable discomfort for the following month, will give Wieland another year of life. And that year will be good. But no one can insist that if he were rational he’d accept the operation. We are to different degrees pain averse. If pleasures and pains were equal and opposite we could, in principle, measure the amount of pleasure that death will deprive us of, measure the amount of pain that avoiding this death will cost us, and calculate how best to proceed. But, I’ve suggested, the feelings here don’t allow for calculations of this kind. So we are unable to say anything useful about what price we should pay to avoid death. In that respect, then, we are unable to say how bad it is to die.

Notes 1 Terminology here needs to be clarifed. So I’ll say that a desire is satisfed when what you want to happen does happen. And it is thwarted when what you want to happen doesn’t, and isn’t going to, happen. Knowing, or even believing, your desire has been satisfed will in many cases produce what I’ll call simply pleasure. It is tempting to talk of (feelings of) satisfaction, but this is obviously potentially troublesome. Knowing or even believing your desire is thwarted will produce what I’ll call pain. We could talk of (feelings of) frustration. Given that I’ve opted for thwarting rather than frustrating a desire, then the potential for confusion is reduced. But here it is more clearly avoided. If a desire disappears or fades away or is overwhelmed by some stronger desire I’ll say it has been lost or removed. 2 Suppose you disagree. Then you might, in consistency, insist the painless death is similarly not bad. But frst, you won’t be able to defend your position, and second, you’ll be under some pressure to agree it is non-standard. 3 Is there this difference? You exist when in a coma, but not when dead. And this is why the former, but not the latter, can be bad for you. We might agree with the premiss but deny the conclusion follows. Or we might deny that death marks the end of existence. See my (2009) for a defence of this second denial.

Appendix 4 Values and reasons

Much of the literature relating to starting new lives, the Asymmetry, the NonIdentity Problem, and population ethics generally, avails itself of a pair of adjectives, ‘impersonal’ and ‘person-affecting’, which then qualify, variously, principles, terms, views, values, reasons, and in the latter case restrictions.1 The attendant discussions are not always clear or well organized. Nor do different authors make evident just how their handling of these terms relates to that of others. The upshot is at least the potential for confusion. Jeff McMahan is, in some important respects, an exception here. He precedes his discussion and defence of the Asymmetry with some systematic explication of the different sorts of values and reasons that sit in the background of, and then often fgure in, that discussion. And this pair of adjectives helps separate out these values and reasons. I didn’t much refer to this in Chapter 5, claiming that the detail wasn’t there necessary. But the distinctions made here are both important and interesting and, because they fgure large in many key debates, fully deserving of further consideration. McMahan begins by distinguishing between three kinds of value: When something is better for an individual, it has individual-affecting value…. There are, however some things that are good or bad for an individual in an essentially non-comparative way…. I will refer to the sort of value that may be realised by an individual’s coming into existence as noncomparative individual-affecting value, or noncomparative value for short…. The third category is impersonal value. Value is impersonal when it is neither good or bad nor better or worse for anyone. All impersonal value is comparative.2 In a note, McMahan connects his ‘individual affecting’ with the much more widely used ‘person-affecting’. He claims merit for his modifcation, ‘since things may be better or worse for individuals who are not persons in the same way that they may be better or worse for persons’.3 This has some force; there are, among potential subjects for discussion in this sort of context, human beings who are not persons, and non-human animals also. On the assumption that these matter, much like persons matter, then the modifcation can appear well justifed. We might think ‘person’ is too narrow to accurately pick out the class we want to identify.4 But then isn’t ‘individual’ too wide? There are individual trees, paintings, tables,

240

Appendix 4

chairs also. And aren’t there also individual clubs, teams, countries, planets, as well as abstract entities, such as philosophy, ballet, and democracy? And this now points to a defect in the opening claim which would otherwise be disguised. It is uncontroversial that we can do what is good for, and also what is better for, a tree, painting, table, or chair, just as we can do what is good for, or better for, a person or an animal. But there should be little temptation, as I’ve argued earlier, to assume that whenever we beneft such things we do something of value. There may be such a temptation where persons are concerned but it should be resisted. Even if there is always value in benefting a person, still good and valuable are separate notions. The distinction I insist on is, if anything, even clearer regarding alleged values of the second kind. Is it good for someone to be brought into existence with a worthwhile life? Should we think, as Parft claims we might correctly think, that causing benefts? I am undecided about this. But it isn’t obviously an important question. What is important is to decide whether there is value in starting good lives. This question about value can surely be put differently. We can ask whether it matters that we polish the table, or feed the roses, whether there is reason to start new lives, whether we ought to do such things. And as a supporter of the Asymmetry, McMahan’s view is that there is no reason (absenting side effects) to bring new people into existence. So it is especially odd, in his case, to fnd him open to the idea that there may be value in this. Set this issue about values to one side. What about the distinctions? The frst of these is clear. What McMahan calls individual-affecting value attaches only to existing things. We have, for example, a person, and aim to improve her situation. What he calls non-comparative individual-affecting value attaches only to non-existing (or better, not yet existing) things. We decide, or not, to start, for example, a new life. McMahan, if anything, sharpens this distinction by shortening the latter simply to non-comparative value. Other writers don’t mark the distinction so clearly. But this might generate confusion. Ordinary language is happy about saying we affect a person if we amuse him, fx his broken leg, save or end his life. But do we affect a person by bringing him into existence? There is awkwardness here. Contrast now impersonal values, on the one hand, with both comparative and non-comparative individual-affecting values, on the other. The distinction here is more important but less clear. How is it supposed to go? Perhaps if we understand one of these contrasted terms, we’ll get help with the other. So then what is all this talk about impersonal values, or reasons, or principles about? There are two further terms that might be related. First, then, we might think that impersonal values are intrinsic values. The examples of impersonal value that McMahan offers – he talks of species diversity, deserved harm, and equality, and makes clear that even if these have some instrumental value, he wants that set aside – can surely suggest this. But then are we to see individual-affecting values as having something other than intrinsic value? Presumably, but we are reduced to guesswork here. And it is perhaps surprising, and certainly unhelpful, that this discussion of different kinds of values isn’t

