Why the long-term future is so important

An important question

Imagine if you could travel back in time and see how your current decisions would affect the future, especially the lives of sentient beings who do not yet exist. Would your choices matter? Would you care about those future beings as much as you care about those living today?

Most of us don’t think about this. We focus on the present and, at most, the near future. We rarely ask ourselves the important question: How will our decisions affect sentient beings in the distant future?

In this text, we will explore two central ideas:

·⠀Why do we have a tendency to ignore the long-term future

·⠀Why we should care about the long-term future¹

What is temporal bias / time bias?

Cognitive biases are mental shortcuts our brains use to simplify decisions, but they often lead us to incorrect conclusions.²  Temporal bias is the natural tendency to give less importance to an event the further in the future it is. It’s as if our minds had glasses that make distant events seem less real or significant the further away they are.

An example to consider

Imagine you have to choose between two options:

·⠀Option A: Help a certain number of animals today

·⠀Option B: Help twice as many animals, but in a few years

Many people would choose Option A, even knowing that Option B would help more animals. Why? Because of temporal bias. What is happening now feels more real and urgent.

Why is temporal bias a problem?

Consider this: the present moment was once seen as the distant future 20 years ago. Future moments, no matter how far away they seem, will become just as real as the present.

Imagine that 20 years ago, you could have made a decision that would have prevented the problems you’re facing today. Would it make sense to say that the decision was unimportant simply because its effects would come far in the future?

Of course not. What really matters is not when something happens, but how good or bad its impact is.

Two examples for reflection

Example 1. If you knew a pandemic could happen in 2030, would it be less important to prevent it now just because it would happen several years from now?

Example 2. Imagine if some people had known in 1990 how to prevent the COVID-19 pandemic. Would it have been fair for them to ignore the issue just because it would occur decades later?

Impartiality: Treating others fairly

Is it fair to ignore or downplay future individuals? To answer this, we need to consider what makes a decision fair.

Fairness means treating everyone affected by our decisions without bias. For example, it would be unfair to give two students different grades if they performed equally well, simply because one is a friend. Friendship should not influence the outcome.

A widely used method for testing fairness is the impartiality test. It asks: would this decision still seem fair if we did not know our position among those affected by it?

Here are two examples of unfair thinking that fail this test:³

Some argue that nonhuman animals deserve less moral consideration than humans simply because they are aware that they belong to a less privileged species. But if they considered the possibility of themselves being born into another species, this view would seem far less reasonable.

Others support animal exploitation because they enjoy its benefits and do not suffer its harms.⁴  But if they did not know what species they would be born into, they would likely reject such attitudes. This reveals unfairness because their position is based on personal advantage rather than impartial reasoning.⁵

Temporal impartiality: Applying justice over time

Now, let’s consider another aspect of fairness: temporal impartiality.

Spatial impartiality means it is unfair to care less about someone’s well-being just because they live far away.

Temporal impartiality means it is equally unfair to care less about someone’s well-being just because they will exist in the future.⁶

What does this mean in practice?

If you can prevent something bad from happening today, or prevent the same harm from happening 50 years from now, and the amount of suffering is the same in both cases, then temporal impartiality says both actions are equally important.

Now think about how many sentient beings will exist in the future overall, possibly millions or billions of years from now. That number is far greater than the number of beings alive today or in the near future.

Important question: If our decisions today can affect all of these future beings, shouldn’t we take that very seriously?

But aren’t future sentient beings just possibilities?

Some people argue:

“Why should we care about sentient beings in the future? They don’t even exist yet. They’re just possibilities, not real beings like those who exist now.”

But think about it. Even though we cannot know exactly who future sentient beings will be or what problems they will face, we can take actions today that will improve their lives.

There are two main ways our decisions can affect them:

1.⠀Our choices can influence whether certain sentient beings are born and under what conditions

2.⠀Even if some beings are destined to exist, our actions can determine whether their lives are better or worse

Much of the fight for animals is a fight for the future

Many efforts to protect animals focus on both of these areas:

·⠀Veganism helps reduce the number of animals born into lives of exploitation

·⠀Sterilization programs prevent the birth of animals (domesticated or wild) that would otherwise suffer and die prematurely

·⠀Laws that protect animals benefit not only animals alive today but also those who will be born in the future

Two problems we must overcome

There are two major biases that prevent us from accurately assessing the impact of our decisions on future sentient beings:

1.⠀Temporal bias, which we have already discussed

2.⠀Speciesism causes people to focus only on future humans, ignoring the vast number of future nonhuman sentient beings

Our goal should be to have the best impact on the world from now on, not just for the present or near future, but for all of history. To do that, we must consider all sentient beings equally, regardless of:

·⠀The species they belong to

·⠀When in time they exist

Questions to reflect on

Overcoming temporal bias is not easy. Our minds naturally care more about what is happening in the short term. But recognizing this tendency is the first step toward making wiser and more just decisions.

Now that you’re aware of this, how will you make your choices?

Consider the following questions:

·⠀What kind of world would you like to leave for the sentient beings who will live after you?

·⠀Is it fair to downplay someone’s suffering just because it will happen in the future?

·⠀If you did not know when you would be born or what species you would belong to, would you want speciesism and temporal bias to be rejected? If so, what does this say about how justice should guide our actions?

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Notes