What Do We Owe Posterity?
Introduction to Responsibilities to Future Generations,
ed. E. Partridge, Prometheus Books, 1981
What do we owe posterity? The question is
unavoidable, for the course of human events has forced the issue upon us. We
of this generation have in our hands unprecedented power to affect the
future – forever. And the sciences that have given us this power have also
given us an unprecedented ability to foresee the long-term consequences of
our acts, our innovations, and our policies. But, while we benefit from the
whirlwind of technological innovation, we are not powerless to control it.
We can, for instance, choose at last to control world population, or we can
tolerate continued growth. We can devote our full attention to the relief of
those who are wretched on the earth today, or we can, instead, give
additional attention to the problem of mitigating, and even avoiding, the
misery of those who are yet to be born. We can continue the current trend of
increasing energy consumption supported by massive, resource-depleting,
centralized energy technologies, or we can conserve and develop small-scale,
diversified, and renewable sources of energy. And there are many other
choices of lasting significance that are immediately before us.
The implications for future generations, who at present have no voice in
these decisions, are profound beyond comprehension. Consider just a few
examples: First, a commitment to develop and utilize nuclear-fission energy
on a grand scale will result in the production of vast amounts of highly
toxic radioactive materials, some of which will have to be monitored and
isolated from the biosphere for hundreds of thousands of years – for all
practical purposes, forever. Continued development and production of
high-altitude supersonic aircraft, along with the continued use of
chlorofluoro-carbons, will continue to erode the ozone layer of the
stratosphere, thus increasing the amount of ultraviolet radiation and
causing deleterious effects upon crop production and human health.
The response of our political and economic leaders to the current "energy
crisis" appears to be "more of the same." Rather than significantly reducing
energy consumption, we have accelerated the extraction of coal and oil and
have elected to turn to still other fossil fuels, such as tar sands and oil
shale. If this policy continues, the increased carbon-dioxide content in the
atmosphere could raise the ambient temperature of the earth sufficiently to
melt the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps, resulting in the flooding of many
major cities of the world and the loss of much prime crop land. Population
pressures and the demand for resources are causing an alarming and
accelerating destruction of tropical rain forests and, with that depletion,
an irreversible loss of exotic species and ecosystems. Tidal marshes and
estuaries, the sources of aquatic nutrients, are being filled and polluted.
Continental shelves, the most biologically active areas of the seas, are
being contaminated with industrial wastes. The vast ocean itself has been
found to be vulnerable to human intervention in its systemic integrity.
While our ability to affect the future is immense, our ability to foresee
the results of our environmental interventions is not. But we are not
totally blind to the consequences of the technical ventures now at work or
contemplated. Our age has witnessed not only a revolution in power but also
a revolution in communications and information processing. From satellites
and worldwide recording and transmitting stations, we monitor the pulse of
the planetary organism: the solar input, the hydrological and nutrient
cycles, the climatic changes, the patterns of land use, and so on. We know
what is happening; and, with new developments in computer modeling of
complex integrated functions, we may be able to discover the graver hazards
that lie in the path ahead, both for us and for our posterity. Furthermore,
the very enormity of the changes that are projected, or imminent, may render
a finely tuned science of forecasting somewhat irrelevant. For whatever
their tastes in music and poetry, or whatever their preferences in sports
and ether amusements, our descendants will need crop lands and watersheds to
supply their food and water, and they will need to be free of ultraviolet
and nuclear radiation. And it is these necessities of future life and
welfare that are in grave jeopardy now, and we know this now.
