Risking Future Generations

Many of the policy choices we face that have implications for the lives of future generations involve creating a risk that they will live lives that are significantly compromised. I argue that we can fruitfully make use of the resources of Scanlon's contractualist account of moral reasoning to...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ethical theory and moral practice
Main Author: Kumar, Rahul (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V [2018]
In: Ethical theory and moral practice
Year: 2018, Volume: 21, Issue: 2, Pages: 245-257
RelBib Classification:NCA Ethics
NCD Political ethics
VA Philosophy
Further subjects:B future generations
B non-identity problem
B Risk
B Contractualism
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
Volltext (doi)
Description
Summary:Many of the policy choices we face that have implications for the lives of future generations involve creating a risk that they will live lives that are significantly compromised. I argue that we can fruitfully make use of the resources of Scanlon's contractualist account of moral reasoning to make sense of the intuitive idea that, in many cases, the objection to adopting a policy that puts the interest of future generations at risk is that doing so wrongs those who will live in the further future.
ISSN:1572-8447
Contains:Enthalten in: Ethical theory and moral practice
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10677-018-9880-z