So would you bite the bullet on the example in the first three paragraphs?
Yes, as I said in my last paragraph. Would you bite the other end of the bullet if the “conservationist” had been the ardent fan of cuteness and the descendants cared more for the environment as a whole?
And you don’t have any moral obligations toward fulfilling the last wish of, say, your parents, after they are dead?
That would depend very much on what the last wishes were. If a parent’s dying wish were that their offspring grow up to be an accountant, would you think that imposed any obligation? Especially if they are already establishing themselves as a professional musician?
My parents are dead, btw. Their estates were disposed of according to their wills, by custom and law, and that was that. Cremated, no graves to visit. There were no informally expressed last wishes. I was not especially close to them anyway.
Wishes about cuteness and accountants: I admit that fulfilling some dead person’s wish can conflict with your own wishes. But this this seems to be just an instance of the usual moral problem of weighing conflicting preferences of different people. As a rough approximation: If the desire of the descendant that X should not be the case is lower than the desire of the deceased that X should be the case, it seems plausible that X should be realized by the descendant.
For illustration: Imagine yesterday some person A, who is not in town, wants you to do them a favor and mow the lawn of their old neighbor. You agree, because you like A and A did you a favor in the past as well. If you don’t do it, person A will never find out, but you respect their wish and fulfill it.
Now assume A unexpectedly dies tomorrow. Would this change anything versus A living another 40 years? Why would it be relevant that A is alive while you mow the lawn? As I said, you know that A wouldn’t find out either way. In neither case does A learn whether you have cut the lawn, in both cases you are just fulfilling their wish.
I’d suggest that if the obligation doesn’t involve an inheritance, you at most have the obligation if you’d have had that obligation if the person had still been alive. You have no obligation to obey a demand from your parents that you be an accountant even when they’re still alive.
Yes, as I said in my last paragraph. Would you bite the other end of the bullet if the “conservationist” had been the ardent fan of cuteness and the descendants cared more for the environment as a whole?
That would depend very much on what the last wishes were. If a parent’s dying wish were that their offspring grow up to be an accountant, would you think that imposed any obligation? Especially if they are already establishing themselves as a professional musician?
My parents are dead, btw. Their estates were disposed of according to their wills, by custom and law, and that was that. Cremated, no graves to visit. There were no informally expressed last wishes. I was not especially close to them anyway.
The dead are gone. The living continue.
Wishes about cuteness and accountants: I admit that fulfilling some dead person’s wish can conflict with your own wishes. But this this seems to be just an instance of the usual moral problem of weighing conflicting preferences of different people. As a rough approximation: If the desire of the descendant that X should not be the case is lower than the desire of the deceased that X should be the case, it seems plausible that X should be realized by the descendant.
For illustration: Imagine yesterday some person A, who is not in town, wants you to do them a favor and mow the lawn of their old neighbor. You agree, because you like A and A did you a favor in the past as well. If you don’t do it, person A will never find out, but you respect their wish and fulfill it.
Now assume A unexpectedly dies tomorrow. Would this change anything versus A living another 40 years? Why would it be relevant that A is alive while you mow the lawn? As I said, you know that A wouldn’t find out either way. In neither case does A learn whether you have cut the lawn, in both cases you are just fulfilling their wish.
I’d suggest that if the obligation doesn’t involve an inheritance, you at most have the obligation if you’d have had that obligation if the person had still been alive. You have no obligation to obey a demand from your parents that you be an accountant even when they’re still alive.