Appendix 4

241

related to distinctions – intrinsic, instrumental, subjective, objective, and so on – standardly in play. A contrasting suggestion is that we link the impersonal with the impartial. When Parft says that ethics should be more impersonal5 it seems he may well be thinking something like this. ‘Ethics should be more intrinsic’, in contrast, makes no sense. Admittedly, talk of impartial values is somewhat unfamiliar, but impartial reasons – to advert to McMahan’s second category – is perfectly proper. The diffculty, again, is in giving any contrasting account of what individual or person-affecting values would be about. Partial values isn’t going to be right. Why is it diffcult to grasp this impersonal/individual-affecting distinction? It might be easier if they were wholly distinct. But McMahan says, at least where values are concerned, that they overlap. This might in part explain the diffculty. Usefully, however, he gives an illustration and draws a conclusion: For all or at least most individual-affecting values, there are corresponding impersonal values. An individual’s suffering is in itself and apart from its effects, bad in individual-affecting terms. But it is also impersonally bad. Its presence makes the world worse. That individual-affecting and impersonal values overlap in this way makes it particularly diffcult to understand how the two types of value can be combined, aggregated, or weighed against one another.6 Using the terminology I favour, the points here will be expressed differently. Suffering is bad a) for the individual and b) in a way that matters. But then, as I am denying there are here two types of value, there are no particular diffculties attendant on this. Consider now reasons. In contrast to values, these, according to McMahan, fall into just two kinds. And he gives examples: One has both an individual-affecting and an impersonal reason not to cause an existing individual to suffer. One’s reason to preserve or promote the diversity of species may, however, be impersonal only, and the same may be true of one’s reason to increase equality of well-being… though of course in all these cases one’s impersonal reason may be reinforced by a distinct individual-affecting reason: to preserve the lives of the existing members of the species, to raise the well-being of the worst-off…. Yet the individualaffecting reason and the impersonal reason are never the same reason.7 Are there two kinds of reasons? We might say there are good ones and bad ones. Or, less obvious but equally important – there is the agent-centred/agent-neutral distinction. Alternatively, we might think there are many kinds of reasons – moral medical, aesthetic, legal, fnancial, etc. But McMahan’s distinction is different and less persuasive. The idea, presumably, is that in thinking of what is good for the individual I fnd I have a reason to prevent her suffering. Thinking about what is good for the

242

Appendix 4

world provides a further reason. There are two distinct benefciaries here. But this is surely interpreting ‘good for the world’ too literally. We should approach this differently. Discover that the suffering is bad for the person. Then ask whether this matters. If it does then you have a reason to intervene, otherwise not.8 Two things can be noted. First, it is signifcant that McMahan gives no example of a case where only an individual-affecting reason is in play. Second, ‘impersonal’ here, in contrast to where it allegedly connects with value, is readily interpreted as ‘impartial’. And then a genuine contrast can come into play. I might have a personal, or agent-relative, rather than impartial, or agent-neutral, reason for helping my child rather than yours. But this isn’t related to the distinction McMahan aims at. In sum, I’ve given voice to three concerns about McMahan’s account. He illicitly jumps from good for to valuable. He is unpersuasive about there being two kinds of reasons. And the distinction between impersonal and individual-affecting is not at all clear.

Notes 1 I list here terms that are used. But ‘terms’ is the odd one out. Thinking in impersonal terms, for example, means thinking in terms of impersonality. So as well as adjectives I could also have included the nouns. 2 McMahan (2009: 50–51). 3 McMahan (2009: note 2, 67). 4 Yet insofar as we are followers of Parft we might deny this. For he aims explicitly to restrict the discussion to a concern with human welfare. See Parft (1984: 393–394). 5 See, in particular, Parft (1984: 443–447). 6 McMahan (2009: 51). 7 McMahan (2009: 51). 8 What should we say, on McMahan’s view, about our reasons to start a new life? As he doesn’t believe there are, absenting side effects, any such reasons, he perhaps shouldn’t be overconcerned about the answer. But it is a tricky question. Starting new lives allegedly generates, remember, non-comparative value. But, though this isn’t explained, there are no corresponding reasons. Given the absence of individualaffecting value then it seems, according to McMahan, that any reason here ‘is best considered an impersonal rather than an individual-affecting reason’.

Appendix 5 XR/CV

Extinction Rebellion is a mass movement which has emerged in response to climate change and the ensuing environmental degradation. It was started in the UK in 2018 by Gail Bradbrook and Roger Hallam, but has spread rapidly, and, according to its website, is now active in 67 countries. It shares its broad aims with a range of other groups, including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and various Green Parties, but has been markedly more successful both in recruitment and in spreading awareness of what is increasingly referred to as the climate emergency. What does XR believe is happening, what do they want to happen, and how do they propose to make this happen?1 It advertises itself as a grassroots, decentralized and non-hierarchical movement which permits, even encourages, a range of views, on condition only that these are aligned with its core beliefs and principles. This can make for diffculty in identifying its central concerns. But its highly impressive website, and the utterances of its main spokespersons make some of this tolerably clear. So under the banner ‘The Truth’, it is said that ‘scientists agree we have entered a period of abrupt climate breakdown, and are in the midst of a mass extinction of our own making’. It then talks of ‘how we are heading for extinction’.2 And all of this is coming soon. Changes after 2020 may already be too late. This situation calls for rebellion, and issues in a series of demands. The UK government must declare a climate and ecological emergency, reduce greenhouse gases to zero by 2025, and must create and then answer to a Citizens Assembly. XR knows that these and related demands are not going to be acceded to just like that.3 They plan to force the government’s hand by a series of events and protests involving non-violent direct action and civil disobedience. We are all invited to join the rebellion. A stickler for truth will have issues with much of this. Climates can change, and can change in ways that are inimical to various life forms, but it isn’t clear that they can break down. There isn’t a way the climate is supposed to be. It is one thing to note, as is generally agreed, that we are now within a period of mass extinction, with much of it of our own making, and another to claim that ours is among the species going extinct. Global population, currently around 7 billion, is on many estimates set to grow to over 10 billion by the end of this century.4 But a central fgure in XR, the philosopher Rupert Read, claims that without prompt

