Diacritica 25-2_Filosofia.indb - cehum - Universidade do Minho

66
CLAUDIA REITINGER
Depletion: As a community, we must choose whether to deplete or conserve
certain kinds of resources. If we choose depletion, the quality of life
over the next two centuries will be slightly higher than it would have been if
we had chosen conservation. But it would later, for many centuries, be much
lower than it would have been if we had chosen conservation. Th is would be
because, at the start of the period, people would have to fi nd alternatives for the
resources that we had depleted (Parfi t, 1984: 362).
Should we choose depletion or conservations of resources? If we think
that we should choose conservation how can we justify this choice? Intuitively
we could object to the depletion of resources because we tend to
compare our minimal loss in case of saving with the much greater gain of
future people. Th e principle behind such a justifi cation is clearly utilitarian.
We compare the overall well being in case of depletion with the overall well
being in case of conservation. Th e overall well being in case of conservation
is much higher. So we have to choose conservation. Although utilitarianism
can give us a plausible answer in this example the application of an
aggregation principle leads to severe problems when applied to questions of
population policies. It obliges us to choose the population policy in which
the sum of well being is maximum. Th is maximum can be reached through
greatly increasing the number of people even if the life of those people is
barely worth living. Parfi t calls this the repugnant conclusion and therefore
rejects the impersonal total principle (apud Parfi t,1984: 388). If we agree
with Parfi t that it is implausible to compensate the loss of well being of people
with a higher number of people we cannot stick to our initial justifi cation
for choosing the conservation policy.
Can we put forward other reasons for choosing conservation? As in the
railway example major changes in the policy of resources have an infl uence
on the identity of future people in the long run. If we choose conservation,
power stations will be shut down in many places. Some cities will die out,
new cities will be founded. Th e energy price will increase. People might
change their means of transport. Diff erent people will marry or even in the
same marriages, children would be conceived at diff erent times. Because it
is plausible to assume, that aft er some generations diff erent people would
live depending on the policy we adopt, it is not possible to reject the depletion
of resources on the grounds that these future people would have a
lower quality of life. Future people cannot reasonably complain about our
choice. As a consequence the people who live under the resource depletion
policy must paradoxically state: ‘Of course our life is not particularly good.
Diacritica 25-2_Filosofia.indb 66 05-01-2012 09:38:21