Depends on the problem. Have a particular one in mind? There’s no general-purpose way to decide moral issues involving future people - or present people for that matter. Btw, utilitarian calculations are useless when probabilities and utilities are unknown, as they often are.
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I was considering future people or future scenarios as included third parties in the context of externalities
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They fit into ethics to the extent that they will eventually come to exist. E.g, you sacrifice some of your time to help your future self, who doesn't yet exist. You do this because you think it's likely that future person will come to exist.
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Very succinct. thanks!
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They exist to the probability of them coming into existence. It's not a 1/1 trade if their existence isn't certain. 100 future people with a 90% chance of coming into existence should have the moral weight of 90 people.
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How do you determine the chance of someone coming into existence Plus, if current actions lessen the probability of future people coming to existence, does that lessen the moral weight they hold? Sorry if these are silly questions :p
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The present doesn't exist either, except as a residual effect on others (from particles to universes) That's the question: How much space are we willing to set aside for each other so we can all have a coherent conscious existence?
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ain't that last sentence the thing.
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Since there is no agreed on definition of "consciousness" there's no way to say something is or is not conscious. And every individual has their own ethics, so how they value others, be they elsewhere in space, or elsewhen in time, is up to them.
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They are real in the sense that we know (through fallible explanations) they will exist. Just like we know future versions of ourselves will exist.
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