I have suggested that our moral responsibility grows with foresight. And
yet, paradoxically, in some cases grave moral responsibility is entailed by
the fact of one's ignorance. If the planetary life-support system appears to
be complex and mysterious, humble ignorance should indicate respect and
restraint. However, as many life scientists have complained, these virtues
have not been apparent in this generation. Instead, they point out, we have
boldly marched ahead, shredding delicate ecosystems and obliterating
countless species, and with them the unique genetic codes that have evolved
through millions of years. We have altered the climate and even the
chemistry of the atmosphere, and, as a result of all this – what? A few
"results" are immediately to our benefit: more energy, more mineral
resources, more cropland, convenient waste disposal. Indeed, these
short-term payoffs have motivated us to alter our natural environment. But
by far the larger and more significant results, the permanent results, are
unknown and perhaps unknowable. Nature, says the poet Nancy Newhall, "holds
answers to more questions than we know how to ask." And we have scarcely
bothered to ask. Year by year, the natural habitats diminish and the species
disappear, and thus our planetary ecosystem (literally, our "household") is
forever impoverished. The immediacy and urgency of this biotic loss was
emphasized in the recently released report of the Council on Environmental
Quality, Global 2000, which predicted that "perhaps as many as 20 percent of
all species on earth will be irretrievably lost as their habitats vanish,
especially in tropical forests." In a recent issue of Harvard magazine, E.
0. Wilson, Baird Professor of Science at Harvard University, reflected that
posterity may find us least forgivable for this "loss of genetic and species
diversity by the destruction of natural habitats."
Compensating notice should be made of the benefits afforded the future by
the accomplishments of our scientific-industrial civilization. Because of
our deliberate efforts, no future generations will ever again suffer the
scourge of smallpox. The ability to control malaria and yellow fever,
developed by this and immediately preceding generations, will benefit
posterity into the far future. We have learned to identify some genetic
diseases, and thus (if we choose) to control and diminish their
transmission, and "genetic engineering" promises still more significant
advances in this field of applied science, with implications for the future
that are as apparent as they are beneficial. Finally, the very scientific
and technical knowledge that has led to the profligate use of energy and
resources in our generation may, if we are sufficiently provident and
prudent, permit us to develop alternative energy and material resources for
the future. But such provision, of course, calls for more than science and
technology, however necessary they may be. It also calls for a willingness
to care, sacrifice, and provide for the future.
We are, in an important sense, "hooked" on science and technology. Despite
the urgings of the neo-romantics and the neo-Luddites, we simply cannot
return easily and effortlessly to a pre-industrial mode of life. Our
physical sustenance depends upon intensive industrial agriculture and upon
high energy consumption. The remedy for the failings of science is more and
better science, augmented, to be sure, by a moral vision and commitment that
is excluded from science by reason of its very logical structure. As a
method and an activity, modern science is a magnificent cultural
achievement. But it is a fundamental paradox of our age that scientific
knowledge and discipline, supplemented by critical moral sense and
passionate moral purpose, will be needed to save the future from the
excesses and the perils brought about by a careless, short-sighted
application of a scientific knowledge and technological capability that
perhaps has developed too fast and affected the earth too much for our own
good and for the good of our successors.
If these reflections upon the present human condition and prospect are
essentially correct, it then appears that we are not morally permitted
simply to let the future be, for our responsibility is forced upon us. We
cannot carry on now with "business as usual," for the resulting resource
depletion and the accumulating effects of our alterations upon the natural
environment force changes upon us. The business of the immediate future, of
necessity, will not be "usual," to say the least of it; the immediate future
will require us to make momentous and unprecedented decisions, as has the
immediate past. So we must decide: Will we have nuclear power and synfuels
or renewable solar and biomass energy? The age of abundant, cheap fossil
fuels ("as usual") is over forever. Shall we take drastic steps to curb
population growth, or shall we not? If not, mankind will have to do without
wilderness, tropical rain forests, and many tropical species, and civilized
societies will have to manage with a reduced supply of vital, imported raw
materials. Shall we reconstruct national and global political and economic
structures, or will we just try to muddle through with existing eighteenth-
and nineteenth-century institutions? "To do nothing is to do something." We
cannot escape our responsibility.