244

Appendix 5

and massive interventions, world population will decline to less than 1 billion by the end of the century. Is the planet dying? Many in XR believe, and say, that it is, and that we are responsible for this.5 The planet isn’t an organism and so this can’t, of course, be literally true, and it is far from clear that it is true in a metaphorical sense.6 It might be asked, does XR, or its leaders, believe these various claims? It is safe to say that some do, some don’t. Ought those in XR to believe what they say? Should they aim to tell the truth? It is perfectly possible to argue that in service of a greater good – the saving of the planet – some distortions or exaggerations are permitted. Though their protests are supposedly non-violent, they’re nevertheless illegal, and certainly incur risks of violence, either by XR members or those opposing them.7 Again, this might all be justifable on utilitarian grounds. There is some evidence, however, that such tactics might prove counterproductive, with the movement open to charges of extremism8 and in danger of losing popular support. Is XR an extremist organization? The suggestion may be unfair. But then it is similarly unfair for it to contend that it is apolitical.9 In discussing what they refer to as the Emergency, much of the blame is laid at the door of current political and economic systems and the consumer lifestyles such systems promote. Roger Hallam predicts and evidently welcomes the collapse of the capitalist system. Rebelling against the government, and demanding that it relinquish its power in favour of a Citizens Assembly doesn’t gesture towards political neutrality. There is much talk of ‘the people’ versus the ‘establishment’ and the general fostering of confrontational ‘us and them’ thinking. Again we might ask, does XR sincerely believe itself to be apolitical, or does it judge, very likely correctly, that such a claim will best help recruitment? In its emphasis on group forming, on local organization, on street parties, festivals, and celebrations, XR is evidently concerned to develop feelings of camaraderie and belonging among its supporters. And such feelings are encouraged when there is a second group, the other, who stand outside, and who represent opposite values and concerns. One thing that is not often commented on is the resemblance between XR and the Deep Ecology movement of the later 20th century.10 That too claimed to be a non-hierarchical, decentralized movement, and wanted very much to emphasize its distance from and opposition to standard structures of politics and power. But the similarities cover style as well as substance, with both organizations revealing a fondness for slogans, principles, diagrams, and an apparent distrust of dialogue. Both promote an apocalyptic vision, with disaster just around the corner. Both are cavalier in issuing demands. And both claim that conformity with core principles is all that is needed to act in the movement’s name. There is, however, a highly signifcant difference. Deep Ecology is very clear in its insistence on both the need for substantial reductions of the human population and also, closely related, the intrinsic value of nature. XR has no discernible position on either point. Again, we might wonder whether its key players are really uncommitted here, or whether they’ve chosen, for prudential reasons, to disguise their views. This allows for differing construals of XR. Much of their thinking is

Appendix 5

245

in line with conventional anthropocentrism, putting people frst, wanting better management of the natural world in order to cater for growing human demands.11 But perhaps they want a balance, and allow that at least some parts of the nature have value in their own right. Either way, it might seem obvious that discussion of future populations, their size and distribution, is needed, and soon. But there is a strand of thinking that with declining birth rates in many industrialized countries, this hits hardest in those parts of the world with still emerging economies, and in ways which reveal, to many, the vestiges of colonialism. Any such talk, it is often thought, should be at most sotto voce. A consequence of this vagueness emerged towards the end of March this year, when a social media posting revealed images of stickers claiming to be the work of Extinction Rebellion, and stating ‘Covid is the cure, humans are the disease’.12 XR has insisted that these are fake, the sentiments not theirs, and those responsible not acting in their name. There is, however, a diffculty here. Though the general drift of XR opinion demonstrates a clear concern with human well-being. there is, unfortunately, nothing in their principles or demands that is at odds with this rather blunt and provocative statement.13 Covid-19 is the disease. The cure is yet to be found. Meanwhile, we are trying to mitigate its effects. How should we go about this? It is to be noted how XR on the one hand, and the UK government dealing with this current crisis on the other, are both fond of insisting that they are merely following the science, telling it as it is, and not adopting a political position. But, of course, science will help with the selection of means, though not at all with ends. Even assuming there’s agreement on the facts, there’s no escaping the need, in deciding what to do, to consider, and in depth, what values are in play, how to weigh competing values against one another, and, especially in a democracy, what value should be given to keeping the people on side. When the outbreak frst took a serious hold here, back in late February, I asked my students whether we should be saving lives or the economy. Too many of them, failing to see that it can’t be that simple, opted very frmly for one side or the other, and almost all of them for lives. The government, and many in the media, took the same line – the frst priority is of course saving lives, how can you put a price on life, everything is to be focused on protecting the vulnerable. As with doing everything possible to give our children the best start, this is not a view that can be for long sustained. If it were true we would, for example, get rid of cars. And again, there are surely questions about whether competent politicians can really believe it to be true.14 But it has been the dominant view, with anyone venturing a different line seen as heartless, or willfully provocative.15 To say it can’t be that simple – it isn’t a straight choice between the economy and lives – might still suggest there are two discrete concerns here, even if we can to some degree respect the value of both. But, of course, there is much intertwining. The economy’s performance correlates, admittedly not straightforwardly, with human happiness, well-being, and also with numbers and durations of human lives. And human lives are arguably of little or no value if they are detached from human well-being. Add in that the disease doesn’t affect everyone

