The axiological approach, at least when interpreted along the lines I have been discussing, treats the existence and well-being of human beings—or, perhaps, the existence of what Larry Temkin calls “high-quality life”8 more generally—as great impersonal values which we have strong reasons to promote. It would simply be a bad thing—indeed, Parfit says it would be “much worse than most people think”9—if humankind (and other forms of “high-quality life”) were to disappear from the universe forever.
