Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Abstract

One often hears: “If time travel were possible, someone could go back in time and kill Hitler, and save millions of lives.” But little thought has been given to the background issues surrounding such a claim: if time travel were possible, what sorts of ethical puzzles, dilemmas, and obligations would it introduce? For example, would one be morally permitted or even morally obligated to go back in time and kill Hitler? Would less dramatic interventions, such as travelling back in time to prevent a single car accident, also be subject to moral obligation? This paper is dedicated to these and similar ethical questions that arise from the possibility of time travel. I articulate the ethical puzzles of time travel and divide them into three different categories: permissibility puzzles, obligation puzzles, and conflicts between past and future selves. In each category, I suggest that ethical problems involving time travel are not as dissimilar to parallel “normal” ethical puzzles as one might think.