Why Posterity Matters

Environmental Policies and Future Generations

Avner De-Shalit

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9781134856480
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

The first comprehensive philosophical examination of our duties to future generations, Dr de-Shalit argues that they are a matter of justice, not charity or supererogation.

1

THE TRANSGENERATIONAL COMMUNITY

Some say the world will end in fire. Some say in ice.

Robert Frost, Fire and Ice

INTRODUCTION

Although I call the theory which I shall put forward a communitarian theory, I shall permit myself not to review communitarianism here.¹ But before we begin, let me again express my intuition about the obligations to which I shall be referring. We have, I believe, positive and negative obligations to close and immediate future generations. That is, we should consider them when deciding on environmental policies; we should not overburden them; furthermore, we should supply them with goods, especially those goods that we believe are and will be necessary to cope with the challenges of life, as well as other, more non-essential goods.

The case is different with the very remote future generations: there, our ‘positive’ obligations (those beyond merely preventing damage, e.g. providing resources) ‘fade away’, so to speak. To people of the very remote future we have a strong ‘negative’ obligation— namely, to avoid causing them enormous harm or bringing them death, and to try and relieve any potential and foreseeable distress. Thus we should stop producing nuclear energy, because future generations are likely to suffer because of potential leakages or because of the unsafe storage, we should refrain from depleting natural resources and demolishing aesthetic monuments and spoiling beautiful landscapes, we should stop deforestation, reduce the amount of toxic waste to a minimum, and so on and so forth. This, of course, is something that we owe to every future generation, be it immediate or remote. But the idea of a duty to provide the very remote future generations with many of the goods that we distribute to people of closer future generations is dubious. Of course, this in no way undermines the importance of our ‘negative’ obligations to remote future generations, which in turn imply some ‘positive’ policies requiring certain actions.

Now, some may think that there should be no time-limit to our obligations to future generations, arguing that any other notion of intergenerational justice discriminates against very remote future generations.² Before considering this question in greater depth (see p. 51), I will point out that a theory of morality, or of applied philosophy (as environmental philosophy is), should not demand what is absolutely impossible. If people are told that they should share natural resources, e.g. coal, with people who will be alive six or twelve generations from now, they will at least listen and may even tend to agree. But if they are told that they should share access to coal with someone living in the year 2993 or 3993, the response will probably be, ‘To hell with morality and intergenerational justice! This is ridiculous; such policies do not make any sense because they are inconceivable!’ I am not claiming that what people think is always right or moral, but rather that our principles of intergenerational justice should not go beyond what is reasonably intelligible and imaginable. This is important to bear in mind because we are discussing relations with the remote future, which in itself is difficult to conceive.

This raises many questions, among them just what can reasonably be envisaged, so in Chapter 6 I study the implications of the theory that I advance in environmental policies. However, my intuitions, I strongly believe, are common to many people—philosophers, politicians, governmental bodies and ‘ordinary’ people alike. Indeed, human behaviour indicates that these are the lines along which we believe we should construct a theory of obligations to future generations, and several empirical studies and polls support this claim (O’riordan 1991; Renner 1991).³

THE ARGUMENT: OBLIGATIONS AND THE TRANSGENERATIONAL COMMUNITY

Our obligations to future generations derive from a sense of a community that stretches and extends over generations and into the future. Part of what the transgenerational community stands for is the idea of obligations between generations. However, contrary to the conservative concept of community, which looks backwards and sees an obligation to continue the heritage of previous generations, I advance a concept of the transgenerational community that extends into the future and so may appeal to Social Democrats, Greens, Socialists and ‘progressivists’ in general.⁴ My argument may not appeal to those denying any sense of community; those who claim that all moral principles should be based on and derived from universally grounded principles will probably not agree with me. But I find it difficult, if not fruitless, to enter into a debate here.

So I shall accept Aristotle’s teaching that he who lives outside the community is ‘either too bad or too good, either subhuman or superhuman’,⁵ or, in other words, non-human. Thus a person is conceived as bound by social connections and relationships, and, among other things, her personality is actually defined by the obligations she has, so that ‘to divest oneself of such commitments would be, in one important sense, to change one’s identity’ (Miller 1988:650).

I assume, then, that if and when one admits the existence of a community, and if one acknowledges that the community constitutes one’s identity, then it is absurd at the same time to deny any obligation to the community and its members. If one acknowledges the importance of the community, then one wishes the community to be sustained, and even to flourish.

Relations with others are not purely external to the self. My commitment to my friends or my children, to a person whom I love or a social movement in which I believe, may be a part of my own deepest being, so that when I devote myself to them, my overriding experience is not of sacrificing myself but of fulfilling myself.

