ABSTRACT
Organisms die, while species go extinct. The first pair of terms is easier to understand than the latter. This chapter begins by giving some attention to this second pair of terms, and so asks, first, what is a species? And, second, what is it for a species to go extinct? Provisional and tentative answers are all that can be managed here, but these nevertheless help shape the ensuing discussion. And the chapter’s main concerns are with our extinction. Would this be a bad thing? For whom? In what way? Many believe this would be bad, and want very much to avoid it. And many believe a future extinction is likely to be bad even for present people, all of whom, we can suppose, die before this extinction occurs. I explore here arguments given by Scheffler and Lenman in favour of this view, but find these arguments are in certain respects wanting. But there are further questions. Suppose extinction is bad. Is it the loss of human nature, or human culture, that we should be most concerned with? And, would our extinction be bad? Or might it, as some have supposed, be overall a good thing?