246

Appendix 5

equally, and it can seem the choice is not so much between money and life as between the young and the old, and so – although still simplifying – between avoiding both signifcant and long lasting effects on the quality of life, on the one hand, with immediate but short-term losses to quantity on the other.16 Favouring the young here can, given certain not implausible suggestions, appear legitimate. Suppose there is some manner of intergenerational agreement that in such circumstances the old are to count for less. It may be unfortunate, but it isn’t unfair that they account for by far the most deaths. For we all start young, and become old only if things go well. Those whose interests might be put frst today will, in some later calamity, be afforded second place. Across time, even if not at a time, everyone is treated equally. No one should complain. What this misses, of course, is that the virus disproportionately affects not only the old, but also the poor and, as it seems, those from certain ethnic groups.17 And these are neither of them categories into which all of us, for some period, are destined to fall. So there are inequities here, and stronger reasons to focus on combatting the disease right now than would otherwise be the case. What are the likely long term effects of the pandemic on society at large? Many things will change. And it is already clear is that some people are tending to optimism, thinking that what on paper will be classifed as a recession will bring clear benefts. Supporters of XR are going to welcome, rather than regret, a permanent fall in air traffc, a dent in road building, shorter food chains, and in general a shift away from a globalized and carbon-rich economy. There is likely to be signifcant impact on town and city centres with, as we are increasingly used to working from and buying from home, a decline in offce and retail space, and, in its place, an increase in urban living. So then commuting, and the artifcial spikes of the 9–5 working day will similarly decline, and we may be able to look forward in the future to a less frenetic and pressured version of daily life. It is widely recognized that the power of the market alone will not deliver on this. It seems to be accepted that more state intervention will be needed in order to counter the pandemic’s effects, restore economic health, and put society back on to an even keel. And the government is at the present time overly fond of making comparisons with the 1930s depression, and Roosevelt’s New Deal. There will be downsides. The likely impact on urban living is hard to gauge, but many fear that the restaurant and café trade, and the leisure industry generally, may never fully recover. Why spend so much to eat out when you’re accustomed to online shopping, and anyway live just around the corner.18 Why pay money to support the local playhouse or concert hall when world class music and drama is beamed in for free?19 And why learn to play the cello, when, unless you reach professional standard, no one wants to listen? Homeworking, even while it offers savings in time and money, will, in many cases, be disadvantageous to psychological well-being. And this homeworking may exacerbate the town/country divide, generate more demands for rural development, and thus bring further pressures on what remains of the natural world. Nor can we be sure, with technology, how many will be in work. Roosevelt needed a massive labour force to

Appendix 5

247

build roads, dams and bridges. Machines now do most of this. Some among the optimists, acknowledging this, see the pandemic as a prompt to some form of universal basic income. But many would prefer to work, and to some worthwhile end, than simply be provided for by the state. The general concern, then, is again one of meaning. When working, socially interacting, developing skills, travel are all effectively required of us, then life more readily offers to be meaningful than when such pressures are relieved, and we have little to do but amuse ourselves. And increasingly, more and more of this amusing can be done at home. Some effort, and some complex balancing of costs and benefts, is needed in order to stir. Covid-19 isn’t threatening us with extinction. But it may well accelerate the process whereby there is decreasing reason for us to carry on. We will see.

Notes 1 I refer to XR as both ‘it’ and ‘they’, refecting, I believe, how it thinks of itself. Or how they think of themselves. 2 https://rebellion.earth/the-truth/ 3 The second demand here is open to two contrasting complaints, frst that it is unachievable, and second that it is in any event too modest. The demand that the UK doesn’t directly generate emissions still allows it can in various ways be responsible for emissions elsewhere. 4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_growth 5 www.facebook.com/ExtinctionRebellion/posts/363437404272374?comment_id= 363465327602915&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R%22%7D 6 https://rebellion.earth/event/no-food-on-a-dead-planet-port-of-dover-blockade/ 7 What is violence? XR doesn’t want its supporters to attack or hurt or physically harm those people who oppose it. But this is consistent with a) attacking and damaging property, even when this, predictably, risks physical harm to people, b) provoking others to attack and harm XR members, and c) encouraging members to self harm in order to further the cause. 8 www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51157718 9 Under ‘Our Demands’, the website says that ‘Extinction Rebellion is an international apolitical organization….’ An XR member told me recently that what this meant was that XR is not party political. 10 See Belshaw (2001: ch.8, Appendix 8). 11 Some such position appears to be that adopted by the environmentalist George Monbiot. See www.channel4.com/programmes/apocalypse-cow-how-meat-killed-the -planet and www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/18145848.george-monbiot-says-farming-will -killed-food-made-water/ And it is striking how, increasingly, many of the arguments for veganism stress not animal welfare but climate concerns. 12 www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-52039662 13 Their three demands and ten principles are evident on their website: https://rebelli on.earth/the-truth/about-us/ And XR is certainly not averse to exploiting the current pandemic for their own purposes. Rupert Read has commented recently in a document marked for internal use that ‘it is essential that we do not let this crisis go to waste’. See www.spectator.co.uk/article/revealed-extinction-rebellion-s-plans-to-e xploit-the-Covid-crisis 14 ‘The most important thing is to save lives. We have got to put the lives of the vulnerable above everything else…. But ultimately how do you put a price on life? Everything we do now is focused on making sure we save the maximum number lives. Protecting

248

15 16 17 18 19

Appendix 5

the vulnerable comes frst’ Michael Gove, speaking on The Andrew Marr Show BBC March 29th. See e.g. Matthew Parris The Times, April 11th 2020, and also Jonathan Sumption www.thetimes.co.uk/article/coronavirus-lockdown-we-are-so-afraid-of-death-no-one -even-asks-whether-this-cure-is-actually-worse-3t97k66vj Simplifying not only because a few among the young die of the disease, but also because more than a few do or will die of other causes which are, however, diseaserelated. A diffculty here is that there is, in the UK, a considerable overlap between being a member of some minority ethnic groups and also being with the lower social and income groups. As I write, on so-called Super Saturday, we are being urged by the Chancellor to ‘eat out to help out’ www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/lockdown-uk-pubs-rest aurants-rishi-sunak-economy-coronavirus-a9601071.html Members of the creative industries are perhaps being too optimistic in thinking their diffculties are only short term. We can, for example, expect West End theatre to recover while having rather more concern for what happens in the provinces.

