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If your grandkids are less happy because you destroyed the environment in order to increase your happiness is that a negative or a positive in this philosophica
by guelo 10y ago
If your grandkids are less happy because you destroyed the environment in order to increase your happiness is that a negative or a positive in this philosophical framework?
- metaphorm 10y agoit was unthinkable in the original Aristotelean framework. They had no notion of being capable of destroying the environment in the way that we can now.
- maratd 10y agoI don't think that's true at all. They could have easily over-fished, exhausted the land through improper farming, or cut down all the trees in a particular area. And they had a very good idea that they could do this and screw over future generations.
- r-w 10y agoI don’t think that model takes ignorance into account. You would be unhappy if you knew you were doing a disservice to future generations, but you might accidentally do something stupid that screws things up for generations to come.
- clock_tower 10y agoThat sounds intuitively plausible; Aristotle's systems in general tended to be bad about modeling human ignorance.
- ArkyBeagle 10y agoMy grandparents did everything within their power to "destroy" the environment, and I'm perfectly fine.
- ArkyBeagle 10y agoI see that we're not that familiar with various versions of the anthropic principle. Okay then.
- clock_tower 10y agoA negative. Just ask G.K. Chesterton!