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What’s wrong with human extinction?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Elizabeth Finneron-Burns Open the ORCID record for Elizabeth Finneron-Burns [Opens in a new window]
Elizabeth Finneron-Burns*
Affiliation:
University of Warwick, Politics & International Studies, Coventry, UK Institute for Futures Studies, Stockholm, Sweden
*
E-mail: e.finneron-burns@warwick.ac.uk
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Abstract

This paper explores what could be wrong with the fact of human extinction. I first present four reasons why we might consider human extinction to be wrong: (1) it would prevent millions of people from being born; (2) it would mean the loss of rational life and civilization; (3) it would cause existing people to suffer pain or death; (4) it would involve various psychological traumas. I argue that looking at the question from a contractualist perspective, only reasons (3) and (4) are admissible. I then consider what implications this limitation on reasons has for the wrongfulness of various forms of human extinction.

Keywords

Human extinctioncontractualismT.M. Scanlonintergenerational ethicspopulation size
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 47 , Issue 2-3: Special issue: Ethics and Future Generations , 2017 , pp. 327 - 343
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2017

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