Is it fair to leave the next generation a public debt? Is it defensible to impose legal rules on them through constitutional constraints? From combating climate change to ensuring proper funding for future pensions, concerns about ethics between generations are everywhere. In this volume sixteen philosophers explore intergenerational justice. Part One examines the ways in which various theories of justice look at the matter. These include libertarian, Rawlsian, sufficientarian, contractarian, communitarian, Marxian and reciprocity-based approaches. In Part Two, the authors look (...) more specifically at issues relevant to each of these theories, such as motivation to act fairly towards future generations, the population dimension, the formation of preferences through education and how they impact on our intergenerational obligations, and whether it is fair to rely on constitutional devices. (shrink)

Gerechtigkeit findet nicht nur zwischen Zeitgenossen statt - auch das Handeln früher lebender Menschen kann Ansprüche und Pflichten gegenwärtig und zukünftig lebender Menschen begründen. Der Autor entwickelt die Theorie einer historischen Gerechtigkeit auf der Basis der Pflichten zwischen den Generationen. Pluspunkte: Darstellung eines zentralen Themas aktueller politischer, ethischer und gesellschaftlicher Debatten Diskussionsgrundlage für Philosophen, Politikwissenschftler sowie interessierte Laien zeigt praktizierbare Lösungsansätze auf.

This article examines the relationship between Jeremy Waldron’s supersession thesis and compensation. Recently, Waldron has argued that claims for material compensation for the original injustice cannot be superseded. He limits supersession to issues of restitution. Waldron’s supersession thesis is frequently cited by opponents of claims based on historical injustice, so his view of compensation warrants close examination. In our article, we explain the details of Waldron’s ‘simple model’ of compensation, offer an internal critique of it, and try to sympathetically reconstruct (...) it. We contend that a crucial claim about this model does not work; his model would result in many more backward-looking compensatory claims than he realizes. Waldron’s allowing for material compensation claims from historical injustice is in tension with, or incompatible with, his long-expressed view that the spirit of the supersession thesis is that justice should be forward-looking and look to present-day costs. We have argued elsewhere that the abstract possibility that restitution claims may be superseded due to changing circumstances (what we call the ‘supersession thesis proper’) is separable from the question of whether justice has a forward-looking or backward-looking orientation. We argue here that Waldron’s model of compensation can best be made sense of through our distinction of ‘full supersession’ and ‘partial supersession.’ This allows us to show that Waldron’s model relies on a more strongly backward-looking orientation than he seems to endorse in his earlier works on restitution and his most recent article discussing compensation. We conclude by offering external criticisms of Waldron’s model of compensation. (shrink)

Many people living in highly industrialised countries and elsewhere emit greenhouse gases at a certain high level as a by-product of their activities, and they expect to be able to continue to emit at that level. This level is far above the just per capita level. We investigate whether that expectation is legitimate and permissible. We argue that the expectation is epistemically legitimate. Given certain assumptions, we can also think of it as politically legitimate. Also, the expectation is shown to (...) be morally permissible but with major qualifications. The interpretation of the significance of the expectation is compatible with the understanding that historical emissions should count in terms of fairly distributing the benefits of emission-generating activities over people’s lifetimes but constrains the way in which we may collectively respond to climate change. (shrink)

Climate change can be interpreted as a unique case of historical injustice involving issues of both intergenerational and global justice. We split the issue into two separate questions. First, how should emission rights be distributed? Second, who should come up for the costs of coping with climate change? We regard the first question as being an issue of pure distributive justice and argue on prioritarian grounds that the developing world should receive higher per capita emission rights than the developed world. (...) This is justified by the fact that the latter already owns a larger share of benefits associated with emission generating activities because of its past record of industrialisation. The second question appears to be an issue of compensatory justice. After defining what we mean by compensation, we show that different kinds of compensatory principles run into problems when used to justify payments by historical emitters of the North to people suffering from climate change in the South. As an alternative, we propose to view payments from wealthy countries for adaptation to climate change in vulnerable countries rather as a measure based on concerns of global distributive justice. (shrink)

This book provides a systematic introduction to the debate on historical emissions and climate change, for students, researchers and policymakers.

