And yet, much moral theory is based upon the principle of "respect for autonomous
individuals." Additionally, one's relationship with future persons is unidirectional and non-reciprocal. Future persons will be unable to reward or punish the current generation, as the case may be, for the provision for their lives. Finally, because living people are ignorant of the life conditions of future persons, they cannot determine just what might
benefit future persons—that is, what will or will not be "goods" to them. Clearly, by assigning moral significance to those not yet born, one introduces problems that are unique in moral philosophy.
Four Special Problems
One problem is that of Radical Contingency (or "The Future Persons Paradox"). Attempts in the present to improve the living conditions in the future result in different individuals existing in the future. Accordingly, in the present one cannot improve the lives of any particular future individuals (because any such attempt results in different individuals). Thomas Schwartz, who posed this paradox in 1978, concluded that present generations have no obligations to the future, other than to insure that their lives are, on balance, "worth living" (Schwartz 1978).
A rebuttal position would be to accept the paradox but to conclude that the responsibility to the future is to promote policies that will result in optimum conditions for alternative populations.
