Intergenerational Justice Research Paper

The fact of nontemporal continuity explains the problem of intergenerational justice. Many philosophers argue that the absence of temporal continuity casts doubt on the possibility of justifying claims of obligation or right between generations. Discussions of intergenerational justice focus on two sets of questions; first, how do we explain obligations between nontemporally continuous populations and second what obligations might we have to future generations. This research paper will examine the bases of these doubts about extending the idea of justice to apply to the relationship between nontemporally continuous populations and then conclude with an assessment of what we might owe to posterity.

1. Contractualism And Asymmetry

Contemporary discussions of distributive justice are synonymous with the resurgence of contractarian thinking under the influence of philosophers such as Rawls (1971) and Gauthier (1986). We can distinguish between ‘mutual advantage’ and ‘impartialist’ contractarianism (Barry 1989). The contract device is used for thinking about distributive questions in circumstances where the parties disagree about ultimate moral principles. If we cannot base our obligations to one another by appeal to a common standard such as utility maximization, we can use the idea of a rational bargain or reasonable agreement as the basis for distributive norms and obligations. The idea of a contract is a thought experiment that can be used to legitimize principles rather than an actual agreement process that groups of people have to collectively engage in. However, even as an hypothetical device the idea of a contract (in both versions of the theory) poses a major problem because of the asymmetrical relation between the participants in intergenerational cases.

The ‘mutual advantage’ theory argues that distributive principles can be derived from a rational bargain between participants in a cooperative venture, such as market society or political community. The issue of justice only arises when certain circumstances of justice obtain. If each individual could get everything they wanted without cooperation there would be no need for principles of justice. The circumstances of justice are threefold. First, (roughly) equal power among the parties. What one lacks in strength they can make up in guile so no one is guaranteed always getting their own way. Second, moderate scarcity of goods and motivations obtains, so that social cooperation is necessary or at least in the interest of all. Finally, while all benefit from the existence of social cooperation the participants are interested in the distribution of its benefits and burdens. As rational agents each has an interest to maximize their share of the benefits but minimize their share of the burdens of cooperation.

The problem for the ‘mutual advantage’ theorist is that the circumstances of justice do not unequivocally obtain between noncontinuous generations. If we use the idea of the contract within one generation we can make sense of the idea of rough equality of power and reciprocity as the key motivations for accepting the distribution of the benefits and burden of social cooperation (although we might still argue that this is a morally inappropriate way to think about justice). Yet when we extend this idea to noncontinuous generations the weakness of the method becomes apparent. In what way can we both speak of ourselves and future generations as part of the same ‘cooperative’ venture? If we just concentrate on the rough equality of power we can see how there is an asymmetrical relation between the generations. Take an issue such as energy policy. We can conceive of examples where a present generation can unilaterally impose significant costs on future generations such as the management of toxic or nuclear wastes. It is clearly possible for a present generation to take such choices without any possible negative consequences from the future generation except perhaps disapproval and poor historical reputation. The present generation is able unilaterally to affect the interests of a future generation, whereas a future generation cannot unilaterally affect the interests of the present generation, hence the asymmetry. Without rough equality of bargaining power any contractual agreement will simply reflect the advantage of the stronger party, in this case the present generation. If this is so, the contract does nothing more than allow the present generation to pursue its own interests taking account of the future only when its own reputation is at stake and when this is of higher value than any other present interest such as standard of living. Because of the asymmetrical relationship underlying the bargain it is unclear how the present generation could be motivated to assume obligations to the future given the motivational assumptions of ‘mutual advantage’ contractarianism. The contract not only does not generate obligations to the future, but would appear to generate reasons for ignoring such claims.

The ‘impartialist’ theory departs from many of the key features of the ‘mutual advantage’ bargain just considered. Rawls’s theory introduces the idea of a hypothetical original position in which the participants deciding which principles of justice should shape the basic structure of their society as a fair system of social co-operation, are shrouded by a ‘veil of ignorance.’ The point of the veil of ignorance is to filter out the possibility of exploiting ‘positional’ advantage or inequalities of bargaining power. By denying agents behind the veil of ignorance, information about their particular circumstances and goals, and allowing them only general knowledge about society, Rawls constructs an impartial choice situation. Rational self-interest plus ignorance delivers impartiality and fairness.