The volume brings together a collection of original papers on some of the main tenets of Joseph Raz's legal and political philosophy: Legal positivism and the nature of law, practical reason, authority, the value of equality, incommensurability, harm, group rights, and multiculturalism. James Griffin and Yael Tamir raise questions concerning Raz's notion of group rights and its application to claims of cultural and political autonomy, while Will Kymlicka and Bernhard Peters examine Raz's theory of multicultural society. Lukas Meyer (...) investigates the applicability of the notion of harm in the intergenerational context. Other papers are devoted to fundamental theoretical tenets of Raz's work. Hillel Steiner and Andrei Marmor examine Raz's account of value pluralism and incommensurability in light of what these authors consider to be goods whose equal distribution must be valued for its own sake. Robert Alexy and Timothy Endicott discuss traditional issues of jurisprudence and legal philosphy with special attention to Raz's contribution. Rüdiger Bittner, Bruno Celano, and J. E. Penner discuss and criticize aspects of Raz's theory of practical reason. Jeremy Waldron presents a critique of Raz's interpretation of authority.This volume concludes with a chapter by Joseph Raz in which he responds to arguments in the foregoing essays. (shrink)

Is it fair to leave the next generation a public debt? Is it defensible to impose legal rules on them through constitutional constraints? From combating climate change to ensuring proper funding for future pensions, concerns about ethics between generations are everywhere. In this volume sixteen philosophers explore intergenerational justice. Part One examines the ways in which various theories of justice look at the matter. These include libertarian, Rawlsian, sufficientarian, contractarian, communitarian, Marxian and reciprocity-based approaches. In Part Two, the authors look (...) more specifically at issues relevant to each of these theories, such as motivation to act fairly towards future generations, the population dimension, the formation of preferences through education and how they impact on our intergenerational obligations, and whether it is fair to rely on constitutional devices. (shrink)

Is it fair to leave the next generation a public debt? Is it defensible to impose legal rules on them through constitutional constraints? From combating climate change to ensuring proper funding for future pensions, concerns about ethics between generations are everywhere. In this volume sixteen philosophers explore intergenerational justice. Part One examines the ways in which various theories of justice look at the matter. These include libertarian, Rawlsian, sufficientarian, contractarian, communitarian, Marxian and reciprocity-based approaches. In Part Two, the authors look (...) more specifically at issues relevant to each of these theories, such as motivation to act fairly towards future generations, the population dimension, the formation of preferences through education and how they impact on our intergenerational obligations, and whether it is fair to rely on constitutional devices. (shrink)

This Introduction tells the story of intergerational justice and how it has influenced philosophers and political thinkers throughout history. The Introduction goes on to discuss the aims of the book, which is to offer a sustained discussion of intergenerational justice as seen by practical philosophers. The first part of the book focuses on the way in which various schools of thought in moral and political philosophy approach the domain of intergenerational justice, while the second part focuses on more specific aspects, (...) such as how these theories address the question of motivation, how they deal with demographic fluctuations, or how they can be applied to real-world issues such as climate change. (shrink)

As mentioned in the Introduction to this volume, many of the papers collected here began life as part of a symposium inspired by Brian Barry’s work. Brian attended the meeting, and contributed in h...

Expectations play an important role in how people plan their lives and pursue their projects. People living in highly industrialized countries share a way of life that comes with high levels of emissions. Their expectations to be able to continue their projects imply their holding expectations to similarly high future levels of personal emissions. We argue that the frustration or undermining of these expectations would cause them significant harm. Further, the article investigates under what conditions people can be thought to (...) hold legitimate expectations, in particular about permissible levels of future emissions. We distinguish differing theories of understanding these conditions, namely authority-based and justice-based theories, that each allows us to systematically distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate expectations. Furthermore, with respect to individuals’ future permissible emissions we give several reasons for holding that such theories cannot identify a particular expectation to a specific level of personal emissions as the only legitimate one. Finally, we argue that the set of legitimate expectations that people hold with respect to a just and effective solution to climate change has normative significance in at least two ways: the differing but equally legitimate expectations ought to be taken into account when justifying what could count as such a solution and when determining the just way of arriving at and implementing such a solution. (shrink)

Climate change increases the frequency and intensity of certain kinds of natural hazard events in alpine areas. This interdisciplinary study addresses the hypothetical possibility of relocating the residents of three alpine areas in Austria: the Sölk valleys, the Johnsbach valley, and the St. Lorenzen/Schwarzenbach valleys. Our particular focus is on these residents’ expectations about such relocations. We find that (1) many residents expect that in the next decades the state will provide them with a level of natural hazards protection, aid, (...) and relief that allows them to continue to live in these valleys; (2) this expectation receives some legal protection but only when it is associated with fundamental rights; and (3) the expectation is morally significant, i.e., it ought to be considered in assessing the moral rightness or justness of relocation policies. These results suggest legal changes and likely extend to many other (Austrian) alpine areas as well. (shrink)

