ABSTRACT
Our present actions and institutions can influence the lives of people who will live in the distant future. These people’s lives might not overlap our own, and they have no way to reward us for benefits we may bestow or to punish us for harms we may inflict upon them. But because we can sometimes gain advantages for ourselves at cost to future people, the relationship between people who live at different times and in different generations raises questions of justice: is it just to gain advantages for ourselves in the present, if we know that our actions impose serious risk of harm for people who don’t yet exist? Can we make sense of the idea that present actions might, under some circumstances, violate the rights of people who live in the future? These concerns are not hypothetical: many people worry that our present use of energy and environmental resources could harm our descendants or leave them impoverished. When our activities benefit us as members of the present generation but also impose costs and risks on people who will live in the distant future, it is appropriate to ask whether we may justly discount their interests and favor our own. This chapter will not articulate a theory of intergenerational distributive justice. Instead, it will examine alternative approaches one might take and tools one might use to develop such a theory.