Bibliography

Bayertz, Kurt, (1996) Sanctity of Life and Human Dignity. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Bekoff, Marc, Allen, Colin, and Burghardt, Gordon, eds., (2002) The Cognitive Animal: Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition. Cambridge, MA: MIT. Belshaw, Christopher (1997) ‘Abortion, Value and the Sanctity of Life’. Bioethics 11: 130–150. Belshaw, Christopher (2000a) ‘Death, Pain and Time’. Philosophical Studies 97: 317–341. Belshaw, Christopher (2000b) ‘Later Death/Earlier Birth’, in Peter A. French and Howard K. Wettstein, eds., Midwest Studies in Philosophy – Life and Death: Metaphysics and Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell: 69–83. Belshaw, Christopher (2001) Environmental Philosophy: Reason, Nature and Human Concern. Stocksfeld: Acumen. Belshaw, Christopher (2003) ‘More Lives/Better Lives’. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 6(2): 127–141. Belshaw, Christopher (2009) Annihilation: The Sense and Signifcance of Death. Stocksfeld: Acumen. Belshaw, Christopher (2013) ‘Death, Value and Desire’, in Bradley, Ben, Feldman, Fred, and Johansson, Jens, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Death. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Belshaw, Christopher (2014) ‘What’s Wrong with the Experience Machine?’ European Journal of Philosophy 22(4): 573–592. Belshaw, Christopher (2015) ‘Immortality, Memory and Imagination’. Journal of Ethics 19: 323–348. Belshaw, Christopher (2016) ‘Death, Pain and Animal Life’, in Visak, Tatjana, and Garner, Robert, eds., The Ethics of Killing Animals. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Benatar, David (1997) ‘Why it is Better Never to Come into Existence’. American Philosophical Quarterly 34(3): 345–355. Benatar, David (2006) Better Never to Have Been. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Benson, John (2000) Environmental Ethics. London: Routledge. Bognar, Greg, and Kerstein, Samuel (2010) ‘Saving Lives and Respecting Persons’. Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 5(2): 1–21. Bortolotti, Lisa (2010) ‘Agency, Life Extension and the Meaning of Life’. The Monist 93(1): 38–56. Bortolotti, Lisa, and Nagasawa, Yujin (2009) ‘Immortality Without Bordeom’. Ratio 22(3): 261–277. Bradley, Ben (2001) ‘The Value of Endangered Species’. The Journal of Value Inquiry 35: 43–58.

250

Bibliography

Bradley, B. (2009) Well-Being and Death. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bradley, Ben, and McDaniel, Kris (2013) ‘Death and Desires’, in Taylor, James Stacey, ed., The Metaphysics and Ethics of Death. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bradley, Ben (2016) ‘Is Death Bad for a Cow?’, in Visak, Tatjana, and Garner Robert, eds., The Ethics of Killing Animals. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Broome, John (1999) Ethics Out of Economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bruckner, Donald (2012) ‘Against the Tedium of Immortality’. International Journal of Philosophical Studies 20(5): 623–644. Brueckner, Anthony Brueckner, and Fischer, John Martin (1986) ‘Why is Death Bad?’ Philosophical Studies 50: 213–223. Burley, Mikel (2009a) ‘Immortality and Meaning: Refections on the Makropoulos Debate’. Philosophy 84: 529–547. Burley, Mikel (2009b) ‘Immortality and Boredom: A Response to Wisnewski’ International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 65(2): 77–85. Chappell, Richard Yetter (2017) ‘Rethinking the Asymmetry’. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 47(2–3): 167–177. Chappell, Timothy (2009) ‘Infnity Goes Up on Trial: Must Immortality Be Meaningless?’ European Journal of Philosophy 17: 30–44. Cottingham, John (2002) On the Meaning of Life. London: Routledge. Crisp, R. (2006) ‘Hedonism Reconsidered’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 73: 619–645. Darwall, Stephen (1977) ‘Two Kinds of Respect’. Ethics 88(1): 36–49. Dworkin, R. (1993) Life’s Dominion: An Argument About Abortion and Euthanasia. London: HarperCollins. Eagleton, Terry (2007) The Meaning of Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Epicurus (1926) Letter to Menoeceus, in Bailey, C. (trans.) (1926) Epicurus. The Extant Remains. Oxford: The Clarendon Press. Feinberg, Joel (1984) Harm to Others. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Feldman, Fred (1992) Confrontations with the Reaper. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Feldman, Fred (1998) ‘Hyperventilating about Intrinsic Value’. Journal of Ethics 2(4): 339–354. Fischer, John Martin (1994) ‘Why Immortality Is Not So Bad’. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 58: 27–36. Fischer, John Martin (2009) Our Stories: Essays on Life, Death and Free Will. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fischer, John Martin (2013) ‘Immortality’, in Bradley, Ben, Feldman, Fred, and Johansson, Jens, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Death. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Geach, Peter (1956) ‘Good and Evil’. Analysis 17(5): 103–111. Glover, Jonathan (1977) Causing Death and Saving Lives. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Gray, John (2012) The Immortalization Commission. London: Penguin. Griffn, James (1986) Well-Being: Its Meaning, Measurement and Moral Importance. Oxford: The Clarendon Press. Hanser, Matthew (2008) ‘The Metaphysics of Harm’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 77(2): 421–450. Hanser, Matthew (2011) ‘Still More on the Metaphysics of Harm’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 82(2): 459–469. Harman, Elizabeth (2004) ‘Can We Harm and Beneft in Creating?’ Philosophical Perspectives 18: 89–113.

Bibliography 251 Harman, Elizabeth (2011) ‘The Moral Signifcance of Animal Pain and Animal Death’, in Beauchamp, Tom, and Frey, R.G., eds., The Oxford Handbook of Animal Ethics Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harman, Gilbert (2000) Explaining Value. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harris, John (1999) ‘The Concept of a Person and Value of Life’. Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 2: 293–308. Hauser, Marc (2000) Wild Minds: What Animals Really Think. New York: Henry Holt. Heyd, David (1992) Genethics: Moral Issues in the Creation of People. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hooker, Brad (2015) ‘The Elements of Well-Being’. Journal of Practical Ethics 3(1): 15–35. Hume, David (1757) ‘Of the Standard of Taste’, in Nafsika Athanassoulis and Samantha Vice, eds., Morality and the Good Life: Essays in Honour of John Cottingham. London: Palgrave, 2008. Johnson, Lawrence (1991) A Morally Deep World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kadish, Sanford (1977) ‘Respect for Life and Regard for Right in the Criminal Law’, in Barker, Stephen, ed., Respect for Life in Medicine, Philosophy and the Law. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Kagan, Shelly (1992) ‘The Limits of Well-Being’. Social Philosophy and Policy 9(2): 169–189. Kagan, Shelly (1998) ‘Rethinking Intrinsic Value’. Journal of Ethics 2(4): 277–297. Kamm, Frances Myrna (1993) Morality Mortality 1: Death and Whom to Save from It. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kamm, Frances Myrna (1992) Creation and Abortion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kant, Immanuel (1785) Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals. Trans. Allen W. Wood. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. Kant, Immanuel (1797). The Metaphysics of Morals. Trans. Mary Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Kitcher, Philip (1984) ‘Species’. Philosophy of Science 51: 308–333. Korsgaard, Christine (1983) ‘Two Distinctions in Goodness’. The Philosophical Review 92(2): 169–1095. Korsgaard, Christine (1996) Creating the Kingdom of Ends. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kraut, Richard (2007) What is Good and Why? Harvard: Harvard University Press. Kraut, Richard (2011) Against Absolute Goodness. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kripke, Saul (1980) Naming and Necessity. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Kuhse, Helga (1987) The Sanctity-of-Life Doctrine in Medicine. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lamont, Corliss (1965) ‘Mistaken Attitudes Towards Death’. Journal of Philosophy 52: 29–36. Lenman, James (2002) ‘On Becoming Extinct’. Pacifc Philosophical Quarterly 83: 253–269. Mackie, John Leslie (1974) The Cement of the Universe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Magnusson, Erik (2019) ‘Children’s Rights and the Non-Identity Problem’. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 49(5): 580–605. McMahan, Jeff (1988) ‘Death and the Value of Life’. Ethics 90: 32–61. McMahan, Jeff (2002) The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McMahan, Jeff (2005) ‘Our Fellow Creatures’. The Journal of Ethics 9: 353–380. McMahan, Jeff (2008) ‘Eating Animals the Nice Way’. Daedalus Winter Edition. 1–11.

