I defend the claim that life-suspending technologies can constitute a catastrophic and existential security factor for risks structurally similar to those related to climate change. The gist of the argument is that, under certain conditions, life-suspending technologies such as cryonics can provide self-interested actors with incentives to efficiently tackle such risks—in particular, they provide reasons to overcome certain manifestations of generational egoism, a risk factor of several catastrophic and existential risks. Provided we have reasons to decrease catastrophic and existential risks (...) such as climate change, we also have a (defeasible) reason for investing in developing and making life-suspending technologies (more) widespread. (shrink)

Since certain temporal aspects of the relation between duties, rights, and the interests that rights protect have not been fully theorized, a puzzle arises when we come to consider whether and how entities such as members of future generations, fetuses, deceased persons, and unconscious persons are able to possess rights. This paper evolves a unified structure for attributing the ability to possess rights to such entities. It demonstrates that while, under any cogent theory of rights-attributions, rights and duties must be (...) strictly contemporaneous, the interests that rights protect need not temporally coincide with those rights. (shrink)

Ultimately this book provides a theory of intergenerational justice that is both intellectually robust and practical with wide applicability to law and policy.

The paper considers the morality of nuclear energy development as it concerns future people, especially the creation of highly toxic nuclear wastes requiring long?term storage. On the basis of an example with many parallel moral features it is argued that the imposition of such costs and risks on the future is morally unacceptable. The paper goes on to examine in detail possible ways of escaping this conclusion, especially the escape route of denying that moral obligations of the appropriate type apply (...) to future people. The bulk of the paper comprises discussion of this philosophical issue, including many arguments against assigning obligations to the future drawn both from analyses of obligation and from features of the future such as uncertainty and indeterminacy. A further escape through appeal to moral conflict is also considered, and in particular two conflict arguments, the Poverty and Lights?going?out arguments are briefly discussed. Both these escape routes are rejected and it is concluded that if the same standards of behaviour are applied to the future as to the present, nuclear energy development is morally unacceptable. (shrink)

This paper defends the claim that mere temporal proximity always and without exception strengthens certain moral duties, including the duty to save – call this view Robust Temporalism. Although almost all other moral philosophers dismiss Robust Temporalism out of hand, I argue that it is prima facie intuitively plausible, and that it is analogous to a view about special obligations that many philosophers already accept. I also defend Robust Temporalism against several common objections, and I highlight its relevance to a (...) number of practical policy debates, including longtermism. My conclusion is that Robust Temporalism is a moral live option, that deserves to be taken much more seriously in the future. (shrink)

Ian Stoner has recently argued that we ought not to colonize Mars because doing so would flout our pro tanto obligation not to violate the principle of scientific conservation, and there is no countervailing considerations that render our violation of the principle permissible. While I remain agnostic on, my primary goal in this article is to challenge : there are countervailing considerations that render our violation of the principle permissible. As such, Stoner has failed to establish that we ought not (...) to colonize Mars. I close with some thoughts on what it would take to show that we do have an obligation to colonize Mars and related issues concerning the relationship between the way we discount our preferences over time and projects with long time horizons, like space colonization. (shrink)

Contemporary theories of justice fail to recognize that the concepts constitutive of our political practices ? including ?justice? itself? have historically mutable meanings. To recognize the fact of conceptual change entails an alteration in our understanding of justice between generations. Because there can be no transhistorical theory of justice, there can be no valid theory of intergenerational justice either ? especially where the generations in question are distant ones having very different understandings of justice. The upshot is that an earlier (...) generation cannot aspire to act justly toward a later distant generation whose members? understanding of justice differs radically from theirs. Conceptual change and incommensurability render the very idea of intergenerational justice incoherent. Even so, such radical relativism need not entail moral nihilism. (shrink)

