Contingency, Community and Intergenerational Justice

Abstract

One psychologically powerful argument for the preservation and protection of the natural environment appeals to intergenerational justice. A variant appeals to the rights of future people: many, if not all, unjust acts can be reconceptualized as rights violations. So, it is often argued that present people ought to embrace environmentalism, and adopt green policies because they have certain obligations, deriving from justice or rights, to future people. For example, it might be claimed that present people ought not to pollute the oceans, since to do so would be to advantage themselves, unjustly, at the expense of future people. Or, in the language of rights, polluting activities by present people violate the rights of future people to something to which they are entitled, namely unpolluted oceans.