Abstract
Under the human flourishing theory of property, owners have obligations, positive as well as negative, that they owe to members of the various communities to which they belong. But are the members of those communities limited to living persons, or do they include non-living persons as well, i.e., future persons and the dead? This Article argues that owners owe two sorts of obligation to non-living members of our generational communities, one general, the other specific. The general obligation is to provide future generations with the basic material background conditions that are necessary for them to be able to carry out what I call life-transcending projects that their forebears have transmitted to them. The specific obligation is project-specific; that is, its purpose is to enable successive generational community members to whom particular life-transcending projects have been forwarded to be carried out in their way. The future generational members to whom the project is transferred must also be given whatever resources or goods are necessary to carry the project forward in its intended way. I argue further that each generational community owes its predecessors the obligation to accept life-transcending projects transmitted to them by their forebears and make reasonable efforts to carry those projects forward into the future. The obligation is based on the past generational community members’ dependency on their successors for the projects to continue into the future, a matter that is constitutive of the project creators’ flourishing. This obligation is defeasible, rather than absolute, however.
Acknowledgment
I am grateful to colleagues at UCLA Law School, where I presented this paper at a faculty workshop, and particularly to Seana Shiffrin for exceptionally helpful written comments. I also thank my colleagues at Cornell Law School, where I presented this paper at a Summer Faculty Workshop, for many comments and suggestions. Eduardo Peñalver and Joseph Singer also provided valuable comments. I am especially indebted to my friend Hanoch Dagan for his usual trenchant criticisms and helpful comments. The many errors that doubtless remain are all mine.
Note
I am indebted to participants in the Eighth Annual International Human Rights Conference of the College of Law and Business on “Intergenerational Justice,” held in Ramat Gan, Israel, in January 2013, for comments on an earlier draft of this paper and to the organizers for inviting me.
©2014 by De Gruyter