Rawls’ theory is a thought experiment designed to test the fairness of candidate principles of justice. The contract with the veil of ignorance is designed to model a fair choice situation. However, once again the asymmetry problem arises. The agents behind the ‘veil or ignorance’ are denied information that will prevent them pursuing their own interests at the expense of each other. The agreement is effectively between members of a single generation. What is to stop the participants choosing principles in order to maximize the condition of the worst off currently in existence that will at the same time worsen the situation of those not yet born? In order to bring future generations into the agreement Rawls posits an additional motive for the participants. They are expected to reason as representatives of families who are assumed to have a concern for their descendants. Heads of families provide the intergenerational link that overcomes the asymmetrical relations between future generations. The problem with this strategy is that it merely concedes the problem of asymmetry and the inability of the contract device to generate adequate obligations to the future. At best the additional motivational assumption gives those in the present generation a reason to take account of future generations. It does not establish an obligation to future generations in the way that the contract does establish obligations within one generation. The addition of the extra motivational assumption provides a noncontractarian reason for taking account of future generations. In effect it assumes precisely what it is supposed to provide, namely a reason for taking account of the interests of future generations.

While contractarian arguments have been central to the development of current theories of distributive justice, they seem singularly ill-equipped to deal with issues of justice between generations because of the asymmetrical relationship between even hypothetical bargainers. This is a point acknowledged by Barry, one of the most significant defenders of a neo-Rawlsian contractarianism (in Dobson 1998b). The key relationship of reciprocity and the equal ability of the partners to affect the interests of each other do not apply in the case of noncontinuous generations. To overcome this the contractarian has to appeal to noncontractarian reasons.

2. The Nonidentity Problem

A further ground for skepticism which is related to the asymmetry objection, but which has implications beyond contractarian arguments is the nonidentity problem. This problem has been given its most forceful modern restatement by Parfit (1984). And it is as applicable to theories such as utilitarianism as it is to contractarian theories of justice.

The nonidentity problem draws on a paradoxical implication of the intuitive response to issues of intergenerational justice. Assume that policy makers are making decisions about technologies that deplete environmental resources or cause global warming. These decisions involve questions of intergenerational justice because they do not merely distribute the benefits and burdens of social cooperation within generations but also across generations. Any policy that unilaterally worsens the conditions of future generations by depleting nonrenewable resources without suitable compensations for the future might be deemed to involve an intergenerational injustice as it sacrifices the interests of future generations to serve our own temporary interests. In this case the injustice consists of harming the interests of future generations by denying them opportunities or by unilaterally imposing costs upon them. Against this a sceptic might respond that our intuitive concern for the future does not withstand critical scrutiny and that we should discount the interests of future generations in determining between environmental policies.

The argument claims that only harms to assignable individuals constitute cases of injustice. An action becomes a case of injustice when it involves harm to the interests of an individual agent or groups of individuals. But if we turn to the issue of appraising environmental policies it is far from clear that they do distribute harms to assignable individuals.

Whichever environmental policy is chosen will have complex consequences for the future, many of which are indirect. One such consequence is on the procreation decisions of particular populations, that is, on who should come to mate with whom. The nonidentity problem depends upon the assumptions that any decision to procreate at one time rather than another will result in the birth of different people. The fact that I was born at the time I was and in the place I was in part made me the person I am now. If I was born either earlier of later my experiences would have been different and therefore I would have been a different person. If this claim is true then any policy which affects peoples behaviour will have implications for the identity of future generations. Thus, an environmental policy which forces me to use my car less and travel more on public transport may be responsible for me meeting my future partner and therefore albeit indirectly for any future persons who result from our relationship.

The important point is that whichever policy is chosen will result in different future populations and not simply different levels of welfare for the same potential population. But if different populations result from different policy choices then does it make sense to talk about obligations of intergenerational justice? We can argue that a policy of resource depletion does not involve any issue of intergenerational justice because it does not harm the interests of any assignable individual. After all whichever individuals do find themselves bearing the burdens of our choices only exist as the people they are because of choices made by us in the past. If we had chosen otherwise they would not have existed at all, but rather some other group of persons would have existed. For the contractarian the problem of showing how assignable individuals are harmed by our choices undermines the claim that we can do injustices to people in the future and this fact renders the whole idea of intergenerational justice deeply problematic. But the problem also applies to utilitarian theories that explain the idea of injustice in terms of worsening the welfare of individuals. We cannot, for example, argue that a future population would have a higher welfare if we had adopted a policy of conservation than if we had adopted one of resource depletion for either policy would result in different populations. The issue would then become one not of whether population X had a welfare level of a or b, but whether population X should exist or whether population Y should exist. The utilitarian can respond to this claim but only at the expense of opening themselves to certain repugnant conclusions.

