Lecture One

Abstract

Abstract This lecture—delivered in an ending world where humanity faces unavoidable extinction in two hundred years—introduces the multigenerationalist claim that, in a slowly ending world, the present generation should devote themselves to initiating terminal intergenerational projects, especially those that aim to reorient current future-dependent traditions and practices in ways that enable those traditions and practices to still provide meaning even in the last generation. While multigenerationalism is a thesis in normative ethics—a claim about what people ought to do in a particular situation—it is related to claims about meaningfulness, value, obligations, and reasons. This lecture explores a range of arguments for multigenerationalism based on meaningfulness, intergenerational obligations, rectification for historical injustice, and procreative permissibility. It argues that multigenerational projects and reorientations are necessary for anyone to enjoy a meaningful life, and that procreation is only permissible if such projects succeed. Multigenerational projects are also something that we owe to other people—and especially to past and future people—because intergenerational cooperation is necessary for anyone’s life to be meaningful. While these arguments are explored in the context of imminent human extinction, they also apply to any situation where human beings seek meaning in a world facing an uncertain future.