The future value argument

This is a forum regarding the validity of the future value argument.

It goes like this:

The validity of this argument would be sufficient reason to argue against climate change and many other issues; that is why its so important. You have previously denied the validty of this argument. I ask you, why is it wrong to destroy the climate? If future value is not a valid thing, then surely it can't be wrong to abuse Earth's resources for one's personal gain, am I right? If the people who don't get to live dignified lives because of your actions don't exist yet, then your actions are totally justified, no? 

As far as I am concerned, future value is worthy of moral considderation. The people of the future ought to be treated well by us, just as we ought to be treated well by the people that came before us. Preventing future people from living dignified lives is wrong, I say. Do you really disagree, or do your simply deny this argument for other reasons? 

In fact, I would call the future value argument the primary drive and motivation of all living things.  The defining aspect of life is reproduction and all reproduction is an assertion that the next generation of life has future value. If one does not buy the future value argument then the most efficient  and moral resolution of life's burden is a self-conversion to an inanimate state.

Because, as I've already said, it is CURRENT value that we are talking about. The climate gives us direct value immediately, as I've already said. I'm not gonna keep on with this conversation if you keep on borderline ignoring what I say. You're stuck on thing after I've already debunked it, move on. 

The year is 20,000 BCE.

I am holding a small chunk of silicon, which you describe as xxx.

Tell me how and why the chunk has a feature of moral value in any future I can conceive.

Thus fails the syllogism.

Quit lying. I am harming noone in particular when I drive my car, the damage takes time to become apparent. Yes, we need a good climate every day but the climate is still good and only getting bad over time; thus the only reason to oppose climate change is because of the value of future generations.

You are right, silicon does not have immidiate future value --- and so burning it is not immoral. That does not disprove the syllogism.

It disproves the syllogism because, in fact, silicon has become, 220 centuries later, rather valuable, but it still has a hard landing against morality, and absolutely none as conceived by my 20,000 BCE self. You syllogism simply lacks a time element. Without it, the logic fails. This is because your xxx could be, literally, anything, and your time factor is either going to express a relative present value for an xxx in a given time period, and maybe lose it in the future [such as a buggy whip, for example], or never have it in the first place in another time period.

As I've said repeatedly before, most alleged syllogisms fail completely, because the logic must hold in all possible conditions, and that is not an easy thing to accomplish, particularly when one conditional is an infinite possibility  of factors, such as using an 'xxx.'

You literally can't comprehend the argument huh? Babies is not something we need constantly, ever, its not something we need daily or even weekly. The atmosphere is something we need CONSTANTLY. So you affecting it at all affects the value it has to others. Fetuses have no value almost half the time, because half the time they don't even develop into humans. When they gain value is when they are borne, until then, the future value they might have is completely gone.

The atmosphere isn't a "might", it's an always. Learn the difference. We do not value things for their future value, like we do not try to cut with something that is GOING TO BE sharp. Especially not when that thing is actively hurting someone else's bodily anatomy. It's potential future value versus current value. Current value wins every time. 

Ant and the Grasshopper?

Though,

I'm not sure there's a need to abandon the present for the future,

Or the future for the present.

Humans need air constantly, yes. But do humans need a correct amount of CO2 in the atmosphere constantly? No. Apart from the long-time effects of bad climate like drough and hurricanes, nothing about a heating climate is actually dangerous or damaging. 

It is you who seem to not comprehend the argument. You are constantly saying " babies is not something we need constantly", as if you did not understand the future value argument. It does not considder what CURRENT people needs, it considders what FUTURE people need --- including a good climate and being born. 

You're both arguing on two sides of the climate issue as if there is one ideal climate we ought to try to achieve. Is there but one, for the whole Earth? No. But, Benjamin is correct; we're only guessing that any given level of CO2 in the atmosphere is catastrophic. We certainly had more CO2 in the atmosphere when our placental mammalian ancestors 140M years ago seemed to survive with physiological systems virtually identical to ours. Why did they survive? Because we should not strip Darwin of his primary contribution to science: adaptability.

