Forgetting the future
This project deals with the question of what attitude one should have towards the future (of others) - how seriously and importantly should one take it? The starting point is the observation, which emerges in the context of climate/eco anxiety, that a deep and serious, morally motivated concern for the future (of other people) can become an agonising concern in one’s own life when the social lack of concern for the future – the general inaction – makes the morally required personal concern for the future seem so hopelessly unfulfillable that it becomes increasingly difficult to lead a fulfilled life because one despairs of collective failure. In such cases, we can ask ourselves whether we should perhaps worry less about the future under these circumstances or whether, all things considered, it would not be better to forget about the future ourselves in view of the collective oblivion of the future.
The question of the appropriate attitude towards the future (of others) is interwoven with other philosophical debates, such as the classical discussion about responsibility for the future and intergenerational moral duties, the extended discussion about the normative significance of time and the discussion about the significance of time and time-related attitudes for one’s own good and meaningful life. The question also continues the concern of theorising under non-ideal circumstances to take cognitive, affective, motivational limitations in future ethics seriously and to reflect on ideal norms in the light of real empirical barriers – and this also includes those barriers that arise from moral despair when concern for the future of others becomes a torment in one’s own life.
On a more general level, the considerations of the project can also be understood independently of the climate and environmental context as a reflection on the rationality of despair and hope in the face of the failure of morally motivated personal projects – and as an attempt to better understand a deeper tension in the ideal of the good life in moral harmony.