The claim that this generation has an unprecedented responsibility to the
future has often been voiced and written recently. One rarely encounters,
however, the suggestion that this burden of responsibility may now be at a
peak and that no generation in the foreseeable future will have an
equivalent degree of opportunity to affect the future. And yet this may well
be the case. For many of the same massive and portentous interventions in
nature that are now contemplated, and even underway, cannot be undone. We
cannot replace lost species or restore lost ecosystems. Once we commit
ourselves to full-scale reliance upon nuclear power, as we likely shall
within the coming decade, retreat will be politically and economically
impossible, and future generations will face the choice either of permanent
surveillance of the wastes or (and more likely) of lapsing into indifference
and neglect and ultimately facing biological catastrophe. Nuclear power is
but one of many technological "fixes" we have acquired. Energy-intensive
mechanized agriculture is another. Many have forgotten that the term fix, in
the fashionable phrase technological fix, might be interpreted to refer, not
to "repair," but to "addiction."
Rising population combined with depleting resources adds up to diminished
expectations and diminished capacity to act in behalf of the long-term
a point that Garrett Hardin stresses in this anthology. And so, as food,
resources, and energy become increasingly scarce and costly, capital and
labor surplus will diminish. (This will be especially so if we continue on
our course of developing capital-intensive "hard" sources of energy.)
"Nonessential" activities and professions will be more difficult to support,
and among the endangered "nonessential" professions will be the arts and
letters, leisurely reflection on the human condition and prospect, futures
forecasting, and even research and development in the "pure" (non-applied)
sciences. (The reader who doubts this dismal prognosis might contemplate
recent trends in higher education, particularly the state of the "academic
job market".) As the scope of urgent needs contract to the here and now, so
too will the scope of foresight and action. Posterity's chance to be saved
from our folly may even now be nearly lost.
The foregoing survey indicates that we now
possess the capability, the knowledge, and the options to affect variously
and profoundly the welfare of our successors (and, to be sure, of our
contemporaries as well). If these factors correctly describe our present
circumstances, then they also define these circumstances as "morally
significant." They also help us to survey the scope of our topic: "the duty
to posterity." As suggested above, to say that an agent has a "moral duty"
to perform an act implies (a) that the act is the most morally valuable of
the available acts. By "morally valuable" I mean either that the act best
exemplifies respect for the rights of affected beings ("deontological
value") or that the act optimally affects the welfare of beings with
interests—that is, beings who can be benefitted or harmed ("teleological
value"). "Moral duty" also implies (b) that one knows, or that it is one's
responsibility to know, that the act is morally valuable in one of the
senses defined above; (c) that one is capable of performing that act; and
(d) that one can deliberately choose either to perform the act or not to
perform it. ("Moral action" is here interpreted with sufficient generality
to include forbearances – that is, "acts" of choosing not to perform morally
undesirable acts.) In strong formulations of the concept of duty, the
beneficiaries of the duties are identified as holders of correlative rights.
This last qualification, however, is controversial, and I will not insist
upon it in order to permit the adoption of a broad sense of "duty." In the
sense I intend, "duty" is roughly synonymous with a "requirement" or a
"responsibility" to act knowledgeably, capably, and freely when faced with
morally significant options.
I have attempted here to offer only the beginning of an analysis of the
concept of duty. Much more needs to be explicated if we are to distinguish
the concept of a "morally dutiful act" from bordering concepts such as a
"morally permitted act" (favoring the interests of oneself or of one's
family, friends, or kind) and a "supererogatory act" (“beyond the call of
duty” – such as the act of a saint or a hero on behalf of others or on
behalf of institutions or ideals). However, since such additional attempts
at clarification would introduce considerable controversy, I will carry this
analysis no further. Our purposes will have been sufficiently served if I
have succeeded in indicating that the concept of "moral duty" entails, at
the minimum, (a) moral significance, (b) knowledge, (c) capacity, and (d)
Like R. B. Brandt, H. L. A. Hart, John Rawls, and many other moral
philosophers, I prefer to interpret the word “obligation” as referring to
voluntary, mutually acknowledged commitments to, or between, identifiable
persons. Accordingly, while we might properly speak of “duties" to future
persons, it would be inappropriate to speak of "obligations to future
So much for "duty." What of "posterity"? I interpret "posterity" to mean, in
Martin P. Golding's words, "[future] generations with which the possessors
of the obligations cannot expect in a literal sense to share a common life."2
We are thus able to treat such "obligations" apart from the obligations that
bind parents and children and from those that otherwise obtain between
One final clarification is in order if we are to place our topic in focus.
