Lest we forget the future

Abstract

Abstract Given what the prevailing values are within liberal democracies, we need to think of a philanthropic type of power that values at their best the lives of human beings. It is also essential to find a proper equilibrium between the state, the community, and the market and the different types of measurement of the material equivalence to lives that these three spheres produce. This endeavour is all the more important considering that we are confronted with an important challenge when weighing lives, i.e. measuring the value of distant lives, both in time and in space. States are usually present-centred when comparing the weight of present lives to past or future lives. This chapter argues normatively in favour of the revaluation of future lives (against ‘future discounting’). Although it acknowledges the need to pay for lives that are endangered in the present such as in the case of hostage taking, it also shows the need to take into account future lives in other domains of security, while also applying the norm of ‘human security’, the rule of responsibility to protect (R2P) and the law of ‘jus ex bello’. The weight of past lives can also create sunk cost bias as in the case of the war-trap in which states are reluctant to stop fighting or disengage because of losses they have already suffered from.