(Norman 1983:249, emphasis added)

I shall therefore refrain here from attempting a metaphysical justification of the community, or from an exhaustive discussion of the question of why one has obligations if one belongs to a community, and I shall not attempt to prove that obligations derive from membership.⁶ Instead I argue that if one accepts the idea of a community in one generation, including the principle that this entails certain obligations to other members, then one should accept the idea of a transgenerational community extending into the future, hence recognizing obligations to future generations. I am claiming here that the constitutive community extends over several generations and into the future, and that just as many people think of the past as part of what constitutes their ‘selves’, they do and should regard the future as part of their ‘selves’. These are the relations that form the transgenerational community, which is the source of our obligations to future generations.

For those who tend to take the idea of a community for granted, a transgenerational community should not be such a strange concept. It is, perhaps, an extension of the concept of the community, as applied to one’s contemporaries, to a sphere—that of time—which lies beyond one’s immediate environment. People who associate radical individualism with some sort of alienation, and who tend to regard the group to which they belong as part of their self-identity and self-understanding, should accept that this group does not necessarily have to be in their ‘immediate environment’. For instance, in his criticism of anarchism, David Miller refers to national identity and writes: ‘People clearly feel a need to locate themselves in relation to something beyond their own immediate environment’ (Miller 1984:179). But if we interpret ‘immediate’ not as a geographical description but rather as a temporal one, then the transgenerational community may be regarded as one of these objects that lie beyond one’s immediate environment.

However, several interpretations exist of the concept of a community (Plant 1978). And as if this were not enough, I extend the concept to include people who are not yet born. Let me then draw attention to one point which will reduce the number of relevant interpretations of a community: among all the conceptions of a community, those that are acceptable must be compatible with the notion of free and rational agency,⁷ Although sentiments and emotional ties are important elements of a community and should be treated as such, I consider the members of a community to be rational; i.e. they subject their membership in the community to a critical examination. This is a normative requirement rather than an empirical description of a community and, as such, it is perhaps at variance with the more ‘historical’ (sometimes called ‘Aristotelian’) approach to membership of a community. ‘Historical’ communitarians would argue that, in their opinion, I might not be able to reflect upon and change my membership of a community. Thus, their concept of a community is historical: if one was born into a community, one would probably remain in it. In the final analysis, they would say, what binds me to the community is something I ‘feel’ and acknowledge regardless of rational consideration. However, I shall later be analysing other aspects of membership, no less important, which are subject to criticism and reflection.

We cannot accept a concept of a completely deterministic community —one to which we are born without any possibility of change afterwards —because it could not be compatible with the idea that the community constitutes the self and with the notion of a rational person. Thus the concept of community that I shall use here may rightly be seen as less deterministic than the one used by some scholars, in the sense that I insist on the opportunity, given to every member at any time, to reflect on the community’s values, and to try either to alter them or to leave the community and join another if not satisfied. This, as I show below, is a condition essential to the success of a transgenerational community.

Lastly, I refer to obligations to very remote future generations, arguing that these do not derive from communitarian relationships. They are comparable to the feelings of many Westerners that they should try in some way to help the starving people in Somalia, although they do not share any communal relationships with them. (I explore the grounds for these obligations in the section on ‘Obligations to remote future generations’ in Chapter 2)

LACK OF INTERACTION BETWEEN GENERATIONS

Suppose now that we accept the concept of a community and acknowledge its importance. Nevertheless, we say, what is a transgenerational community? What is the meaning of this concept?

Some may object to the concept because it is indeed not immediately clear that a community extends over generations and into the future. Usually a community is associated with the interaction between the members of that community: they live together, have commercial relationships, and experience the same wars, natural disasters, and so on. If we think of a small community—say, a village —we can imagine the members of this community going swimming together, working together, meeting at the local pub, complaining about the weather, and so forth.

A community, it could be said, is thus a tangible concept only with regard to people who more or less know each other, or who at least could theoretically do so, and the idea is therefore clearly intelligible only when applied to one generation, or perhaps two. But what kind of relationships does one have with someone who will live six generations from now? Can such future people be said to have any interaction with us? How can we speak of a transgenerational community when there does not seem to be any ‘real’, face-to-face conversation or interaction between the generations?

This argument can be traced in the literature relating to intergenerational justice. Norman Care, for instance, acknowledges the actuality and importance of the idea of the community and does not oppose it. Yet he nevertheless writes:

If we ask at this point whether motivation in the form of community bonding is available and reliable to support policies designed to implement what morality requires of us on behalf of the world of the future, I think the answer must be no. We (current people) and they (future people) are not positioned in such a way as to be able to reciprocate with each other concerning the constituent ideas and controlling aims of any associations or enterprises which we jointly participate in or endure.