By "duty to posterity," we are to understand "duties to persons who may be
assumed to exist in the future." This apparently arbitrary qualification is
introduced to allow us to distinguish between "duty to posterity" and the
related question of "population policy," namely, "What moral duties (and
permissions) do we have to produce, or to refrain from producing, future
persons?" The astute reader will immediately perceive that the questions are
more readily distinguished by explication than they are separable in moral
deliberation. After all, those who "may be assumed to exist" will be
affected by our past reproductive decisions. (Indeed, as Derek Parfit3
and Thomas Schwartz4
point out, our reproductive decisions will, in effect, totally "repopulate"
the future with different persons from those who would have otherwise
existed.) Conversely, morally responsible procreative decisions should take
into account the anticipated life-conditions of future generations.
The distinction between the issues of "duty to posterity" and "population
policy" is admittedly somewhat artificial. Still, it is very useful to an
editor who is anxious to contain his topic. And, though the two issues
cannot be neatly isolated in a logical sense, it is not difficult to utilize
the distinction to separate philosophical papers according to emphasis upon
one issue or the other. Of the two topics, population policy has probably
received more attention in the recent philosophical literature, and two fine
anthologies (by Bayles5
in 1976 and Sikora and Barry6
in 1978) are available that devote considerable attention to that topic.
However, the following anthology is probably the only collection of
philosophical papers now in print that devotes almost complete attention to
the topic of the duty to posterity...
Within the scope of the issue of the duty to posterity, several
controversial issues arise... The first question ... concerns the purported
rights of future persons. Many philosophers who readily concede that the
living have duties to posterity will balk at the suggestion that these
duties arc entailed by corresponding rights of those who are yet to be. The
question may be quite significant, since duties derived from rights may
require more of the living in terms of sacrifices and forbearances. The
second question deals with moral psychology. Duties, we will recall,
presuppose a capacity to act. But might not human beings he psychologically
incapable of acting in behalf of the remote future? And if so, might they
not thus be absolved of moral responsibility to so act? ...
Several arguments might be raised against
the claim that the living have duties to posterity (or, more stringently,
that future generations have rights-claims against the living)... Not
included among the criticisms of the duty to posterity is the "argument from
moral nihilism" – that is to say, the claim that there are no such things as
rights and duties at all, and therefore no rights and duties between present
and future generations. Such an argument, however, belongs to general
ethical theory. If we were to examine it seriously, it would be difficult to
depart from this general theoretical dispute and return to the subsidiary
question of the duty to posterity.
Assuming that the concepts of "duties" and "rights" are, in some cases at
least, meaningful, coherent, and applicable arming contemporaries, the
issue, then, is simply this: Are there any identifiable features of
"futurity" as such that are sufficient to disallow any claim of moral duty
to future persons? Several features have been suggested. Among them:
The further we project into the
future, the less probability we can assign to certain events and
We are unable to predict the course of
We are unable to alter the course of
Future persons are indeterminate (that
is, unknowable to us as individuals).
Future persons are contingent, not
We are ignorant of the needs, desires
or tastes of future people.
We arc ignorant of the whither of
future people (and thus, for example, unable lo make utility
calculations regarding them).
