ABSTRACT
The threats of nuclear waste may last as long as 300,000 years, and the lowering of a water table in the desert may not be reversible for 25,000 years. To these long-term projects belongs the preservation of wildlife. By law, taxpayers do pay their money in the United States to preserve endangered species. The discount axiom apparently runs into difficulties as applied to future generations because the recipient of the return is different from the present-day taxpayer. Reason is a very strong human function; when reason is confronted with a phenomenon, it naturally tries to explain it by subsuming it into a larger picture. Reason cannot deny that moral feelings exist; any reading of a daily newspaper provides many examples of moral indignation over poverty, pollution, exploitation, murder.
