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Editorial

Human Futures

by Rick Lewis

Cross my palm with silver and I shall tell thee what the future portends. Do you want to know what destiny has in store for the human race? Whether your children’s children will be happy, healthy, or even recognisably human a thousand years hence?

So what does the future have in store for humanity? And how does this question have anything to do with philosophy? Isn’t it better tackled by Mystic Maureen in the Sunday newspapers, or by earnest futurologists with computers and graphs, rather than by philosophers? After all, we don’t have crystal balls (as Peter Singer once memorably said). But the future is shaped not just by blind chance and mechanical processes but also by the choices we make now. If things turn out badly, then generally the fault lies in ourselves, and not our stars. Picking this path or that is a matter of values and of reasoning, and those old friends are certainly rumoured to have some connection to philosophy.

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