Future generations do not exist, and are not determinate in their make-up. The moral significance of future generations cannot be accounted for on the basis of a purely individualistic ethic. Yet future generations are morally significant. The Person-Affecting Principle, that (roughly) only acts which are likely to affect particular individuals are morally significant, must be augmented in such a way as to take into account the moral significance of Homo sapiens, a holistic entity which certainly does exist. Recent contributions to Environmental Values by Alan Carter and Ernest Partridge are criticised (but not entirely rejected).
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2.
CarterAlan2002. ‘On Harming Others: A Response to Partridge’, Environmental Values, 11(1): 87–96.
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4.
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5.
HullDavid1981. ‘Kitts & Kitts & Caplan on Species’, Philosophy of Science48: 141–52.
6.
JohnsonLawrence1991. A Morally Deep World: An Essay on Moral Significance and Environmental Ethics.New York and London: Cambridge University Press.
7.
JohnsonLawrence2001. ‘A Biocentric Approach to Issues of Life and Death’, Monash Bioethics Review20 [4]: 30–45.
8.
MargulisLynn, and SaganDorion1983. ‘The Gaian Perspective of Ecology’, The Ecologist13: 161–4.
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MargulisLynn, and SaganDorion1995. What is Life?New York: Simon and Schuster.
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MurphyMichael P., and LukeA. J. O'Neill (eds) 1994. What is Life: the Next Fifty Years.London: Cambridge University Press.
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ParfitDerek1982. ‘Future Generations: Further Problems’, Philosophy and Public Affairs11: 113–72.
12.
ParfitDerek1984. Reasons and Persons.Oxford: Oxford University Press.
13.
PartridgeErnest2002. ‘The Future – For Better or Worse’, Environmental Values, 11(1): 75–85.
14.
ReganTom1982. The Case For Animal Rights.Univ. of California Press, Berkeley.
15.
SayerKenneth1976. Cybernetics and the Philosophy of Mind.New York: Humanities Press.
16.
SchwartzThomas1978. ‘Obligations to Posterity’, in SikoraR. I. and BarryBrian (eds), Obligations to Future Generations.Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
17.
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