Abstract
Utilitarians must think collectively about the future because many contemporary moral issues require collective responses to avoid possible future harms. But current rule utilitarianism does not accommodate the distant future. Drawing on my recent books Future People and Ethics for a Broken World, I defend a new utilitarianism whose central ethical question is: What moral code should we teach the next generation? This new theory honours utilitarianism’s past and provides the flexibility to adapt to the full range of credible futures – from futures broken by climate change to the digital, virtual and predictable futures produced by various possible technologies.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 290-312 |
| Number of pages | 23 |
| Journal | Canadian Journal of Philosophy |
| Volume | 47 |
| Issue number | 2-3 |
| Early online date | 16 Jan 2017 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2017 |
Keywords
- Utilitarianism
- Rule utilitarianism
- Future people
- Intergenerational justice
- Broken world
- Moral imagination
- Virtual reality
Access to Document
- Mulgan_2017_CJP_UtilitarianFuture_AAM
Copyright © 2017, Canadian Journal of Philosophy. This work is made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created, accepted version manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/00455091.2017.1279517