3. Utilitarianism And Repugnant Conclusions

The idea behind the nonidentity problem is that intergenerational obligations must be person-regarding, that is because obligations are owed to assignable individuals. But as we have seen, as the identity of individuals in the future is itself dependent upon present actions, the idea of harming or benefiting future generations becomes problematic. Utilitarians—those philosophers who believe our most fundamental obligation is to promote, either total or average, welfare—often reject the person-regarding view of moral obligations by claiming that overall welfare is prior to questions of its distribution (see Stearns 1972). For the utilitarian we have an overriding obligation to promote utility or welfare and this avoids the nonidentity problem because we can assess overall outcomes irrespective of the identity of the recipients of utility or welfare. This strategy raises a number of important issues when applied to intergenerational questions, but its most striking consequences arise from its application to population policy.

If we have a primary obligation to promote or maximize welfare and this obligation is prior to any obligations to assignable individuals then we are inevitably faced with the question how many people should there be? This utilitarian obligation to promote welfare has direct implications for individual procreative decisions. Before considering whether to conceive a child or bring it into the world a couple will need to consider the impact of this decision on overall welfare. We can consider the impact of this procreative choice on either average or total welfare.

Let us first consider the case of average utility. Here we are required to consider the impact of our procreative choices on the average level of utility across the relevant population. If our society is a prosperous and happy one and the addition of further members who, though happy, would be slightly less happy than the average, then their impact would be negative. In such a case average utilitarianism would counsel against conceiving such a child. Such a way of conceiving procreative decisions might seem suspect but often we do apply such reasoning in thinking about population policy. Some utilitarians consider draconian population policies are justified by average utility. However, opponents of utilitarianism argue that such an approach to procreative questions is wholly inappropriate because social welfare is a morally irrelevant consideration.

Average utilitarianism does not merely have implications for whether we should allow the birth of happy children who are merely less happy than average, it also has implications for those who exist but are less happy than the average. Consider a population of 10 people two of whom are miserable while eight are happy. If we add to this consideration the fact that there is no hunger in the society so that the eight would not gain in utility if the two were removed, we could still increase the average utility by removing the two. However, we could then make similar judgments within the eight until we were left with a very small population perhaps numbering only two in which there was no difference in average utility. In existing populations there are always groups whose elimination would, other things being equal, increase average utility.

What happens when these arguments are applied across populations, as in the case of intergenerational justice? If we accept the premise of the nonidentity argument, namely that the policies we pursue will affect the identity and size of future generations then using the average utility argument we can engage in some interesting trade-offs. If we are concerned about a policy of conservation vs. one of depletion we can reason as follows. A depletion policy would have a large negative impact on a large population but a relatively low impact on a smaller future population. As long as the impact diminished the fewer people there were to be affected we would satisfy our utilitarian obligation. This could easily be achieved by coupling the depletion policy with a draconian population policy amongst our existing population, such that the average utility of the small population x is greater than the average utility of population y that would have resulted from the policy of conservation. The point here is that we can make one of the aspects of the nonidentity problem a policy objective, in order to justify our depletion of resources. As long as we can manipulate the size of future populations by regulating procreative decisions we can pursue almost any policy without harming the interests of future generations.

Average utility results in some questionable conclusions, does total utility fair any better? In the case of individual procreative decisions the issue becomes one of the duty to maximize happy people. As long as each child being born is happy to some degree they contribute to the total sum of happiness. It need not be the case that they are happier than their parents only that they are happier to exist than not to exist by however small a degree. If we grant this condition, which follows from the commitment to maximizing total utility, then we are faced with an obligation to bring as many happy people into the world as possible, however small the individual level of happiness of each person is. The most striking implication for intergenerational justice is that we act justly to the future when we make the size of future populations as big as they can be irrespective of how low the average utility of each member of those future generations might be. Whereas average utility suggests the imposition of particularly draconian population policies, total utility goes to the opposite extreme by encouraging population maximization. The full impact of this repugnant conclusion can be seen when we apply the total utility strategy to the choice between policies of depletion versus conservation. We need to be able to judge the relative utility or welfare of one population against another who would have lived if an alternative policy had been pursued. As long as the total utility of population a is greater than that of population b that might have existed as a result of a different policy choice, then we are justified in pursuing policy a over b. This can help us explain and justify some trade-offs between population size and level of utility such that we might prefer a policy which resulted in a larger population with a lower utility to a smaller population with a higher utility, for example population a with n members each having a utility of 10 as opposed to population b with 2n members each having a utility of eight. But this approach becomes counterintuitive and repugnant when we consider the case of a third population of 10,000n each having a utility of 0.01. In this latter case we face the repugnancy of the total utilitarian approach whereby as long as the population is large enough the utility of the individual members does not matter as long as it is above zero.

