Abstract

As recognition of our ability to alter global environmental systems has grown, the public has shown increased interest in the problem of obligations to future generations. Scholarly discussion has addressed this problem from a utilitarian or rights-based perspective. These approaches fail, however, to provide an adequate basis in moral principle for our strong beliefs respecting some level of obligation to the future. An examination of the relationship between law and morality reveals certain formal and functional similarities which enable one to identify moral principles in codified and common law. These principles can, then, be applied to the problem of intergenerational justice to support and define our obligations to future generations. Principles of tort and criminal law support a moral obligation to avoid taking those actions which one can reasonably foresee will result in significant harm to future individuals. A duty to avoid harm to future generations can be logically derived from this obligation to avoid harm to future individuals. Distributions of natural resources over time also present questions of intergenerational justice. No theoretical justification of property rights recognizes that property could be allocated over generations as well as members of one generation. Given that time is morally irrelevant, future generations may have a significant claim to resources consumed in the present. Our consumption of non-renewable resources must, therefore, be justified in some manner, for example, by biological need. Consumption that is not justifiable diminishes the opportunities and liberties of future people. The harm that is inflicted on future generations by consumption which cannot be justified may be partially compensated if the value of resources consumed is preserved though the resource no longer exists. This may happen when resources are turned into future opportunities via technological development. All these conclusions are based on the assumption that we are obligated to maintain the human species, an assumption which has been openly questioned in the literature. Justice as a moral concept implies a minimal obligation to preserve the race inasmuch as it requires that we act out of respect for ourselves and the possibility of future life