This paper addresses a theory of intergenerational justice that we refer to as “needs-based sufficientarianism”. According to needs-based sufficientarianism, the present generation ought to enable future generations to meet their basic needs — for example, their needs for drinkable water, food and health care. Our aim is to explain and defend this theory in a programmatic way. First, we introduce what we regard as the most plausible variant of needs-based sufficientarianism. Then we argue that this variant is superior to several (...) alternative ways of thinking about intergenerational justice. In particular, we defend basic needs as the currency of intergenerational justice and sufficiency as its principle. Our arguments for these claims are neither fully comprehensive nor fully conclusive. Yet, we hope that they suffice to show that needs-based sufficientarianism is a major contender, with significant pro tanto advantages over other views. (shrink)

There are two main sources of theoretical doubt regarding the validity of claims for reparation: the questions arising from the non-identity problem and those arising from the supersession thesis. Neither of them significantly undermines the Palestinian refugees’ claims to reparations and a right of return.

The volume brings together a collection of original papers on some of the main tenets of Joseph Raz's legal and political philosophy: Legal positivism and the nature of law, practical reason, authority, the value of equality, incommensurability, harm, group rights, and multiculturalism.

Name der Zeitschrift: Jahrbuch für Wissenschaft und Ethik Jahrgang: 16 Heft: 1 Seiten: 179-214.

Name der Zeitschrift: Jahrbuch für Wissenschaft und Ethik Jahrgang: 21 Heft: 1 Seiten: 197-220. -/- There seem to be good reasons that democratic institutions must be reformed in order to minimize the danger of unsustainable policy decisions infringing upon duties of intergenerational justice. This is why there exist a number of different proposals of how to reform democratic states in order to foster their duties towards the future. However, the debate lacks a systematic assessment of these suggested reforms within a (...) coherent theoretical and norma-tive framework. This paper aims at developing such a framework. We suggest two conceptual dimensions defining the spectrum of different justi-fiable institutional reforms: the relation between democracy and justice as one dimension and the conditions considered relevant for viewing democracies as responsible collective agents as the other. Depending on how we understand this relation and these conditions, it is possible to substantiate a set of types of institutional reforms that will promote democracies? capacities to comply with their responsibilities towards the future. (shrink)

In this short introduction, we will briefly sketch some central features of the problem of legitimate expectations and then lead over to the papers of our special issue.

Do states or individuals stand under duties of international justice to people who live elsewhere and to other states? How are we to assess the legitimacy of international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations Security Council? Should we support reforms of international institutions and how should we go about assessing alternative proposals of such reforms? The book brings together leading scholars of public international law, jurisprudence and international relations, political philosophers and political theorists to explore (...) the central notions of international legitimacy and global justice. The essays examine how these notions are related and how understanding the relationships will help us comparatively assess the validity of proposals for the reform of international institutions and public international law. (shrink)

Die Geltung von Entschädigungsansprüchen für historisches Unrecht wird in der philosophischen Literatur vor allem aus zwei Gründen bestritten: auf Grund des Nichtidentitätsproblems und auf Grund der von Jeremy Waldron behaupteten möglichen Aufhebung historischen Unrechts durch die Veränderung von Umständen. Für die Beurteilung des Rechts der palästinensischen Flüchtlinge auf Rückkehr sind beide Einwände nur von geringer Bedeutung. Die Palästinenser sollten jedoch auf ihr Recht auf Rückkehr vorläufig verzichten , um einen Kompromiss zu ermöglichen, der es ihnen erlaubte, ihr Selbstbestimmungsrecht in einem (...) Teil ihres Heimatlands zu realisieren. Eine solche Zwei-Staaten-Lösung könnte sicher helfen, die Grundrechte von Israelis und Palästinensern zu sichern und die Voraussetzungen für eine Versöhnung der verfeindeten Gruppen und für gerechte Verhältnisse in der Region zu schaffen. (shrink)

In this chapter, we consider the relationships between democracy, equality, and justice and the ways in which those relationships define the territory of contemporary political philosophy.

This chapter lays out what we take to be the main types of justice and ethical challenges concerning those adverse effects of climate change leading to climate-related Loss and Damage (L&D). We argue that it is essential to clearly differentiate between the challenges concerning mitigation and adaptation and those ethical issues exclusively relevant for L&D in order to address the ethical aspects pertaining to L&D in international climate policy. First, we show that depending on how mitigation and adaptation are distinguished (...) from L&D, the primary focus of policy measures and their ethical implications will vary. Second, we distinguish between a distributive justice framework and a compensatory justice scheme for delivering L&D measures. Third, in order to understand the differentiated remedial responsibilities concerning L&D, we categorise the measures and policy approaches available. Fourth, depending on the kind of L&D and which remedies are possible, we explain the difference between remedial and outcome responsibilities of different actors. [Open access]. (shrink)

