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“It is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.”
(Clifford 1877: 346)
The notion of possible preventative actions from man-made catastrophes drives people to believe that we need to take obligations in creating a better life for future generations. Despite the high possibility of present-day people to prevent future people to experience any suffering, I shall argue that future generations—who have neither reciprocal interactions with this generation nor power to influence our well-being—do not own the rights upon obligation from present people. I contend that it is impossible for people from this generation to have obligations to future generation.
In the first place, obligations is a socially-constructed concept, which develops by reciprocal relations among members of a community. Thereby, it is not a naturally-given concept. Obligation is constructed gradually among people in a community; who share daily interaction, cultural interaction, and moral similarity (de-Shalit 1995: 22). The intense interactions—usually involving common experience, history and value—generate a sense of belonging among the people. That sense of belonging constructs a reciprocal relation, gradually shaping the ‘take and give’ connection, which is later defined as ‘obligation’ and ‘right’.
Obligations that one holds later define his or her identity in relation to the community he or she belongs to. Drawing the link between identity and community, strengthen the argument that we do not have obligation to future people; simply because our identity shaped by personal encounter to society in the real world —a place where future generations not or not yet belong to.
A person is conceived as bou...
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...iety: Essays in Honour of H. L. A Hart, ed. P. M. S. Hacker and J. Raz. (Oxford: Clarendon Press)
De Shalit, Avner. 1995. Why Posterity Matters. (London: Routledge)
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Scanlon. T.M. 1998. What We Owe to Each Other. (Massachusetts: Harvard University Press)
Waren, Mary. 1978. “Do Potential People Have Moral Rights?” in Obligation to Future Generations, ed. R.I. Sikora and Brian Barry. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press)
Girod, Gary. "Are The Millennials The Screwed Generation." Mag.newsweek.com. Joel Kotkin, 16 July 2012. Web. 24 Oct. 2013.
Feinberg, J. “ The Nature and Value of Rights.” Journal of Value Inquiry 4(1970): 243
“I intend to judge things for myself; to judge wrongly, I think, is more honorable than not to judge at all.” What author Henry James meant by this was that it is better to make up one’s mind and have an opinion than to remain complacent, such as the case of Mary Anne Warren. Warren’s arguments for abortion’s possible permissibility are lacking in substance. The aim of my paper is to discuss Warren’s insufficient criteria for personhood and address the problem with her concept of potential personhood. “I argue that it is personhood, and not genetic humanity, which is the fundamental basis for membership in the moral community” (Warren 166).
SALAMUCHA, AGNIESZKA. Forum Philosophicum: International Journal for Philosophy, Spring2009, Vol. 14 Issue 1, p166-168, 3p
Kittay’s work detailing the dependency relationship explains that human rely on each other; Aristotle’s work conveys that human forms household for economical interest; and Marx’s work implied that humans are eventually one classless society with best economical benefits for all. Whether or not being members in community is the best way to live for every human is still debatable, but it is the only choice that humans all made by
Murphy, Liam B. 1993. The Demands of Beneficence. Philosophy and Public Affairs 22 (4): 269-292.
Fromm, Erich. "The Individual in the Chains of Illusion." World of Ideas 8e I-claim. Boston: Bedford/st Martins, 2009. 325-35. Print.
Nash, G. B., Jeffery, J., Howe, J., Winkler, A., Davis, A., Mires, C., et al. (2010). The American people: creating a nation and a society. (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Education
Life for Millennials is not as easy as it has been said to be. According to Taylor Tepper, an editor of Money Magazine, when the Great Recession peaked in 2010, the large mass of Millennials graduating college were more vulnerable being that the unemployment rate among young adults peaked at 14% (Tepper). A Pew Research Center survey came to the conclusion that “Millennials are the first in the modern era to have higher levels of debt, poverty and unemployment, and lower levels of wealth and personal income than their two immediate predecessor generations had at the same time” (Tepper). In addition, David Bass, a Millennial himself and author of “The Millennial Generation Lacks a Strong Work Ethic,” states that the current employment rate for young adults is 55.3%, “the lowest rate since the end of World War Two” (Bass). These numbers do not tell it all, rather “a generation’s greatness is not determined by data; it’s determined by how they react to the challenges that befall them,” challenges that this generation does not fall short of
Beauchamp, T. L.(2003). A Defense of the Common Morality. Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 13(3), 259-274.
Nearly 3.7 million American babies born in 1982 were the first members of the new Generation Y, or more affectionately known as millenials (Thompson, par. 1). Many things play into whether a generation is considered to be faring ‘better’ than another one; job opportunities, the state of the environment, whether the U.S. is at peace or at war, income vs. living expenses, the general happiness of the people, and the list goes on. Millenials are part of a special generation because for decades, “The American Dream” has included the belief that the future generation will fare better than the present one; however, millenials are not projected to fare better than the present generation X for many reasons.
Cahn, Steven M. and Peter Markie, Ethics: History, Theory and Contemporary Issues. 4th Edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Parfit aims to defend the following two claims about personal identity. 1. What is the difference between a. and a. Sometimes questions about personal identity have no clear answer; and 2. That we can still answer important questions about, for example, responsibility, memory and survival, even though we cannot answer questions of identity. Although he admits that some of these important questions do presuppose personal identity, Parfit believes that we can overcome this problem by prizing these questions apart from the notion of personal identity.
In today's world, society creates an impact on human life. More of an impact can be seen among family and peers. They can be found at home, work, and school. At home with family, identity can be created on the difference of having one parent, divorced or separated parents, no parents, abusive parents, or even negligent parents. For example, children who grow up without a father or mother figure tend to become more independent at an early stage. Another example is where certain experiences within the family such as constantly witnessing parents argue can cause one's identity to be confined and distant. But, some people shape their identity similar to their parents. Such as a son became a soldier in the army because his father was in the army. Siblings, if any, are also an influence on the social identity of a person. They either become your friend, mentor, or you...
Contemporary Readings in Law & Social Justice, 5(2), 454-460.