How should utilitarians think about the future?

Canadian Journal of Philosophy 47 (2-3):290-312 (2017)
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Abstract

Utilitarians must think collectively about the future because many contemporary moral issues require collective responses to avoid possible future harms. But current rule utilitarianism does not accommodate the distant future. Drawing on my recent books Future People and Ethics for a Broken World, I defend a new utilitarianism whose central ethical question is: What moral code should we teach the next generation? This new theory honours utilitarianism’s past and provides the flexibility to adapt to the full range of credible futures – from futures broken by climate change to the digital, virtual and predictable futures produced by various possible technologies.

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Tim Mulgan
University of Auckland

Citations of this work

Environmental ethics.Andrew Brennan - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Moral Education and Rule Consequentialism.Dale E. Miller - 2020 - Philosophical Quarterly 71 (1):120-140.
Corporate Agency and Possible Futures.Tim Mulgan - 2018 - Journal of Business Ethics 154 (4):901-916.

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References found in this work

Reasons and Persons.Derek Parfit - 1984 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Anarchy, State, and Utopia.Robert Nozick - 1974 - New York: Basic Books.
Famine, Affluence, and Morality.Peter Singer - 1972 - Oxford University Press USA.
Famine, affluence, and morality.Peter Singer - 1972 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (3):229-243.

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