Human Extinction! Don't Panic Think About It Like A Philosopher

12/22/2018 Human extinction: The philosophical arguments for and against
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Human extinction! Don't panic; think about it like a

philosopher.
Most people think human extinction would be bad. These people aren't philosophers.
(//bigthink.com/community/scotty-hendricks)
20 December, 2018
SCOTTY HENDRICKS (//BIGTHINK.COM/COMMUNITY/SCOTTY-HENDRICKS)
https://bigthink.com/politics-current-affairs/human-extinction-philosophy?rebelltitem=4#rebelltitem4 1/16


A new opinion piece in The New York Times argues that humanity is
so horrible
BIG to other
THINK FORforms of life (/BIG-THINK-FOR-BUSINESS)
BUSINESS that our extinction wouldn't be all
that bad, morally speaking.
The author, Dr. Todd May, is a philosopher who is known for advising
the writers of The Good Place.
The idea of human extinction is a big one, with lots of disagreement
on its moral value.
Humans could go extinct. The idea has been oating around science
ction since 1826 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Man), it
dominated diplomatic thinking during the Cold War, and it lls the
existentially inclined with dread. We've had some dif cult times in the
past, but today the only real threat to humanity is suicide.
While most people would think humans going extinct would be an

obviously bad thing, these people aren't philosophers. This strange breed
of human looks at the problem from many perspectives and often comes
to conclusions that might shock you.
A tragedy, but not a bad thing.

In his opinion essay (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/17/opinion/human-
extinction-climate-change.html) in The New York Times, philosophy
professor Todd May
(https://www.clemson.edu/caah/departments/philosophy-
religion/people/facultyBio.html?id=386) considers the idea of human
extinction and decides it would be "a tragedy" but notes that "it might just
be a good thing."
Knowing how confusing that sentence was, he explains the idea by

looking to tragic heroes in literature. Characters like Oedipus and King Lear
do bad things yet invoke our sympathy. The idea is that humanity is doing
bad things that could only be stopped with the extinction of humanity, but
that we still have every reason to feel sympathetic for humanity despite
this.

The "bad things" Dr. May refers to in this case are the suffering we cause to
animals and the damage we cause to
DISCOVER the (/VIDEOS)
VIDEO environment. He makes speci c
reference to the vast numbers of animals we breed into existence, cram
BIG THINK
into factory farms FOR
to live BUSINESS lives
unpleasant (/BIG-THINK-FOR-BUSINESS)
getting fat, then eat them, as one
example. He mentions how human-caused climate change will alter
Yellowstone National Park
(https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/15/climate/yellowstone-
global-warming.html) as another. Our often wanton destruction of the
environment is unmatched by any other creature.
He concludes that while humanity has done some good things, like
making art and writing good plays, it would "make the world better off" to
see us go. The loss of the art, beauty, and the rest would be the tragic
element that should invoke sympathy but doesn't outweigh what we're
doing to nature. He admits the harshness and controversial nature of this
stance and explains:
"It may well be, then, that the extinction of humanity would make the
world better off and yet would be a tragedy. I don't want to say this for
sure, since the issue is quite complex. But it certainly seems a live
possibility, and that by itself disturbs me."
Is this opinion popular? Should I be

concerned?

The idea that it would be for the best if humanity died off is held by more
people than you might imagine. The Voluntary Human Extinction
Movement (yes, it is real (http://www.vhemt.org/)) encourages its
supporters to not have children in hopes that humanity will peacefully die
off.
The perpetually depressed Schopenhauer was an anti-natalist

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinatalism), one who thinks having
children is morally wrong, because he thought most people would be
doomed to live lives dominated by suffering. Several other thinkers, most
notably David Benatar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Benatar), agree
with him. If these arguments were carried to their logical extreme, there
wouldn't be any humans left after a few decades.
Others, including Benatar and the extinction movement people, agree

with Dr. May that creating more humans causes more environmental
trouble than is morally justi able and that we should stop reproducing
now.
Now, none of these groups or people advocate suicide or murder. They

argue only that we shouldn't create more people. There is a, generally
accepted, moral difference between people who are alive and people who
could exist. While saying we shouldn't have more kids doesn't cause harm,
since people who never existed can't be harmed, killing people currently
alive does harm people. So you needn't worry about armies of
philosophical Unabombers
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski#Industrial_Society_and_Its_Futu
cropping up anytime soon.

What about the side for human life?