252

Bibliography

McMahan, Jeff (2009) ‘Asymmetries in the Morality of Causing People to Exist’, in Melinda Roberts and David Wasserman, eds., Harming Future Persons: Ethics, Genetics and the Nonidentity Problem. Berlin: Springer. McMahan, Jeff (2013) ‘Causing People to Exist and Saving People’s Lives’. The Journal of Ethics 17: 5–35. McMahan, Jeff (2016) ‘The Comparative Badness for Animals of Suffering and Death’, in Visak, Tatjana, and Garner Robert, eds., The Ethics of Killing Animals. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Metz, Thaddeus, ed., (2012) The South African Journal of Philosophy 31(1). Mill, John Stuart (1874) ‘Nature’, in Three Essays on Religion. New York: Henry Holt. Moore, G.E. (1903) Principia Ethica. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moore, G.E. (1912) Ethics. London: Williams and Norgate. Moore, G.E. (1922) ‘The Conception of Intrinsic Value’, in Philosophical Studies. London: K.Paul. Nagel, Thomas (1979a) ‘Death’, in Mortal Questions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nagel, Thomas (1979b) ‘The Absurd’ in Mortal Questions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nagel, Thomas (1986) The View from Nowhere. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Narveson, Jan (1967) ‘Utilitarianism and New Generations’. Mind 76: 62–72. Nozick, Robert (1974) Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books. Nozick, Robert (1989) The Examined Life. New York: Simon and Schuster. Nussbaum, Martha (1994) The Therapy of Desire, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Nussbaum, Martha (2004) ‘Beyond “Compassion and Humanity” Justice for Non-Human Animals’, in Cass R. Sunstein and Martha C. Nussbaum, eds., Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nussbaum, Martha (2013) ‘The Damage of Death: Incomplete Agents and False Consolations’, in Taylor, James Stacey, ed., The Metaphysics and Ethics of Death. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Okasha, S (2002) ‘Darwinian Metaphysics: Species and the Question of Essentialism’. Synthese 131: 191–213. Olson, Eric (1997) The Human Animal. Oxford: Oxford University Press. O’Neill, John (1992) ‘The Varieties of Intrinsic Value’. The Monist 75: 119–137. Parft, Derek (1984) Reasons and Persons. Oxford: The Clarendon Press. Parft, Derek (2011) On What Matters 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Parft, Derek (2017a) ‘Future People, the Non-Identity Problem, and Person-Affecting Principles’. Philosophy and Public Affairs 45(2): 118–157. Parft, Derek (2017b) On What Matters 3. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Piller, Christian (2014) ‘What is Goodness Good For?’ Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics 4: 179–209. Pinker, Stephen (2011) The Better Angels of Our Nature. New York: Viking. Pinker, Stephen (2018) Enlightenment Now. New York: Viking. Pojman, Louis (1992) ‘Are Human Right Based on Equal Moral Worth?’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 52(3): 605–622. Putnam, Hilary (1975) Mind, Language and Reality (Philosophical Papers Vol.2). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rachels, James (1986) The End of Life: Euthanasia and Morality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bibliography 253 Rachels, James (1990) Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rachels, Stuart (1998) ‘Is it Good to Make Happy People?’ Bioethics 12(2): 93–110. Raz, Joseph (2003) The Practice of Value. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Regan, Tom (2004) The Case for Animal Rights, 2nd edition. Berkeley: University of California Press. Rollin, Bernard (1998) The Unheeded Cry: Animal Consciousness, Animal Pain and Science. Ames: Iowa State University Press. Rolston III, Holmes (1994) ‘Value in Nature and the Nature of Value’, in Attfeld, Robin, and Belsey, Andrew, eds., Philosophy and the Natural Environment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rolston III, Holmes (2012) A New Environmental Ethics: The Next Millennium for Life on Earth. New York: Routledge. Rosati, Connie (2013) ‘The Makropulos Case Revisited: Refections on Immortality’, in Bradley, Ben, Feldman, Fred, and Johansson, Jens, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Death. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Routley, R.V. (1980) ‘Human chauvinism and environmental ethics’, in D. Mannison, M. McRobbie, and R. Routley, eds., Environmental Philosophy. Canberra, ACT: Australian National University. Ryder, Richard (2011) Speciesism, Painism and Happiness: A Morality for the Twenty First Century. Exeter: Academic Imprint. Savulescu, Julian (2001) ‘Procreative Benefcence: Why We Should Select the Best Children’. Bioethics 15(5/6): 413–426. Scarre, Geoffrey (2006) Death. Stocksfeld: Acumen. Scheffer, Samuel (1994) The Rejection of Consequentialism. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Scheffer, Samuel (2013) Death and the Afterlife. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schweitzer, A. (1923) Civilization and Ethics. London: A. and C. Black. Shershow, Scott (2014) Deconstructing Dignity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Shiffrin, Seana (1999) ‘Wrongful Life, Procreative Responsibility and the Signifcance of Harm’. Legal Theory 5: 117–148. Sidgwick, Henry (1874) The Method of Ethics. London: Macmillan. Singer, Peter (1993) Practical Ethics, 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Singer, Peter (2002) Unsanctifying Human Life: Essays on Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell. Stone, Christopher (1972) ‘Should Trees Have Standing? Towards Legal Rights for Natural Objects’, Southern California Law Review 45: 450–501. Sumner, L.W. (2011) Assisted Death: A Study in Ethics and Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Taurek, John (1977) ‘Should the Numbers Count?’ Philosophy and Public Affairs 6(4): 293–316. Taylor, Paul W. (1986) Respect for Nature. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Taylor, Richard (1970) ‘The Meaning of Life’, in Good and Evil. New York: MacMillan. Temkin, Larry (2011) Rethinking the Good: Moral Ideals and the Nature of Practical Reasoning. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thomson, Judith Jarvis (1971) ‘A Defense of Abortion’. Philosophy and Public Affairs 1: 47–66. Thomson, Judith Jarvis (2001) Goodness and Advice. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Thomson, Judith Jarvis (2011) ‘More on the Metaphysics of Harm’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 82: 436–458.

