It’s the nature of population that it grows until it encounters a limit—either of resources, or cultural. I hope that future humans will breed more in the presence of more resources, and less in the presence of less resources, but I don’t fully trust this will happen.
“Either resources, or cultural” makes this claim true but meaninglessly broad, since you can say that any population that fails to expand, but has sufficient resources to do so, is stopping for “cultural” reasons. Thus, populations will keep growing until they run out of resources to expand, or else they won’t. Not terribly helpful.
Much more importantly, you argue abstract resources, not “nature”—the two are quite different. Even if we grant you your assumption that future populations will use any existing resources to increase population, “nature preservation” generally deals with preventing people from converting non-population sustaining resources—squirrels, waterfalls, purple mountain’s majesty—into population sustaining resources—hot-dogs, hydroelectric plants, and coal mines.
Thus, preserving nature should limit population growth while making life more pleasant for existing populations. Within your own framework, this sounds like a win-win.
Nature preservation isn’t once and for all. We can’t really influence future generations not to use the nature we preserved as non-renewable resources, except culturally.
With time, many kinds of resources dwindle, while technology improvements increase the potential value of unused resources. Future generations may want those resources more than we do today.
We can’t really influence future generations not to use the nature we preserved as non-renewable resources, except culturally.
This isn’t really, um, true. We can pass laws, and laws help create and maintain a very powerful status quo. Cultural methods also matter, and cannot be arbitrarily excepted.
But this is all irrelevant to my actual point. Preserving nature means fewer baby-producing resources and more pleasure-producing resources for however long that preservation lasts. If we preserve now, then, ceteris paribus, we expect slower population growth and more happiness vs. if we commercialized that nature now. The fact that preservation is not forever is wholly irrelevant; however long it lasts, it generates a better world than had it not lasted that long, within your own concept of “better.”
You’re presenting the wrong alternatives. It’s not preserving nature vs. letting others harvest resources they will use in part to make babies. Rather, it’s preserving nature vs. harvesting it for myself and using those resources for whatever I want (which does not include babies).
The argument of the OP (and others) which I originally answered, was that nature should be a sort of trust, and should not be exploited by this generation. That morally, we should leave it no worse than we found it for future generations. Hence my argument that I can’t trust future generations.
Preservation is great if we can enjoy the preserved nature as parks, etc.(*) But preservation purely for the sake of preservation isn’t so great, and that was my point originally.
(*) On the market the value of nature as “resources” is clearly higher, in large part because the incentives and responsibilities are all set up wrong. It follows that we can economically harvest all the resources we want and use the profits to set up parks, preserves, etc. which would be tailored to human enjoyment and so much more pleasant for most people than really wild nature.
“Either resources, or cultural” makes this claim true but meaninglessly broad, since you can say that any population that fails to expand, but has sufficient resources to do so, is stopping for “cultural” reasons. Thus, populations will keep growing until they run out of resources to expand, or else they won’t. Not terribly helpful.
Much more importantly, you argue abstract resources, not “nature”—the two are quite different. Even if we grant you your assumption that future populations will use any existing resources to increase population, “nature preservation” generally deals with preventing people from converting non-population sustaining resources—squirrels, waterfalls, purple mountain’s majesty—into population sustaining resources—hot-dogs, hydroelectric plants, and coal mines.
Thus, preserving nature should limit population growth while making life more pleasant for existing populations. Within your own framework, this sounds like a win-win.
Nature preservation isn’t once and for all. We can’t really influence future generations not to use the nature we preserved as non-renewable resources, except culturally.
With time, many kinds of resources dwindle, while technology improvements increase the potential value of unused resources. Future generations may want those resources more than we do today.
This isn’t really, um, true. We can pass laws, and laws help create and maintain a very powerful status quo. Cultural methods also matter, and cannot be arbitrarily excepted.
But this is all irrelevant to my actual point. Preserving nature means fewer baby-producing resources and more pleasure-producing resources for however long that preservation lasts. If we preserve now, then, ceteris paribus, we expect slower population growth and more happiness vs. if we commercialized that nature now. The fact that preservation is not forever is wholly irrelevant; however long it lasts, it generates a better world than had it not lasted that long, within your own concept of “better.”
You’re presenting the wrong alternatives. It’s not preserving nature vs. letting others harvest resources they will use in part to make babies. Rather, it’s preserving nature vs. harvesting it for myself and using those resources for whatever I want (which does not include babies).
The argument of the OP (and others) which I originally answered, was that nature should be a sort of trust, and should not be exploited by this generation. That morally, we should leave it no worse than we found it for future generations. Hence my argument that I can’t trust future generations.
Preservation is great if we can enjoy the preserved nature as parks, etc.(*) But preservation purely for the sake of preservation isn’t so great, and that was my point originally.
(*) On the market the value of nature as “resources” is clearly higher, in large part because the incentives and responsibilities are all set up wrong. It follows that we can economically harvest all the resources we want and use the profits to set up parks, preserves, etc. which would be tailored to human enjoyment and so much more pleasant for most people than really wild nature.