Should We Go Extinct?: A Philosophical Dilemma for Our Unbearable Times by Todd May

Author:Todd May [May, Todd]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Philosophy, Ethics & Moral Philosophy, Environmental, Social Science, Future Studies
ISBN: 9780593798720
Google: YYzmEAAAQBAJ
Amazon: 0593798724
Publisher: Crown
Published: 2024-08-06T00:00:00+00:00

Human Suffering—An Aside

We’re focused here on the suffering that humans inflict upon animals and on asking whether, in the face of that, our continued existence is justified. There are some—maybe more than some—who might ask whether the suffering we visit upon our fellow human beings also raises the question of whether our continued existence is justified. Does the pain we humans have a penchant for causing our fellow humans give us a reason not to continue?

I’m not asking whether we as a species deserve to continue, given the harm we cause one another. Recall from the first chapter that what we deserve is not the issue. Rather, might the suffering we cause one another make it worse in a utilitarian way for the species to continue? Might human-on-human suffering cause more overall misery to humans than happiness? And if so, wouldn’t that be a reason to exit the stage?

I argued in the previous chapter against Benatar that for most of us, our lives are worth living. Sure, there is plenty of suffering that we go through, and plenty of difficulty that we cause one another. But in the end, I think, most of us are grateful to have been brought into existence. Will that continue?

I can imagine a situation in which it wouldn’t. Suppose the climate crisis were to become so severe that a large segment of the human population was suffering greatly from it. Suppose, for instance, that of the ten billion people that are likely to populate the planet in five or six decades, while seven billion people lived decent lives, three billion were in climate agony. If we’re going to be utilitarians about this, let’s put some numbers on it. Suppose that each of the seven billion people had ten units of happiness, while each of the other three billion had thirty units of misery. And let’s further suppose that in order for those ten billion to have their ten units of happiness, they had to contribute enough to climate devastation that the other three billion would continue their agony.

Overall, there would be more suffering than happiness, twenty billion units to be exact. Well, in that case extinction might, on a utilitarian calculus, be our best option. Even though there would be lots of people with good lives, the overall misery would override the overall happiness.

Could we really imagine this happening? In some ways, that might not be so difficult. Many of us who are better off economically often ignore the hardship of those who pay the costs of our good fortune. We don’t think about the lives of delivery people, sanitation workers, food service folks, people who build and maintain our homes and roads, many of whose low pay and difficult working conditions keep our costs down and make our lives easier. Of course, most of these folks have lives worth living. We’re imagining things getting worse for them in the future. For example, along with the devastation that our carbon emissions cause non-human animals, there are effects on those who are poor and badly situated.

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