254

Bibliography

Warren, James (2004) Facing Death: Epicurus and His Critics. Oxford: The Clarendon Press. Williams, Bernard (1973) ‘The Makropulos Case: Refections on the Tedium of Immortality’, in Problems of the Self: Philosophical Papers 1956–1972. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wisnewski, J.J. (2005) ‘Is the Immortal Life Worth Living?’ International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 58: 27–36. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1953) Philosophical Investigations (trans. G.E.M. Anscombe). Oxford: Blackwell. Wolf, Susan (2010) Meaning in Life and Why it Matters. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Wolf, Susan (2013) ‘The Signifcance of Doomsday’, in Scheffer, Samuel, ed., Death and the Afterlife. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Index

abortion 9, 61, 115, 117–118, 231–232 absurd/absurdity 4–5, 166–172, 174, 178 aesthetic value/concerns 6, 27, 57, 212, 226–227 animals: and anti-natalism 153–157; and the Asymmetry 114–115, 118; and desires 86–91, 92–94, and Epicureanism 106; and extinction 214–215; and interests 40–41, 89; and moral status 46–48; 75–78; and persons 37–38, 80, 91–92; and pleasures, pains 15, 42–44, 75–77; and religion 18, 23; and san ctity 9, 11–14; and taxonomy 208–209; see also tigers anthropocentrism 6, 213, 245 anti-natalism 141–158 art 29, 46, 62–66, 224; and animals 75; and immortality 191, 201, 205n35, 224; see also paintings The Asymmetry 3, 99–118, 121, 130–133, 154, 157, 239–240; see also Procreative Asymmetry Bad State Account (of harm) 33 beauty 58–59, 71n8 Benatar, D. 4, 103, 105, 142–151, 153, 156–157 benefcence, principles of 112, 122, 130, 133, 135 benefts and harms 32–37, 48–49, 52n32, 101, 104–105, 134, 137n18, 143–145, 152, 217, 240; see also damage better for 30–32, 35–37, 52n32, 110–111, 137n18, 145, 239–240 betterness 30, 50n13, 110; see also better for biodiversity 212–213; see also environment Bradley, B. 84–86, 226–227 Broome, J. 3, 50n13, 110–111, 117

Camus, A. 170, 172, 178 categorical/conditional desires 4, 84–85, 88–94, 154, 177, 188, 193, 236; and animals 85–91 Chappell, R. 3, 107–109, 117 coma 17, 91, 144–145, 235, 237 compensation (for pain) 4, 90, 153–157 consciousness and self-consciousness 9, 84, 87, 91, 144, 152; and animals 88–90 costs 101, 109, 124, 131, 149, 247 Cottingham, J. 5, 173–174 Counterfactual Comparative Account (of harm) 33 Covid-19 245–247 Cuban missile crisis 217 damage 2, 32, 40, 76, 183–184; see also harm death: for animals 85–91; badness of 3, 21, 45, 47, 80–94, 105–106, 114–116, 149, 154–156, 182, 226, 236–238; and extinction 207–209, 212, 214–217; goodness of 105–106; for humans 91–92; and meaning 192–193; and nonexistence 38–39 Deep Ecology 244 depletion/depletion 125–126, 128, 130–131 Deprivation Account 3, 81–82, 89, 94 Desire Account 3, 82, 94 desires 78–82; and animals 85; and death 198–199, 237; and interests 156; see also categorical/conditional desires disabilities/the disabled 2, 94, 127, 135, 150 doomsday scenario 215–217 Dworkin, R. 3, 23n7, 53n38, 61–65, 67, 69, 231–232

256

Index

embryos 38, 81–82, 122–124, 156; embryo factory 222–223; embryo selection 115–118, 124 environment/nature 5, 8–9, 13, 29, 212, 243–245 Epicurean view 3, 80–81, 94, 105–106, 114, 236 equal worth/value 15–18, 22, 43–44 equality 16–19, 127 evaluative/normative 28, 34 existence and non-existence 26, 34–36, 113, 115n14 experience machine 39, 41, 79, 174, 195, 234–235 extinction 5, 131, 139n31, 139n33, 157, 207–228, 243–247; badness of 211–224; goodness of 214, 224–228; human extinction 214–228; understanding of 209–211; see also death Extinction Rebellion 243–247

192–197; necessary/contingent 183–184; and triviality 189–192, 194, 197 improving lives 74–80; and choosing 127 incremental value 3, 64–65, 69 infertility scenario 215–217 instrumental value 29, 61–65, 68–70, 74, 78, 212–213, 220 interests 2, 18, 39–42, 49, 82, 89, 147, 150–151, 155–156, 231–232; see also TRIA intrinsic value 2–3, 11, 20, 22–23, 30–31, 55, 57, 62–70, 72n26, 74, 108, 213–215, 220, 222; and impersonal value 240; and intrinsic goodness 69; of nature 244; of species 220 intrinsic/extrinsic desires 84 intrinsic/instrumental distinction 59–61

Feldman, F. 72n25 fetus 17, 20, 81–82, 87, 128 fags 8–9, 64–65 for itself/in itself distinction 70 The 14-Year-Old Girl/A Young Girl’s Child 125–126, 130–131

