Joel Kontinen
Todd May, a professor of philosophy at Clemson University, writes about human extinction. Would it be necessary for furthering life on the planet?
“It is humanity that is committing a wrong, a wrong whose elimination would likely require the elimination of the species, but with whom we might be sympathetic nonetheless.”
“Human beings are destroying large parts of the inhabitable earth and causing unimaginable suffering to many of the animals that inhabit it,”
“First, human contribution to climate change is devastating ecosystems, Second, increasing human population is encroaching on ecosystems that would otherwise be intact. Third, factory farming fosters the creation of millions upon millions of animals for whom it offers nothing but suffering and misery before slaughtering them in often barbaric ways.
How many human lives would it be worth sacrificing to preserve the existence of Shakespeare’s works?”
This tragedy is caused by the Fall, Adam's sin, that has enticed us.
Source:
May, Todd, 2018 Would Human Extinction Be a Tragedy? The New York Times (17 December).
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