By rejecting the person-regarding aspect of justice arguments, utilitarianism can overcome the criticism that we only have obligations to assignable individuals (and therefore we cannot be said to have obligations to future generations) because of the nonidentity problem. They get around the problem only by exposing themselves to different problems resulting from their indifference to issues of distribution that are also at the heart of intergenerational justice arguments. Both forms of utilitarianism considered here address the issue of intergenerational justice by the artificial means of manipulating population size. This strategy either loads the dice in favor of existing generations as long as they are prepared to manipulate the size of future generations accordingly or to reduce our obligations to the simple duty to procreate as much as possible. Neither approach seems an adequate answer to the question of what if any obligations we have to future generations. The two main candidate theories for grounding claims of justice, contractualism, and utilitarianism have serious problems in making sense of the identity of future generations and the idea that we may have obligations to them. Does this mean that the sceptic is right and the idea of intergenerational justice is flawed?

4. The Prospects For Intergenerational Justice

The contemporary literature on intergenerational justice is largely focused on discussions of the paradoxical consequences of applying existing theories of justice to intergenerational problems. Does this mean that the sceptic is correct in arguing that the idea of relationships of justice between generations is incoherent? Two contemporary political philosophers, De-Shalit (1995) and Barry (in Dobson 1998b) reject this sceptical position and suggest that there are ways we can overcome the sceptical position to make sense of intergenerational obligations. However, they do so from very different perspectives, De-Shalit is a communitarian whereas Barry is a universalist egalitarian.

4.1 Transgenerational Community

De-Shalit begins with the challenge posed by the inadequacy of contractarianism and the nonidentity problem. Faced with the problem of asymmetry in the original position, Rawls introduces an additional motivation linking the generations to justify a just savings principle as a constraint on contemporary consumption. This additional motive which requires the participants to think as heads of families is supposed to model the motive to be concerned about our posterity. De-Shalit takes this natural motive and generalises it across the idea of constitutive communities. Why should the family be the only repository of such a motive? His point is that it is not the particular institution that is the repository of this motive but the type of relationship. The contractarian and the non-identity argument posit a sharp break between generations that creates an unbridgeable moral gap between persons. De-Shalit challenges this individualization by arguing that our identities are shaped and constituted by membership of communities. Membership is itself obligation creating, in the same way that Rawls assumes that acting as head of families will provide the sufficient motive to assume obligations to the future. The motivation to be concerned about posterity is for De-Shalit a natural motivation and this is missed by the narrowly ‘individualistic’ approaches of contractarians and utilitarians. The task for the political philosopher is then not to construct the basis of the obligation to the future. We have this natural concern because our own identity and interests are tied up with the membership and existence of a certain type of community. The task is to expand the implications of that concern for posterity and the specific obligations that can be derived from it. Two important implications arise from De-Shalit’s communitarian turn. First, he broadens the notion of those goods we have a duty to bequeath to posterity. Whereas much of the literature assumes merely that our obligations to the future concern material resources and the environment, DeShalit’s emphasis on constitutive communities entails that all those definitive aspects of such communities might be ‘goods’ that we have an obligation to preserve for posterity. Thus, we could have obligations to preserve languages and cultures or defining institutions such as constitutions, political rights, etc. The second implication is that De-Shalit changes the focus of intergenerational justice from a universal to a particular one. We have obligations to our posterity and not future generations as such. The British people might have obligations to preserve their constitution for future generations, or the Quebequois might have an obligation to pass on their ‘distinct society’ to future Quebequois, but not to future Nigerians or for the good of future Japanese. For De-Shalit it is not assignable individuals that we need worry about but only assignable groups. Obligations only extend as far into the future as it is reasonable to think a constitutive community will retain its identity.

