if you could predict the future perfectly and with certainty, it would be no different than remembering it, i.e., it would be the past. What makes the future the future is its unpredictability.

Hence any moral calculation based on the greatest good for the greatest number is necessary bankrupt. It entails tallying up future benefits and harms as though they were in the past.

This sleight of hand (pretending the future were the past for purposes of calculation) is at the heart of every scam imaginable from “two weeks to slow the spread” to “if we don’t stop using fuel, the earth will be under water.” It’s the future, and they don’t know.

What’s the alternative? Principles, rights, firm lines that must never be crossed. Everything else is a matter of argument, persuasion and up for debate.