(Care 1982:208–9)

Thus, Care argues that communitarian relations with future generations are not possible because current people and future people ‘are not positioned in such a way as to be able to reciprocate with each other’. In the absence of such an interaction, Care does not see how any feeling of loyalty or sense of being on the same side, all of which are necessary to community bonding, can develop. Furthermore, he says, in our relation to the people of the future we lack any sense of guilt, which usually arises when one fails to follow the prescribed dictates of the communal relationships.

But there is evidence that one is mistaken in denying that such feelings exist. Most writers on the environment, at any rate, refer with deep regret and remorse to the environmental harm we have been causing to future generations, and the consequent burden that we have been placing on their shoulders. How can Care acknowledge certain obligations to future people while denying feelings of guilt when these are not fulfilled? It is also mistaken to claim that relations between the people of the future and ourselves lack the detailed knowledge that at least makes people interesting to one another. There is no lack of science-fictional literature, drama and films that show just how interesting the future and the future inhabitants of the earth are to us. Indeed, one can make the general observation that people are interesting to each other even when they do not interact, and perhaps especially when they do not—witness, for example, the West’s fascination with the Tibetans, their religion and their way of life.

Another philosopher who recognizes the concept of a community yet is somewhat sceptical about relations with future generations is M.P.Golding—perhaps the first scholar to write of a community in the context of intergenerational justice, and, indeed, one of the first to deal with the issue as a whole (Golding 1972). And yet, it is not quite clear whether or not Golding genuinely agrees that we are part of the community of future generations, for he writes:

There is something which is due to the community of the future from us.… They [future generations] comprise the community of the future, a community with which we cannot expect to share a common life.

and

They [the obligations] are owed to an unspecified, and perhaps unspecifiable, community of the future.

(Golding 1972:64, 69, 63, emphasis added)

Indeed Golding sees a difficulty here: we do not share a common life with future generations. He also adds a new dimension to the debate: we lack moral interaction. The problem is that he is referring to observable interaction, and he is therefore not certain about obligations to future people, who will live after our death.

Now, is Golding right? It is often claimed that the distribution or redistribution of goods within a community is based on the acquiescence of its members, derived from their awareness that together they constitute the community and that the good of the community is also their own good. But this also implies that these people are primarily concerned with the members of that particular community, and seek to distribute the goods—sometimes exclusively—among its members (Walzer 1985:31). We must therefore ask who the members of our community are. Is our neighbour a member? Are all the citizens of our country members of our community, or perhaps only those whom we like? Or would all the people in the world be members? Were our grandparents members? Suppose you are a member of my community, will your great-grandchildren also be?

The latter question is perhaps the most interesting to emerge from our present discussion, as it raises the problem of whether people from different generations, far apart, can be part of a single community. We have already seen that the sceptics deny any possibility of a transgenerational community because there is no interaction with people who are not yet born. But my argument about the existence of such a community is supported by behavioural indications that we have membership of an association that stretches beyond the present generation, i.e. that we are members of a transgenerational community.

Such behavioural indications abound: we maintain customs practised by previous generations such as religious rites and ceremonies, e.g. baptism in Christianity or circumcision in Islam and Judaism; we marry in approximately the same manner as our ancestors did; in many universities, students attend a matriculation ceremony just as their counterparts did years ago; new parliamentary assemblies are opened in the same way as they have been opened for decades; every year, we hold memorial ceremonies for the soldiers who died in battle and we assert that their deaths served to defend us, although some (or most) of us were not yet alive when they fought and died.

All these customs are part of how we see ourselves and what we see ourselves to be. Baptism is part of being a Christian, i.e. belonging to a certain community; the opening of parliamentary assemblies with a traditional ceremony demonstrates the fact that we belong to the democratic tradition or political current; paying tribute to fallen soldiers who defended us by their death affirms our membership of the same national community. People obviously conceive of the democratic tradition, Christianity, their nation and so on as extending over many generations, and so people do in fact identify themselves with transgenerational communities of values, norms, and ideas. These indications exist in many varied spheres of life: they can be found, for instance, in public and private, religious and secular ceremonies and in traditional political practices. When people behave in a way that indicates more than simple respect to past generations, it seems that their attitude to the past is not only a response to the assumed will of past generations that future people should respect them and their achievements, but also an acknowledgement that the remote past is in a sense an integral part of their identities.

But these indications are not enough, because it might be argued that they are based on subjective feelings. Indeed, the transgenerational community can be viewed from two perspectives: that of the subjective member (the insider) and that of the ‘neutral’, objective observer (the outsider). The insider asks, ‘Do I regard myself as a part ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 The Transgenerational Community
• 2 Applications of the Theory
• 3 The Utilitarian Theory and the Not-Yet-Born
• 4 Contractarian Theories of Intergenerational Justice
• 5 Rights of Future People
• 6 Summary and Open Questions
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index