The future in the moral maze
Should we take a dive in our living standards in order to benefit our descendants?
On BBC Radio’s Moral Maze this week, my colleagues and I pondered our responsibility to the future. Do we have such a responsibility? What is the trade-off between the future and the present? As fuel prices go through the roof in order to (ahem) save the planet, should we be prepared to take a dive in our living standards for the benefit of our grandchildren and those coming after them? Is that a morally sustainable position as gas prices rocket and today’s poor are forced to choose between heating and eating? Can anyone even work out what will actually happen in the future, or are all such prognostications merely idealistic fantasies among those who want to make the world anew? And is optimism or pessimism the default position for the thinking person?
My co-panellists were Giles Fraser, Anne McElvoy and Ash Sarkar. Our witnesses were James Plunkett, author of End State: Nine Ways Society is Broken, and How We Fix It; politics professor Rosie Campbell; journalist Ross Clark; and politics lecturer Dr Gareth Dale.
If you can access BBC iPlayer, you can listen to the programme here.
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