: Professional engineers are bound by their code of ethics to place paramount the health, safety, and welfare of the public. If the "public" includes future people, then the engineer is also morally responsible for not destroying the supporting environment that will make future generations possible. In this essay I suggest that the present engineering codes of ethics are inadequate in addressing the problem of maintaining environmental quality. Engineers can, while staying well within the bounds of the present codes of (...) ethics, destroy or modify the environments that support the global ecosystem and in such manner kill future humans on a grand scale. The moral responsibilities of engineers must therefore include the commitment to provide a high quality and sustainable environment for future generations and this requires that the engineering codes of ethics be modified to encourage engineers to make decisions that promote environmental stability and sustainability. (shrink)

This paper reflects on the various possible nuclear power production methods from an ethical perspective. The production and consumption of nuclear power give rise to the problem of intergenerational justice; in other words, we are depleting a nonrenewable resource in the form of uranium while the radiotoxic waste that is generated carries very long-term potential burdens. I argue that the morally desirable option should therefore be to seek to safeguard the interests of future generations. The present generation has at least (...) two duties with regard to posterity: not to jeopardize the safety and security of future generations or impose any harm upon them and to sustain future well-being insofar as that is possible with the available energy resources. These duties are presented as pluralist prima facie duties thus implying that they could well be overruled by morally more compelling duties. If we are unable to fulfill both these prima facie duties simultaneously, it should be particularly the duty not to impose harm on posterity that should be the leading incentive behind nuclear power production. This supports the arguments in favor of the introduction of a new fuel cycle that can substantially reduce the waste lifetime and therefore also potential future burdens. However, the further development and application of this scientifically proven but not yet industrialized fuel cycle give rise to additional burdens for contemporaries. This paper examines the extent of the moral stringency of the no harm duty sought for situations in which future interest should guide us in our choosing of a certain technology. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that even a libertarian ideal of liberty, which initially seems opposed to welfare rights, can be seen to require a right to a basic needs minimum that extends to distant peoples and future generations and is conditional upon the poor doing whatever they reasonably can to meet their own basic needs, including bringing their population growth under control. Given that, as I have argued elsewhere, welfare liberal, socialist, communitarian and feminist political ideals can be easily (...) seen to support this same right to a basic needs minimum, showing how a libertarian ideal of liberty supports the right should go a long way toward solving the problem of what all people, whether near or distant, present or future, deserve, which is the basic problem of global justice. (shrink)

The Kantian categorical imperative process of rational reflection and reasoned social discourse is theoretically capable of forming the moral environmental maxims applicable to business. This article argues that rational environmental discourse demands that business has an imperfect duty to develop relevant unbiased information, and perhaps to disseminate this information through participation in business-public coalitions. For the environmental problem, this “rationality” particularly concerns our obligations toward future generations and distant people while recognizing that they cannot participate in current discourse, and the (...) rules for gathering and assessing the evidence that should govern our environmental preservations and enhancements. Both these concerns demand certain scientific information requirements, as well as logical decision criteria that are perceived as stable across both overlapping generations, and affected peoples. The criteria for Rawls’ “considered moral judgments” are shown to apply to resolutions of these business-related ethical conundrums. In a way similar to Kant’s anthropological examinations of humanity’s antisocial behaviors, this article also examines various biases that inhibit this social reasoning. (shrink)

There is a special problem with respect to our obligations to future generations which is that we can benefit or harm them but that they cannot benefit or harm us. Goodin summarizes the point well:No analysis of intergenerational justice that is cast even vaguely in terms of reciprocity can hope to succeed. The reason is the one which Addison… puts into the mouth of an Old Fellow of College, who when he was pressed by the Society to come into something (...) that might rebound to the good of their Successors, grew very peevish. ‘We are always doing’ says he, ‘something for Posterity, but I would fain see Posterity do something for us’. (shrink)

