I didn’t particularly fill in the valuing future persons argument—in my defence, it is a fairly common view in the literature not to discount future persons, so I just assumed it. If I wanted to provide reasons, I’d point to future calamities (which only seem plausibly really bad if future people have interests or value—although that needn’t on be on a par with ours), reciprocity across time (in the same way we would want people in the past to weigh our interests equal to theirs when applicable, same applies to us and our successors), and a similar sort of Rawlsian argument that if we didn’t know we would live now on in the future, the sort of deal we would strike would be those currently living (whoever they are) to weigh future interests equal to their own. Elaboration pending one day, I hope!
The nifty program is Prezi.
I didn’t particularly fill in the valuing future persons argument—in my defence, it is a fairly common view in the literature not to discount future persons, so I just assumed it. If I wanted to provide reasons, I’d point to future calamities (which only seem plausibly really bad if future people have interests or value—although that needn’t on be on a par with ours), reciprocity across time (in the same way we would want people in the past to weigh our interests equal to theirs when applicable, same applies to us and our successors), and a similar sort of Rawlsian argument that if we didn’t know we would live now on in the future, the sort of deal we would strike would be those currently living (whoever they are) to weigh future interests equal to their own. Elaboration pending one day, I hope!