Kagan, S. 72n26 Kant/Kantian 22, 24n18 Korsgaard, C. 71n11

Gauguin 166 good for 27–32, 35–37, 50n9, 61–64, 101, 103–104, 106–107, 117, 137n18, 155, 212–213, 240–242 good that 28–30, 50n9, 69 goodness 26–28, 103; sum of 52n32, 74, 127, 145; and value 34, 48, 68–69; see also betterness; good for; good that Hallam, R. 243–244 Hamlet 5, 191, 194–195 happiness 27, 80, 113, 121–122, 132, 135; for animals 41; and extinction 220–221, 225–226; and meaning 6, 161, 175–177 harm see benefts and harms hedonism 6, 29, 43, 49, 81, 94; and the experience machine 79, 174, and the mental state view 79 Heyd, D. 103, 113–114 human animals 38; animal view 38; animalism 80 human-beautiful 59 human-valuable 62 immortality 5, 182–206, 217, 227–228; and boredom 186–189, 191, 194, 197; immortal souls 19; and meaning

James Dean Effect 226–227 Jane’s Choice/Ruth’s Choice 128–130

Lenman, J. 215–221, 228 lives worth continuing 149; worth living 43, 99–100, 126–129, 133, 141–145, 149–151, 224–226; worth saving 80, 106, 114–116, 149–150; worth starting 129, 148–151 Mars/Martians 62, 83, 93, 222, 224; and tigers 208–212, 224, 228 McMahan, J. 51n25, 52n32, 86–90, 94, 100, 103, 116, 239–242; and The Cure 97n40, 235; and TRIA 88–89 meaning (of/in life) 1, 4–6, 27, 41, 160–178; composite view of 162–163, 165, 175–176; and extinction 218, 224, 226–228, 247; global meaning 166–170, 172; and happiness 161, 175–177; and immortality 192–195, 197, 202; local meaning 161–166, 172; and love 175–176; and morality 165–166, 175–177; objective view of 162, 164; and pleasure/pain 77, 81, 163; and religion 170, 172–174, 178; subjective view of 161, 164, 171; and value 1, 5, 160, 163, 176–177 means/ends distinction 59–60, 62–63, 70, 84 The Medical Programmes 128 Moore, G.E. 65–68 moral status 2, 37, 46–48, 75, 86, 95n20

Index Narveson, J. 4, 72n24, 108, 111, 122, 135 naturalism 6 Non-Identity Problem 4, 111–113, 121, 124–127, 129–130, 132–133, 136n13, 239 Nozick, R. 234 paintings 3, 29, 40, 47, 60, 62, 65–66, 68, 166 Parft, D. 3–4, 35–37, 52n32, 54n48, 111–113, 117, 121–135, 219–225, 240–241 person view (and animalism) 38–39 personal value see value personhood 4, 17, 23n5, 38–39, 114, 116, 154–155, 231–232 plants see trees and plants pleasures and pains 4, 6, 21, 42–45, 68, 94, 141–142, 144–146, 152–154 posthumous harms 217–218 Procreative Asymmetry 104–105, 113–114, 143, 145, 147, 149, 152, 157; see also The Asymmetry pro-mortalism 148–156 Q (the Quality Claim) 123–124, 126–127, 132, 136n13 quality view see sanctity rarity 58, 67, 72n21 Regan, T. 21–22, 44, 48 Repugnant Conclusion 112, 132–133 respect 9, 11–12, 14–16, 61, 65 reverence for life 11–12, 15 rights 16, 40, 106–107, 231–232; and duties 40, 108, 147 risk 51n22, 128–129, 152, 190 Risky Policy 128–130 Same Number/Different Number Choices 122–124, 130, 132 sanctity 2, 8–23, 64, 118, 231–232; and artefacts 8, 19, 64; and equality 15–18; and intrinsic value 4, 11, 22, 55, 67–68; of life 10–15; and killing 13–16; and nature 8–9, 19; and quality/the quality view 2, 20–22; and religion 2, 8, 18–19; and respect 12, 15; and special value 10, 55, 67–68 saving lives 15, 20–21, 80–82, 91–94, 105–106, 114–118, 149–151; see also death Savulescu, J. 136n7 Scheffer, S. 186, 189–193, 215–18, 227–228

257

Schweitzer, A. 8–9, 11–12, 14, 15, 19 sentience 9, 15, 23n3, 39–42, 75, 107–108, 141 Singer, P. 13–14, 18, 40, 53n38 Sisyphus 162 special value see value starting lives 3–4, 35–36, 52n28, 99, 104–106, 113–116, 143–152; and choosing 130–134 starting, saving, improving lives 12, 15, 74 subjective/objective distinction 56, 162 Sudoku 164, 174, 176 Taylor, P. 97n42 tigers 208, 212 Time Comparative Account (of harm) 33 Tintoretto 62, 64, 65, 67, 215 trees and plants 9, 11–12, 27–28, 32, 74–75; and death 14–15, 81–82, 87, 94, and extinction 211, 214; and interests 40 TRIA 88–89 two perspectives view 169, 171 utilitarianism 16, 21, 42, 49, 97n38, 124–125, 142 value: contributory value 60; disvalue 3–4, 43, 68, 177; evidential value 60; impersonal value 239–241; incremental/ non-incremental value 3, 64–65, 69; inherent value/inherent worth 20–22, 48; objective value 56, 62–64, 162–165, 177; personal value 3, 11, 64, 67, 69–70, 74, 213, 220; quasi-instrumental value 60; special value 2, 11, 19, 26, 55, 61, 67–68, 232; subjective value 61–64, 162; see also instrumental value; intrinsic value Venice 43, 83, 89, 215–216, 224 Weak Asymmetry 4, 102, 107, 109, 117 welfare 39, 41 well-being 2, 17, 39, 42–43, 46, 49, 74, 77, 90, 92, 110, 132, 211–212, 226, 245–246; and pleasure, pains 42–43 Williams, B. 5, 82–85, 90, 94, 186–195, 236 Wisnewski, J. 205n35 Wolf, S. 4–5, 161–166, 170, 174–178, 216 zero-level 27, 30, 148, 150 Zeus 116