intergenerational ethics

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intergenerational ethics, branch of applied ethics that considers whether present-day humanity is morally obligated to future generations to aim for environmental sustainability. The long-term nature of many environmental problems has forced moral philosophy to pay closer attention to relations between generations, especially given that the effects of some actions, such as greenhouse gas emissions, will materialize only after decades or centuries. Intergenerational ethics differs from ethics among contemporaries because of the asymmetrical influence the present generation has over future generations. The extent of moral obligations to future generations is also an issue within environmental ethics.

Some doubt whether intergenerational relations can be evaluated in moral terms at all. That fundamental doubt pertains particularly to actions that affect persons in the far future, such as the disposal of radioactive waste that remains hazardous for millennia. That doubt is mitigated for actions that affect future generations that overlap with contemporaries (thus turning part of the present and future generations into contemporaries) and for actions that have not only negative consequences later on but also presently (thus turning the ethical problem partly into a problem of self-interest). Some critics claim that although the present generation does indeed have a duty to take future generations into account, the concerns of future generations have less weight than those of the present. Nonetheless, despite those doubts, most ethicists consider the morally appropriate relation to future generations to be a serious topic. Whether there is a duty to bequeath, for instance, an equal or only sufficient standard of living much to future generations, what type of value must be bequeathed (i.e., the general good of well-being or, more specifically, certain environmental goods), and whether there are not only duties for the present generation but also rights of future generations are all prominent questions discussed by ethicists today.

Intergenerational relations differ in significant ways from relations between contemporaries. First, there is a power asymmetry and only limited interaction or cooperation between different generations. That challenges theories that base the justification of present-day duties on reciprocity or mutual advantage. In the context of intergenerational ethics, such theories rely on indirect reciprocity, where duties to the future are owed in response to what one has received from the past, or on a chain of obligation, where the present generation has direct duties only toward those descendants that overlap with itself. The lack of face-to-face interaction can also be a challenge to theories that link moral duties to community ties, though it is irrelevant for moral theories that justify duties independently of cooperation and community, such as utilitarianism and many kinds of human rights or religious theories. Those theories extend moral concern in a universal manner to all humans, including humans in the indefinitely distant future. Such theories, however, face difficult questions as to where the motivation to comply with such moral demands comes from and how those moral demands might be implemented in a democratic process in which future generations themselves have no voice. Suggestions for safeguarding the interests of future generations have included constitutional provisions or an ombudsman to speak on behalf of future generations.

The second difference is that presently living persons can influence future generations in ways that are not common among contemporaries. The present generation can affect the cultural, technological, and political context within which the future’s preferences and values are formed. The present generation can also influence the population size of future generations. Population size is an important issue not only in terms of its effect on the environment but also as a moral issue in its own right. Given that life is usually deemed to be inherently good, the topic of population size raises questions about how to balance the value of more lives against the average quality of those lives. Furthermore, the present generation also influences the identity of the persons that compose future generations.

That last point leads to the so-called nonidentity problem, in which policies enacted to mitigate environmental harm also indirectly determine which individuals exist in the future. To illustrate this problem, one may imagine a person (call her Laura) suffering from the effects of global warming in 2100 and lamenting that radical mitigation policies were not pursued by previous generations. However, if radical mitigation policies had been pursued, that not only would have lessened climate change but would also have changed the course of history in many ways. For example, such changes could have meant that Laura’s parents would not have met or would have not conceived a child with the exact same ovum and sperm that led to Laura. Thus, with the mitigation policy in place, Laura might not be better off and might actually never have been born. The problem of nonidentity is an unresolved challenge to intergenerational ethics, though there is a large body of literature on the implications of and potential solutions, such as precautionary principles, to that problem.