I'm saying that future people do not neccessarily need babies, not all, and not consistently. 

The nature of the beast (life) being as it is, having children takes care of itself.  Some things don’t need analysis beyond that.

I would have to disagree, merely by virtue of such a complex thing as life existing demands investigation, bar none. 

Actually... we kinda do need a certain margin of CO2 in our atmosphere constantly, as it allows cellular respiration in plants, which in turns provides most of the oxygen for humans... furthermore, the climate it not "a certain amount of CO2" that is one aspect of the climate, but, yes, in general - we do constantly need a certain level of oxygen to breathe, a lack of disasters, protection from the sun's harmful UV rays, a certain temperature, etc, etc. 

Fetuses on the other hand, not only are they not constantly needed, but they actively violate the individual who bears them, so yeah - they are definitely not the same thing. You have made an false equivalence trying to compare them

To decide if the future has value, you must first decide if everything has a purpose.

And there's no way of actually knowing .

We can only assume, that Planet Earth and it's associated organic crust has a universally purposeful value.

And morality is a consequence of the brain.

Burning oil has not immidiate effect on the enviroment, and the harm to the person that burns the oil certainly doesn't outweight the benefit. Does that mean that burning oil is morally just even when one can avoid doing so? I think not, as the long-term effects are negative, and you will hurt people in the future, and you are preventing future people from living dignified and happy lives.

You simply don't understand the future value argument, do you? Why do you keep claiming that we do not need fetuses; that is actually an ad hoc. Of course, nobody need fetuses. However, every single person needs not to be killed as a fetus to live --- every single person needs to be born, and every single person exists specifically because their mother did not have an abortion. THAT is the argument. Any girl lives for the reason that their mother did not have an abortion, and for them to take an abortion means they act in contradiction to how they want to be treated. Any girl is happy to be alive --- thus happy for their mother not taking an abortion. If they then take an abortion themselves, they are doing excactly what they are happy their mother didn't do. 

Kantian ethics suggests moral law be created where the result of an act contradicts the motive if everyone did so. If the motive of abortion is for women to be happy, then the result of everyone taking an abortion (no more happy girls) would contradict the motive. Thus Kantian ethics would deem abortion immoral.

Even your own syllogism for morality in your abortion debate would agree.

Now why does this syllogism agree with my conclusion? Because the well being of girls is a direct result of being alive, and thus a direct result of some abortions not being taken. If girls value their own life then they value their mother's decision not to take an abortion, and by your syllogism ought to make the same decision for their fetuses. If you still deny that abortion is immoral you must rephrase your syllogism so that it doesn't deem abortion immoral.

I have argued that since everyone needs to be born to have well-being abortion prevents well-being. If you don't attack my argument head-on, you are acting cowardly.

Premise one is false, but if you remove the word "moral" from it I think it may become true (possibly).

My house has value. I certainly do take that value into consideration, as I do its future value. I would hardly say that I give it moral consideration, however.

Your house has no moral value, not even the house in 10 years will have moral value. A fetus in 10 years is a child definitely with moral value. Hence, the argument is that you prematurely end the life of an individual, and though the physical fetus might not matter, the life you are ending has future value.

Oh future moral value? That is different from what you said in post one. Very different.

What baffles me is you don’t believe the unborn have current value, out of curiosity at what point in our life do we become valuable?

The future argument means that life as a whole, not any moment of it, has moral value. That means, the value of a fetus is the value of its expected life. 

I don't believe anyone has "current value". Since the result of our actions take time to manifest, only time periods have value, never specific moments.

A single moment is without movement or change, meaning consciousness and life does not progress. Therefore, a moment can never be valuable by itself.

Yet you choose to highlight a moment in our life for your argument, I mean is the fetal period a moment in our life or not? 

Human life begins at conception.

Prove that, and prove that it matters- you weren't listening if you think that being true would change my position \\\

If it doesn’t matter then why mention it?