On the Survival of Humanity

Abstract

In this thesis, I defend the claim that if a desire-first account of group identity is the correct account of group identity for humanity and we hold a certain class of desires regarding humanity’s survival conditions, then we can survive the extinction of H. sapiens. Humanity faces the threat of existential risk, which is any risk that threatens humanity with its premature extinction or the destruction of its potential future development. I argue that before we can have any meaningful discussion about existential risk, we need to know who humanity is. To examine the question of who humanity is, I begin by considering extant accounts of group identity. It will turn out that none of these accounts is able to help us determine who humanity is, because they were constructed with different goals in mind. I move on to consider an account of group identity constructed for the specific purpose of answering the question of who humanity is. It turns out that even with an account of group identity constructed with the specific goals of this thesis in mind, it is still not possible to apply it to determine who humanity is, and when we make assumptions so that we can apply it, we run into other problems. This is because there is a perspective-dependent aspect to humanity’s identity, and the accounts considered up to this point have been metaphysics-first accounts of group identity. On such accounts, the perspective of a member is irrelevant in group identity.

Instead, I propose a desire-first account of group identity. This account does not encounter the problems faced by metaphysics-first accounts and leverages the perspective-dependent aspect of a group’s identity to do the work in determining a group’s identity. On my proposed desire-first account, the synchronic and diachronic identity conditions of a group depend in part on the desires of putative members of the group. In the case of humanity, this means that humanity’s identity conditions depend in part on the desires of putative members of humanity. Importantly, I do not claim that my account provides the answer to the question of who humanity is and whether humanity can survive the extinction of H. sapiens. What it does is provide a procedure that will allow us to arrive at an answer given our desires.