Who is on that side?
Dr. May does refer to stances one could take that would cause you to
disagree with them. One such position would be to assume there is a
"profound moral gap" between animals and humans. If you did this, the
suffering we cause animals to feel could be dismissed off hand because
the animals have no moral standing.
Plenty of philosophers haveHuman
12/22/2018
argued for this exact thing. Most famous
extinction: The philosophical arguments for and against

among them was Immanuel Kant (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-
animal/#RatiPers), who argued
DISCOVER thatVIDEO we should (/VIDEOS) be kind to animals as
practice for being nice to people but considered them things without
moral rights.BIG
He THINK
wouldFOR BUSINESS
probably nd(/BIG-THINK-FOR-BUSINESS)
the idea that we should drive
ourselves to extinction for the sake of those animals to be absurd. Christine
Korsgaard (http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~korsgaar/index.html), a
modern Kantian theorist, disagrees and argues that animals are worthy of
some moral consideration while admitting that our capacity for re ective,
normative thinking is a unique feature that may have moral weight.
There is also a more moderate route other thinkers take. Dr. Temple
Grandin (https://www.templegrandin.com/), a professor of animal science
at Colorado State University and noted autism spokesperson
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn_9f5x0f1Q), argues that raising
animals for the sole purpose of eating them is ethical but that we should
assure them a decent life with a minimum of pain. Her stance would both
allow humans to continue existing and using animals for our bene t while
improving life for those animals; no extinctions required.
Even Peter Singer (https://petersinger.info/), a philosopher who has been

known to stake out a controversial stance
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer#Abortion,_euthanasia,_and_infant
now and then, argues that we should give animals moral consideration
but has yet to say that we ought to die off for their sake. Instead, he has
argued that we ought to stop needlessly causing them harm and perhaps
take up vegetarianism.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer#Animal_liberation_and_veganism)
Would the world be better off without

humanity?

It is also possible to take issue with the claim that the environment would
be that much better off without humans or that the effect of humanity on
the environment is so awful that we ought to die off. Nature can be
sickeningly cruel
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_cockroach_wasp#Reproductive_behav
without any human intervention. Animals can cause as much
deforestation and environmental degradation
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bark_beetle)as humanity does at the local
scale. Plants, as well as humans, have caused climate catastrophes
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxygenation_Event) by changing the
composition of the atmosphere.
There were two dozen mass extinction events

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event) before the evolution of
modern humans. One of these, the Permian–Triassic extinction event
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extinction_event),
saw 96% of all marine and 70% of all land-dwelling vertebrate life die. The
famous Cretaceous
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_extinction_ev
event featured the death of the dinosaurs and almost every land animal
that weighed more than 55 pounds as the result of a giant asteroid hitting
the earth, as they often have done and will do again
(https://stardate.org/astro-guide/faqs/what-chance-earth-being-hit-comet-
or-asteroid). Humans have yet to do anything with nearly the kind of
impact on the environment as these random events had.
While our destroying the environment is not made acceptable by the fact
a random occurrence might do the same thing, it does make the
argument that humans should die off for the sake of the environment lose
a bit of its punch. After all, ifHuman
12/22/2018
another mass extinction event is inevitable,
extinction: The philosophical arguments for and against

which many people think is the case
(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC344925/),
DISCOVER VIDEO (/VIDEOS) then getting rid
of humans doesn't actually accomplish much in the way of protecting the
environmentBIG THINK
over FOR BUSINESS
the long run. (/BIG-THINK-FOR-BUSINESS)
It would only serve to assure that, after that next cataclysm, both the
environment and human-made wonders like the works of Shakespeare are
obliterated. Since Dr. May does suggest that the works of art humanity
creates have value and that there is something to be said for our being the
only animal that can truly contemplate beauty, a world where we are gone
and nature takes it course seems to be the worst one of all.
Would humanity going the way of the dodo be a bad thing? Some
philosophers don't think so, though they might shed a tear or two for us
anyway. While the rate of population increase makes the immediate risk of
extinction seem low, risks are always present. So, think for a moment, if we
went away, how sad a thing would it be?
RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

Opinion | Would Human Extinction Be a Tragedy? - The New York ... ›
(https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/17/opinion/human-extinction-
climate-change.html)
Would it be bad if humanity were to become extinct? | Practical Ethics
› (http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2014/09/would-it-be-bad-if-
humanity-were-to-become-extinct/)
After The Humans Are Gone | Issue 61 | Philosophy Now › 
(https://philosophynow.org/issues/61/After_The_Humans_Are_Gone)
New York Times column asks: 'Would human extinction be a tragedy?' ›
(https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/new-york-times-column-
asks-would-human-extinction-be-a-tragedy)
environment (https://bigthink.com/tag/environment)
humanity (https://bigthink.com/tag/humanity)
global issues (https://bigthink.com/tag/global-issues)
climate change (https://bigthink.com/tag/climate-change)
philosophy (https://bigthink.com/tag/philosophy)
(https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?
philosophy%3Fxrs%3DRebelMouse_fb%26ts%3D1545332743)
extinction-
affairs%2Fhuman-
current-
u=https%3A%2F%2Fbigthink.com%2Fpolitics-
philosophy&text=Human%20extinction%21%20Don%27t%20pani
extinction-
affairs/human-
current-
url=https://bigthink.com/politics-
(https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?
philosophy)
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12/22/2018 Human extinction: The philosophical arguments for and against

DISCOVER VIDEO (/VIDEOS)

BIG THINK FOR BUSINESS (/BIG-THINK-FOR-BUSINESS)