The Possibility And Limitations On Intergenerational Justice In A Scenario Of Sustainable Development

This study presents analysis of justice in a scenario of sustainable development, identifying the special problems arising when one tries to apply the notion of justice across generations, discussing how reciprocity across generations can be understood, and attempting to overcome the problem arising from the conditionality of justice in the intergenerational perspective. It is argued that reciprocity has to be built into the relationship between different generations if intergenerational justice it is to be possible. Intergenerational justice must be built on both mutual advantage and mutual good will. The former provides sound arguments to build reciprocity based on self-interest while the latter involves empathetic concerns which plays a central role in establishing duties and rights between contemporary and future generations. However, the full realization of sustainable development will have to overcome reciprocity by legal enforcement, education and the cultivation of religious belief.According to the definition from The World Commission on Environment and Development, sustainable development is'development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs'. Taking this definition of sustainable development as a point of departure, justice has to be conceived along two dimensions:intergenerational justice has to be conceived in a time dimension while intra-generational justice must be conceived in a spatial dimension. The lack of concern about intergenerational justice in sustainable development poses a problem for how intergenerational justice is to be validated. This dissertation will address this problem through an examination of the following problems: What are the particular challenges to the concept of justice posed by the goal of sustainable development? What possibility is there of realizing the ideal of intergenerational justice and in what ways are this possibility limited? Examining these problems will also involve a discussion of the validity of generational justice as well as suggesting a solution the problem of to how to overcome the conditionality of justice.Basic to my discussion of the first of the four questions formulated above is a distinction between'the two faces (or dispositions) of justice'introduced by Jiwei Ci in his book The Two Faces of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.:Harvard University Press,2006). Ci takes as his point of departure what he calls'the vulnerability of justice', the phenomenon that if some unjust behaviours cannot be restrained or punished effectively, some individuals who do have a sense of as well as a desire for justice, will nevertheless follow the example of these behaviours to varying degrees, thus causing unjust behaviour to spread. Conceived in this way, justice is based on reciprocity, the interest-related exchange to satisfy people's self-interest:it is conditional. However, conceiving of justice as conditional presupposes a notion of unconditional justice, i.e. justice as a moral imperative that is independent of any interest-related exchange. This is what, according to Ci, constitutes the two faces or dispositions of justice. The two dispositions are opposite, but also complementary, and the one does not exist without the other.In the perspective of sustainable development, the time dimension creates a particular problem for conditional justice. To realize conditional justice across generations some mechanism has to be found to build a relationship of reciprocity. My attempt to do this takes its point of departure in a criticism of John Rawls. In A Theory of Justice Rawls defends his'savings principle'of intergenerational justice using a notion of'motivational assumption'which is not only based on self-interest but also on the assumption that there are emotional ties between successive generations.Unfortunately for Rawls, this is in glaring contradiction to one of the premises of his contract theory which is built on the desire of mutual benefits on the basis of self-interest. Rawls amends the'savings principle'in Political Liberalism, but this does not open up for a recognition of the obvious and decisive difference between intra-generational justice and intergenerational justice, i.e. that the former is based on reciprocity and is consequently conditional, while the absence of conditionality operates as a limitation on the possibility of confirming the validity of intergenerational justice. Rawls way of defending intergenerational justice is to assume a basic trust on the part of other generations and in this way establish the unconditional disposition of intergenerational justice. However, the basic trust argument is weak and far less persuasive than the argument from self-interest.My attempt to build reciprocity across generations is grounded in some observations made by Ci in his book. According to Ci, reciprocity involves not only mutual advantage but also mutual good will, for example friendship. In the present project an attempt will be made to identify how mutual good will and mutual advantage can separately subsist among different generations.Mutual advantage will be analyzed from the perspective of the golden rule, using the notions of'duty'and'right'. On the one hand, if it is admitted that the present generation has the priority right to use resources, especially non-renewable resources, from the time dimension, then the question arises whether they do not also have to accept the duty of securing the continuity of human life by, at the very least, not endangering the right of coming generations to subsistence. On the other hand, there is the question whether future generations have the right to enjoy the resources that former generations have saved and created for them at the sacrifice of transferring to them the priority right to use consumable resources and whether the ability to express a claim to such a right is a necessary condition for constituting a subject of such a right. It will be argued that that for any generation, preserving non-expendable historical treasures is a constant duty.The analysis of mutual good will will take as its point of the idea that'I might be decent to him because he has been decent to me. I might prefer treating another well who has treated me well, even if he has no further power to affect me', formulated by Allan Gibbard in his review of volume one of Brian Barry's Theories of Justice (Berkeley and Los Angeles:University of California Press,1989),'Constructing Justice', Philosophy and Public Affairs 20:3 (1991),264-79 (the formulation occur on page 266). The form of return from the future to the present generation is the good will presumably engendered in future generation by the actions showing the good will of the present generation.Based on the notions of mutual advantage and mutual good will it is possible to build reciprocity into intergenerational justice. Though this reciprocity is constituted by both mutual advantage and mutual good will, it can be argued that the greater the role played by mutual good will, the greater the'advance'from the present generation to future generations.Having established the conditionality of intergenerational justice, the next step is to explore how this conditionality can be overcome. I shall tentatively explore three ways in which the conditionality of intergenerational justice can be overcome. The replacement of individual reciprocity by a social system that punishes injustice by legal enforcement; Education as a means to the cultivation of benevolence and sympathy; The major problem which would have to be faced is to what extent'a moral sense' could be cultivated through education; The cultivation of religious belief as a means of overcoming the conditionality of justice.All three paths face different criticisms and challenges which will be discussed. It is impossible to eliminate the conditionality of justice as motivation but possible to make people's behaviour and even motives appear to be unconditional. However, only when reciprocity is based exclusively on mutual good will, will justice appear to be unconditional. This does not mean the pursuit of unconditional justice is futile. In fact the process of overcoming conditionality is the process of moralization.