Ethical theory faces a group of difficult puzzles concerning populations. Here is one: would it be right to maximize utility by causing the number of people existing in the further future to be very, very large, even if this means that each of their lives is barely worth living? Derek Parfit concludes that standard utilitarianism yields the result that it would be right to create such a world. He calls this conclusion "repugnant." I begin with an examination of the objection, (...) in which I argue that the problem is axiological, not normative. I present my interpretation of the problem, and consider and reject the most popular and plausible responses in the literature. ;Many people agree with Parfit that the repugnant conclusion is unacceptable. They see this as a strong objection to impersonalism, and conclude that only person-affecting utilitarianism solves the population problems in question. I argue that the most credible person-affecting theories incorrectly answer simple population questions and are deficient in other respects. ;Need we accept Parfit's objection? I advance my own view---that there are totalistic axiologies that do not imply the repugnant conclusion, and defeat the mere addition paradox. I show that these theories have much in common with classical totalism, and they give the intuitively correct result in the crucial cases under consideration. (shrink)

The book kicks off by remarking that the year 1972 must have been a very special year indeed. The Club of Rome published its report 'The Limits to Growth', the Ecologist published its 'Blueprint for Survival', and the United Nations held its first environmental conference in Stockholm. These three occasions were the first to use the notion of sustainable development with its current connotations. However, sustainable development only received its lasting status as a meta-objective for national and international environmental policy-making (...) with the publication of the WCED-report 'Our Common Future' in 1987. This report defined sustainable development as "development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". Subsequently, the debate on sustainable development reached a new climax with the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. This conference introduced the idea that sustainable development asks for adjustments of lifestyles and patterns of consumption, apart from adjustments in the sphere of production. UNCED emphasised the need for government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles, and the second Dutch National Environmental Policy Plan (NEPP2) translated this emphasis to the Dutch context.UNCED and NEPP2 initiated an extensive public debate on government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles, which was dominated by communicative and economic strategies. Unfortunately, these strategies hitherto failed to reconcile government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles and respect for people's freedom to follow their own lifestyles. Therefore, this book's objective is to provide this very reconciliation by drawing an outline of a green third way for government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles. This green third way presents itself as an alternative for the first (communicative) and second (economic) ways in the Dutch public debate. The book aims to articulate people's concerns about the deterioration of nature and the environment, materialised in the worldwide support for the notion of sustainable development, within a largely political liberal frame of reference.Chapter 2 maps the Dutch public debate on government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles. This analysis shows that although communicative and economic strategies dominate the debate, these strategies are seriously flawed in their attempts to evade the principled question of whether government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles implies an intolerable infringement of people's freedom to follow their own lifestyles, visions of the good life or consumptive preferences. Communicative and economic strategies are thus criticised on three accounts: 1) their failure to recognise the inextricable interconnectedness between attitudes and behaviour in people's lifestyles; 2) their evasion of the question of how government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles could respect the individual freedom of choice; and 3) their unwillingness to investigate whether sustainable development could offer sound reasons to restrict this freedom of choice. Both strategies are, therefore, incapable of providing a meaningful interpretation of all key terms in the phrase 'government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles'. It is not much of a surprise then that they cannot reconcile government intervention and respect for people's freedom to follow their own lifestyles. Therefore, the chapters 3,4 and 5 subsequently set out to remedy these three flaws of communicative and economic strategies. Luckily, lately a third strategy dawned in the Dutch public debate. This third strategy provides some of the materials to develop an outline of a green third way for government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles.Chapter 3 argues, mainly inspired by Giddens's theory of structuration, his and Beck's accounts of reflexive modernisation and Douglas's grid-group analysis, for a narrative conceptualisation of the notions of lifestyle and self-identity. This conceptualisation 1) emphasises the inextricable interconnectedness of practices and narratives of self-identity in people's lifestyles, 2) stresses the duality of individual and society in the constitution of lifestyles, 3) changes the modernist distinction between citizen and consumer for the public-private hybrid of the citizen-consumer, and 4) maps the plurality of lifestyles in contemporary globalising, individualising and detraditionalising societies. The narrative