Enough for the Future
Reflecting the normative significance of specific features of intergenerational relations this chapter investigates the justice claims of future people vis-à-vis currently living people. It discusses sufficientarian and egalitarian conceptions of justice, and argues that a sufficientarian approach is appropriate in the intergenerational context. This conclusion is based, first, on the argument that by relying on a threshold conception of harm we can solve the non-identity problem and that there are good reasons to specify the relevant threshold in sufficientarian terms. Second, it is based upon an examination of reasons given for a sufficientarian understanding of global justice. These reasons are shown to speak even more strongly for a sufficientarian understanding of intergenerational justice.
Keywords: intergenerational justice, non-identity problem, sufficientarianism, egalitarianism, distributive justice, welfare rights, future generations, conceptions of harm, threshold conception
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