The Moral Entitlements of Future Persons: Expectancies and Prospective Beneficiaries

The Journal of Ethics 28 (1):125-143 (2024)
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Abstract

This paper develops a future-oriented and person-centred normative argument based on expectancies that is immune to most of the problems identified in the rights of future persons. The argument unfolds in four parts. The first draws on the notion of expectancies present in inheritance law and maintains that it is possible to formulate a rule of prospective beneficiaries that correlates with entitlements and legitimate claims without necessarily acquiring the status of rights. The second extends expectancies to future persons and concludes that the latter can be considered present holders of such currently binding entitlements. The third section raises the question of whether democracies are bound to a principle of fidelity towards expectancies in such a way that outweighs current people’s rights in cases of conflicts. The response does not prove particularly future-beneficial in such cases. However, section four clarifies why expectancies still carry a crucial moral weight in democracies, one that is not sufficiently established by depersonalised forms of future-oriented ethics.

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Andre Santos Campos
Universidade Nova de Lisboa

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Political Liberalism.J. Rawls - 1995 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 57 (3):596-598.
Why We Should Reject S.Derek Parfit - 1984 - In Reasons and Persons. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
The Law of Peoples.John Rawls - 1999 - Philosophical Quarterly 51 (203):246-253.
On the People’s Terms.Philip Pettit - 2012 - Political Theory 44 (5):697-706.

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