conceptualisation of lifestyles implies that it is no longer possible to evade the question of whether government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles necessarily entails an intolerable infringement of people's freedom to follow their own lifestyles. It will not do to emphasise some remaining freedom in either practices or narratives of self-identity, since these practices and narratives are inextricably interconnected in people's lifestyles.Chapter 4 argues, mainly informed by Berlin's and Rawls's political liberalism, Raz's liberal perfectionism and Habermas's notion of a deliberative democracy, that most government intervention in lifestyles is indeed an intolerable infringement of the individual freedom of choice. This liberal point of view 1) argues that respect for the individual freedom of choice implies that the government should take a neutral and anti-perfectionist stance, 2) holds it that directive, communicative and economic, strategies for government intervention would only be justified if certain choices harmed others, caused injustice, or were obviously irrational, 3) accepts, in the second instance, that the political liberal argument is not neutral and anti-perfectionist at all, but believes that this perfectionist turn only strengthens the need to respect the individual freedom of choice, and 4) advocates extensive public deliberation on the objectives and instruments of environmental policy-making. The political liberal emphasis on the need to respect the individual freedom of choice implies that directive strategies for government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles generally do not show enough respect for people's freedom to follow their own lifestyles, unless it is obvious that certain lifestyles harm others or cause injustice.Chapter 5 argues, mainly on the basis of Rawls's savings principle, Wissenburg's restraint principle, Passmore's chains of love, and De-Shalit's transgenerational communities, for a double interpretation of sustainable development as a principle of intergenerational justice and a future-oriented green ideal. This double interpretation 1) embraces the restraint principle and the argument that no individual can claim an unconditional right to destroy environmental goods as a baseline that could justify directive strategies for government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles, 2) suggests that people's concerns about the deterioration of nature and the environment articulate future-oriented narratives of self-identity that could fuel non-directive strategies to develop further responsibilities towards nearby future generations, 3) prefers to draw a list of primary environmental goods instead of quantifying some environmental utilisation space as a practical guideline for day-to-day environmental policy-making, and 4) concludes that the uncertainty of scientific knowledge about the unintended environmental repercussions of consumptive choices casts serious doubt about attempts to justify directive strategies for government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles beyond the requirement of sustaining the baseline of the restraint principle and the list of primary environmental goods. Sustainable development, thus, provides sound arguments to restrict people's freedom to follow their own lifestyles, when these lifestyles transgressed the baseline of the restraint principle and the list of primary environmental goods. However, the individual freedom of choice should not be restricted for any further environmental considerations. Non-directive strategies are thus to stimulate the development of such further responsibilities towards nearby future generations. The challenge for a green third way of government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles becomes to search for adjustments of social and material conditions that could tempt people to develop sustainable lifestyles.Chapter 6, finally, returns from these rather unearthly reflections to the more mundane issues in the public debate on government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles by presenting an outline of a green third way. This green third way offers an alternative to the overly directive communicative and economic strategies for government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles, and broadens the prevailing political landscape with a strategy that promises superiority in addressing the intricacies of environmental policy-making in liberal-democratic societies. Although this green third way leaves ample room to use communicative and economic instruments to secure the environmental baseline of the restraint principle and the list of primary environmental goods, these instruments are framed in a quite different perspective or set of premises now. A short discussion of the Schönau Energy Initiatives serves to illustrate the kernel of an alternative strategy. This green third way offers a non-directive strategy for government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles in which the government hopes to stimulate the development of sustainable lifestyles by adjusting the social and material conditions that surround people in following their lifestyles. The green third way, thus, reconciles government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles and respect for people's freedom to follow their own lifestyles to a satisfactory degree. It accepts that the requirement to secure the environmental baseline of the restraint principle and the list of primary environmental goods justifies the use of directive strategies for government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles in a limited set of conditions. However, it also emphasises that non-directive strategies should do the majority of the job. In this non-directive strategy the government should provide the social and material conditions in which a plurality of sustainable lifestyles could flourish. (shrink)

