Self Quiz Chapter 18: Obligations to Future Generations

. People who will be living two hundred years from now are

future actual people.

present actual people.

merely possible people.

None of the above

. A merely possible person is

a person who exists in the future or past but not in the present.

a person who could exist but never does.

any person not presently existing.

None of the above

. Which of the following is not true regarding future actual people?

They are not in the same moral community as any of us today.

We and they cannot affect each other's interests in the same sorts of ways.

They are presently non-existent people.

We cannot have moral obligations towards them.

. An indeterminate person is someone that

we do not know.

we do not know exists.

no one knows exists (e.g., a hermit).

None of the above

. Presently indeterminate persons can include people

who lived in the past but no longer exist.

alive today.

living two hundred years in the future.

who could have existed today, but were never conceived.

. A couple has no children but would now have a child if they had not used birth control. Their use of birth control

commits a grievous wrong against that child.

does not wrong that forever non-actual child.

wrongs the society that could have benefitted from the child's existence.

is unethical.

. It is not possible for us to have any moral obligations toward indeterminate future persons.

True

False

. Since acting to preclude the existence of all future persons cannot wrong any such persons, doing this cannot commit any sort of moral wrong.

True

False

. Although we have obligations to ensure the welfare of both future generations and present people, their interests often conflict.

True

False

. We may still have other obligations toward future generations even when we are unable to keep from harming them by doing something we have no choice about now.

True

False

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