The whole collection · No. 28 of 36

The last man

For things nobody needs.

1973 · Is There a Need for a New, an Environmental, Ethic?

Where it comes from

In 1973 Richard Routley (later Sylvan) imagined the last person alive, destroying every living thing on his way out, “painlessly if you like”. If what’s wrong is harming people, he’s done nothing wrong. Routley thought nearly everyone would feel he had, and that our ethics needed to catch up.

How to play it

Price everything in his world with the gun.

Pick it up

What it teaches (try it first)

If it would still be wrong with nobody left to use anything, then the living world was never worth only what it’s worth to us.

Ask yourself. What around you would still deserve to flourish if nobody needed it?

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