John Leslie Nagel Wikipedia, Wiki, Outlaw
John Leslie Nagel Wikipedia, Wiki, Outlaw – Professor Emeritus John Leslie (1940-) teaches at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. He makes the case that we shouldn’t subscribe to the notion that life should become extinct in his article “Why Not Let Life Become Extinct?”
John Leslie Nagel Wikipedia, Wiki, Outlaw
Some claim that the extinction of humanity would not be sad or unfortunate because: 1) no one would be left to feel sad; or 2) existence is so miserable that extinction is preferable. Since someone in a position of authority might decide that life is not worth living and activate the nuclear button (or trigger another extinction scenario), Leslie contends that this dilemma has real-world ramifications.
“Why Not Let Life Become Extinct?” by John Leslie.
Fortunately, most people don’t think this way, but if they do, there aren’t many intellectual arguments to convince them otherwise. Furthermore, since so many people have miserable lives, it is simple to see how a solution would need the death of a significant number of people. Philosophers frequently make the case that we should better the lives of the poorest among us.
But what if we let all life disappear? Some philosophers contend that even if life is valuable, we have no duty to spread it, and that we have no duty to save someone’s life if they are about to lose it. Such thinking is based on the idea that while we should try to avoid hurting others, we are not obligated to assist them. The results of other ways of thinking can be comparable.
If life is currently or in the future sufficiently miserable, a utilitarian may argue that it should extinct. Others counter that we have no obligations to create future beings, happy or not, for the simple reason that they cannot be denied anything because they do not yet exist.
Leslie disagrees, arguing that the nature of the circumstance and its repercussions should be taken into consideration while deciding whether to create it. The most important factor to consider while selecting whether or not to build a specific future is whether or not it will be a good one.
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He now offers some apologies. First, improving the lives of the poorest people is morally right, but not if doing so means wiping off the entire human race. Second, just as you are not required to feed others while your own family is going hungry, real individuals are not required to make all sacrifices for hypothetical people. Third, we are not required to have children due to overpopulation.
Additionally, we cannot be certain that we owe obligations to future generations because ethics is ill-defined. Leslie speculates that there might be a “ethical requirement that it exist” because the universe has worth despite the evil it contains. In other words, if anything has intrinsic value, it becomes ethical for it to exist.
But how does the prescription that something should exist come from the description of a thing’s nature? Leslie contends that a description of a thing’s nature cannot be used to infer that it should exist. Maybe it would be better if there was no life.
But if we both agree that life is good in its core, do we then owe it a duty to continue? Leslie replies “no.” Since other ethical factors could supersede such requirement, a thing’s inherent goodness simply suggests that it has some obligation to exist. For example, a moral person can believe that having life end is preferable to having a world filled with so much misery.
The net result of all of this is that neither side has a convincing argument. Competent philosophers who contend that the absence of life is preferable are likely on an equal footing with those who contend that life is better than death. Still, think twice before affiliating with such folks, Leslie advises.
In the end, we are unable to demonstrate with certainty why we should prevent the extinction of life because we can never go from asserting that something is—even happiness or pleasure—to asserting that it should be.
Additionally, it is unclear if maximising happiness is the right moral objective. Instead, perhaps we ought to make an effort to stop suffering, even if that means letting life become extinct. Philosophers don’t typically support such an idea, but the fact that they don’t implies that they are prepared to put up with the misery of some people in exchange for the happiness of others.
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