Technological advancements have provided militaries with the possibility to enhance human performance and to provide soldiers with better warfighting capabilities. Though these technologies hold significant potential, their use is not without cost to the individual. This paper explores the complexities associated with using human cognitive enhancements in the military, focusing on how the _purpose and context_ of these technologies could potentially undermine a soldier’s ability to say no to these interventions. We focus on cognitive enhancements and their ability to also (...) enhance a soldier’s autonomy (i.e., autonomy-enhancing technologies). Through this lens, we explore situations that could potentially compel a soldier to accept such technologies and how this acceptance could impact rights to individual autonomy and informed consent within the military. In this examination, we highlight the contextual elements of vulnerability—institutional and differential vulnerability. In addition, we focus on scenarios in which a soldier’s right to say no to such enhancements can be diminished given the special nature of their work and the significance of making better moral decisions. We propose that though in some situations, a soldier may be compelled to accept said enhancements; with their right to say no diminished, it is not a blanket rule, and safeguards ought to be in place to ensure that autonomy and informed consent are not overridden. (shrink)

Fertility clinicians participate in non-sexual reproductive projects by providing assisted reproductive technology (ART) to those hoping to reproduce, in support of their reproductive goals. In most countries where ART is available, the state regulates ART as a form of medical treatment. The predominant position in the reproductive rights literature frames the clinician’s role as medical technician, and the state as a third party with limited rights to interfere. These roles broadly align with established functions of clinician and state in Western (...) liberal democracies, where doctors have duties to provide safe, beneficial and legal healthcare to all who seek it. Recognised state responsibilities include safeguarding equitable access to medical services and protecting and promoting reproductive liberty.I argue against this normative moral framing of clinician and state involvement in non-sexual reproduction, suggesting that clinician and state join the non-sexual reproductive project at the point of triggering conception. Begetting a child is more than just the provision and regulation of healthcare; it generates rights and confers responsibilities on all who join this morally significant project. All who collaborate have the right to join or refuse to join the project. I suggest this is intuitively understood in the sexual realm, but not in the non-sexual realm. My key substantive claim is that non-sexual reproduction is a pluralist pursuit that morally implicates more than the genetic and gestational contributors. I find that while the moral basis of a clinician or the state’s right to refuse to join the ART project is the same as for those providing gestational or genetic input, the reasons that morally underpin their refusal differs. (shrink)

This paper argues, mainly on the basis of Rawls''s savings principle, Wissenburg''s restraint principle, Passmore's chains of love, and De-Shalit's transgenerational communities, for a double interpretation of sustainable development as a principle of intergenerational justice and a future-oriented green ideal. This double interpretation (1) embraces the restraint principle and the argument that no individualcan claim an unconditional right to destroy environmental goods as a baseline that could justify directive strategies for government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles, and (2) suggests that people's (...) concerns about the deterioration of nature and the environment articulate future-oriented narratives of self-identity that could fuel non-directive strategies to develop further responsibilities towards nearby future generations. Sustainable development, thus, provides sound arguments to restrict people's freedom to follow their own lifestyles, when these lifestyles transgress the baseline of the restraint principle. However, the individual freedom of choice should not be restricted for any further environmental considerations. Non-directive strategies are thus to stimulate the development of such further responsibilities towards nearby future generations. (shrink)

Antonin Scalia defends his textualist approach to interpreting the Constitution by asserting that the purpose of the Constitution is to restrict the range of options open to future generations by enshrining institutional arrangements and practices in constitutional mandates or prohibitions. For this purpose to be fulfilled; justices of the Supreme Court must read the language of the Constitution according to its original meaning. We argue there is little reason to believe that Scalia’s understanding is correct. Neither the language of the (...) Constitution nor the writings of Jefferson or Madison are consistent with Scalia’s interpretation. More importantly; the goal Scalia posits; of seeking to restrict the range of options open to future generations; is intergenerationally unjust. (shrink)