Machine intelligence already helps medical staff with a number of tasks. Ethical decision-making, however, has not been handed over to computers. In this proof-of-concept study, we show how an algorithm based on Beauchamp and Childress’ prima-facie principles could be employed to advise on a range of moral dilemma situations that occur in medical institutions. We explain why we chose fuzzy cognitive maps to set up the advisory system and how we utilized machine learning to train it. We report on the (...) difficult task of operationalizing the principles of beneficence, non-maleficence and patient autonomy, and describe how we selected suitable input parameters that we extracted from a training dataset of clinical cases. The first performance results are promising, but an algorithmic approach to ethics also comes with several weaknesses and limitations. Should one really entrust the sensitive domain of clinical ethics to machine intelligence? (shrink)

Ulrich Meyer defends a novel theory about the nature of time, and argues against the consensus view that time and space are fundamentally alike. He presents the first comprehensive defense of a 'modal' account, which emphasizes the similarities between times and possible worlds in modal logic, and is easily reconciled with the theory of relativity.

Desire-satisfaction theories about welfare come in two main varieties: unrestricted and restricted. Both varieties hold that a person's welfare is determined entirely by the satisfactions and frustrations of his desires. But while the restricted theories count only some of a person’s desires as relevant to his well-being, the unrestricted theories count all of his desires as relevant. Because unrestricted theories count all desires as relevant they are vulnerable to a wide variety of counterexamples involving desires that seem obviously irrelevant. Derek (...) Parfit offers a well-known example involving a stranger afflicted with what seems to be a fatal disease. Similar examples are offered by Thomas Scanlon, James Griffin, Shelly Kagan, and others. In this paper I defend a simple unrestricted desire-based theory of welfare from the claim that some of our desires are irrelevant to how well our lives go. I begin by introducing the theory I aim to defend. I then formulate the Irrelevant-Desires Problem and reject a few rationales for its key premise. I then consider and reject a few flawed responses to the problem. I finally offer an obvious but widely overlooked response: I bite the bullet. My overall goal is to dissuade those sympathetic to a desire-based approach to welfare from rejecting unrestricted forms of desire satisfactionism simply because some desires may seem irrelevant to how well our lives go. (shrink)

Vorrede, von T. Pinkus.--Sein und Bewusstsein, von G. Lukács und H.H.Holz.--Gesellschaft und Individuum, von G. Lukács und L. Kofler.--Grundlegendes zu einer wissenschaftlichen Politik, von G. Lukács und W. Abendroth.--Vorläufige Bilanz, von G. Lukács, W. Abendroth und H. H. Holz.--Bibliographie (p. 125-[128]).

Sind wir für moralisch falsche Kaufentscheidungen verantwortlich zu machen, die wir in Unkenntnis treffen? Einerseits scheint die klassische Annahme einer Wissensbedingung den Raum unserer moralischen Verantwortung einzugrenzen: Wenn uns nicht bewusst ist, dass wir moralisch falsch handeln, dann ist es auch nicht angemessen, uns dafür zu tadeln. Andererseits droht die Wissensbedingung aber dadurch ausgehöhlt zu werden, dass uns schuldhafte Unkenntnis erstens nicht zu entschuldigen scheint und wir zweitens meist darüber informiert sein sollten, was wir tun und ob es moralisch bedeutsam (...) ist. Im vorliegenden Aufsatz wird unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des praktisch relevanten Kontexts der Konsumethik untersucht, inwieweit der Raum unserer moralischen Verantwortung trotz dieser Herausforderung für Anhänger der Wissensbedingung begrenzt bleibt. Dazu werden die folgenden beiden Fragen näher betrachtet, von deren Beantwortung abhängt, in welchem Ausmass Konsumenten für falsche Kaufhandlungen verantwortlich gemacht werden können: Vermag schuldhafte Unkenntnis falsch handelnde Personen tatsächlich nicht zu entschuldigen? Und sind Personen stets dazu verpflichtet, sich über die moralische Bedeutsamkeit ihrer Kaufentscheidungen zu informieren? Bezüglich der ersten Frage wird dafür argumentiert, dass schuldhaft uninformierte Konsumenten zumindest teilweise entschuldigt sind: Sie sind nicht in gleichem Masse für ihr falsches Handeln zu kritisieren wie Personen, die sich wissentlich moralisch falsch entscheiden. Darüber hinaus wird aber bezüglich der zweiten Frage auch bestritten, dass Konsumenten stets dafür kritisiert werden können, nicht ausreichend informiert zu sein: Da berechtigte Überforderungseinwände gegen die Annahme anspruchsvoller Recherchepflichten sprechen, lässt sich den Konsumenten ihre Uninformiertheit häufig nicht zum Vorwurf machen. (shrink)