One possible objection to De-Shalit’s approach is that it makes group membership too important. If we only have obligations to our own posterity then we only have obligations to preserve the environment for our posterity. But this raises the counter intuition that it surely cannot be right that I have a duty to protect the environment for my own posterity but that if a policy of depletion falls not on my posterity but on another people then I have no obligation or responsibility. It is for this reason that other theorists are reluctant to abandon moral universalism, or the idea that from a moral point of view spatial and temporal location are not significant.

4.2 Universalism Defended

The key intuition underlying Barry’s universalism is that place and time do not provide morally relevant bases on which to discriminate between the interests of those who fall under a principle. This assumption is morally basic, as such it must be defended indirectly by challenging the challenges to it and showing how it accords with our reflectively adjusted intuitions. We might, for example, show that it overcomes the narrow parochialism of De-Shalit’s communitarianism. Alternatively, we might suggest that it is the intuition that underlies Rawls’ additional motivation designed to supplement contractarianism. The universalist is also likely to reject the utilitarian variant because of the repugnant conclusions that follow from abandoning a person-respecting morality. A universalist might deny that we have an obligation to bring about maximal well-being if this results in the kinds of population policies that result in repugnant conclusions.

One simple way of avoiding this utilitarian paradox is to conceive of obligations of justice not in terms of promoting the good as maximal welfare but in terms of not harming the interests of the future generations. This negative obligation has implications for the redistribution of resources and benefits, it does not merely involve staying ones hand and refraining from causing harm. In this way we can argue that we have an obligation to give weight to the interests of future generations when we make irreversible consumption decisions. We ought not merely discard future people because they are in the future. However, it is important to notice that the relationship of obligation is between those existing not to harm those in the future, it is in effect a matter of how we regard the future rather than a matter of how we and those in the future interact.

The major objection still facing this approach is the nonidentity problem. We can only have obligations to assignable individuals but the identities of these individuals are contingent on the choices we currently make such that we cannot be said to be harming them. Referring to ‘future generations’ does not mark out the identity of those being harmed. One way to overcome this problem is to contest the idea that only assignable individuals can be harmed. Thus, it might make sense to say that our decisions about resource depletion can harm future generations relative to the absence of that policy even though the existence of particular individuals might be dependent upon that policy. The nonidentity paradox will only work against such a view if it could be shown that the identities of all members of the relevant future generations owe their existence only to this environmental policy. We can also contest the idea implicit in the nonidentity problem that we cannot be said to harm the interests of members of a future generation as their interests will be a function of the circumstances in which they find themselves. While it is certainly true that any complex account of universal trans temporal interests will be hard to conceive of, there are certain things that it can be argued will be in any subsequent group’s interest. It is clearly in no future group’s interest to live in a world in which potable water is made scarce by pollution, or in which ozone damage raises levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and levels of harmful radiation. Future generations are also likely to place some value on their environment and biodiversity. How much each of these things will matter is debatable, but that they will matter is uncontestable. Where this leaves the universalist is with the idea that we have obligations to take account of the ‘general’ interests of future generations not to be harmed in certain ways, whoever they happen to be and whatever else they happen to want. Thus, the burdens of intergenerational justice fall on contemporaries in the form of not harming those interests of future generations by over consumption, environmental depletion and unsustainable development without permanent advances to any future generation.

As subsequent generations extend far into the future our common intuitions suggest that our obligations become weaker in terms of just savings and the transfer of resources. In the case of private individuals the motive to save for offspring is strong but weakens across many generations until we reach a stage where most are indifferent to distant posterity. But the universalist approach is able to accommodate this intuition because it transforms the debate from one of just-savings and the intergenerational transfer of wealth into a present day concern for sustainable economic and political policies which do not worsen the position of those in the future. The idea of sustainable economic development has its own broad and complex literature but the idea of sustainablity gives content to how we might think about justice between generations. In this way the idea of justice between generations converges with the environmentalists’ concern with respect for the environment as a common good. If we have obligations to future generations they are to respect the common resource that is the environment which we share. Where intergenerational justice differs from environmental ethics is that it regards the value of the environment as an aspect of human interests. This of course is not the only way we might regard it, but that is merely to recognise that even in the intergenerational case there is more to morality than justice.

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