A Theory of Intergenerational Justice

by Tremmel, Joerg Chet

• ISBN13: 9781844078264
• ISBN10: 1844078264
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-12-31
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This highly accessible book provides an extensive and comprehensive overview of current research and theory about why and how we should protect future generations. It exposes how and why the interests of people today and those of future generations are often in conflict and what can be done. It rebuts critical concepts such as Parfits' non-identity paradox and Beckerman's denial of any possibility of intergenerational justice. The core of the book is the lucid application of a veil of ignorance to derive principles of intergenerational justice which show that our duties to posterity are stronger than is often supposed. Tremmel's approach demands that each generation both consider and improve the well-being of future generations. To measure the well-being of future generations Tremmel employs the Human Development Index rather than the metrics of utilitarian subjective happiness. The book thus answers in detailed, concrete terms the two most important questions of every theory of intergenerational justice: what to sustain? and how much to sustain? Ultimately this book provides a theory of intergenerational justice that is both intellectually robust and practical with wide applicability to law, policy, economics, climate change and all other contexts that affect future generations.

Author Biography

Joerg Chet Tremmel is Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the Editor-in-chief of the Intergenerational justice Review and a visiting lecturer at the Joann-Wolfgang-Goethe-University Frankfurt, the University of Stuttgart and the Heinrich-Heine-University in Dusseldorf, Germany.

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables	p. vii
Acknowledgments	p. xi
List of Acronyms and Abbreviations	p. xiii
Introduction	p. 1
Mankind's increasing powers	p. 1
The no-man's-land of ethics	p. 3
Ethics of the future - in a double sense	p. 4
Distinguishing generational justice from sustainability	p. 7
The role of philosophy	p. 9
Outline of the book	p. 10
Criteria-based Definitions of Scientific Terms	p. 13
Four criteria for definitions	p. 14
Comparisons between Generations	p. 19
The ambiguity of the term 'generationÆ	p. 19
Irrelevance of societal generations for intergenerational justice theories	p. 21
Relevance of family-related generations for intergenerational justice theories	p. 21
Temporal and intertemporal generational justice	p. 22
Direct and indirect comparisons of chronological generations	p. 25
Comparisons between generations in various fields	p. 28
Comparisons: The field of ecology as an example	p. 28
Comparison of life courses	p. 31
Summary	p. 32
Objections to Theories of Generational Justice	p. 35
Non-identity problem	p. 35
Future individuals cannot have rightsÆ	p. 46
Summary	p. 63
What to Sustain? Capital or Well-being as an Axiological Goal?	p. 65
Societal targets and concepts of justice	p. 65
The capital approach	p. 65
The well-being approach	p. 91
Measuring well-being	p. 108
Advantages and disadvantages of the capital approach and the well-being approach	p. 141
Average utilitarianism vs. total utilitarianism: a repugnant conclusion?	p. 142
How Much to Sustain? The Demands of Justice in the Intergenerational Context	p. 147
A compass for the no-man's-land?	p. 147
The applicability of intragenerational justice theories in the intergenerational context	p. 147
Justice as impartiality: Rawls' 'original positionÆ theory	p. 150
Justice as the equal treatment of equal cases, and the unequal treatment of unequal cases	p. 171
Justice as reciprocity	p. 183
Intergenerational justice as enabling advancement	p. 196
Conclusion	p. 201
Notes	p. 205
References	p. 231
Index	p. 257
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