We are unable to determine whether, or
how many, future generations will "share our social ideal" and thus be
members of our "moral community."
In reply, defenders of the duty to
posterity (or, more rigorously, of posterity's rights) have argued that
these arc not features that are essential to "futurity" since some of these
claims are false (for example, the claim that we cannot predict or affect
the future), and several of these features apply to cases that are both
contemporary and morally significant (i.e., such features as
unidentifiability, improbability, ignorance of number, ignorance of tastes
and desires, and so on). Thus, for example, a defender of the duty to
posterity would insist that if it is morally improper to place an unknown
living person in possible jeopardy (the "unidentifiability" and
"probability" features), there appears to be no reason for future "indeterminates,"
qua future, being any less deserving of our protection, all other factors
Those who feel that futurity as such makes a difference to the value of a
benefit or a cost will support a policy of "discounting the future."
Accordingly, a given value in "present-time equivalents" (say, in dollars),
decreases as it is projected further into the future. (Thus, at a discount
rate of 6 percent per annum, $100 in ten years is worth $55.84 today, in
On the other hand, those who deny this axiom of "pure time preference"
(e.g., John Rawls8)
hold that "a value is a value," regardless of the time of its realization.
The concept of "discounting the future" is a point of fundamental contention
between economists and moral philosophers. To economists, the concept is
virtually axiomatic and thus beyond dispute. To many philosophers, the
notion is, at best, arbitrary and unproved and, at worst, absurd9...
We are prepared, at last, to list some of the fundamental and persistent
questions that have been raised with regard to the duty to posterity. These
questions appear, time and again, implicitly and explicitly, in
philosophical discussions and publications devoted to the issue. Indeed,
many have appeared earlier in this Introduction. The questions are grouped
in the following list according to these categories: (a) Metaethics
(questions about moral philosophy as it is applied to the future, for
instance, explications of moral concepts and analyses of methods of moral
justification). (b) Normative ethics (questions directly addressed to
matters of duty, obligation, and moral worth, for example, "What should be
done?" "What is worthwhile?" "What acts and policies are most
praiseworthy?"). (c) Empirical and practical considerations (questions about
matters of fact; in general, these include: "What do we, and can we, know
about the future?" "What will be the effects of present technological
innovation and environmental impacts upon the remote future?" "What
capacities do we have to affect the future?" "What needs and capacities do
human beings have to care about the future?").
What moral categories apply, or do not
apply, to our relationship to posterity? Rights? Obligations? Duties?
Responsibilities? Other categories? On what grounds might such
applications or exclusions be based? Nonactuality? Nonconcurrence?
Indeterminacy? Other grounds?
To what degree are our
responsibilities to the future contingent upon our knowledge of the
needs, values, and tastes of future persons?
Are future persons members of our
"moral community"? What characteristics would qualify or disqualify
What constitutes a justification or
validation of a putative "duty to posterity"?
What kinds of future beings may, or
may not, have duty claims upon living persons? What interests might they
have that would entail duties on the part of their predecessors?
What environments and circumstances
should we most desire to preserve and create for future generations?
Why? What can we do in behalf of posterity that is most in our power to
do? In what sense would these results be "good for" future people?
What are the moral implications of our
ability to affect the life conditions of future persons and of our
ability to foresee the results of our present technologies and policies?
How might the duties to posterity best
be characterized? As "just savings" of capital, resources, cultural
values, and just institutions? (Cf. Rawls, 1971.) As forebearances from
harmful activities? As the promotion of benefits? As restitution for
prior damages (e.g., to the natural environment)? As a broadening of the
ability to anticipate future impacts of present policies?
What weight does the duty to posterity
have when in conflict with short-term benefits? (For example, have we a
duty to keep some resources "in reserve"? At what point of scarcity is
this duty overridden?) How might such priorities be assessed?
To what degree might living persons
need to feel a sense of duty to future persons? Is a sense of duty to
posterity a necessary ingredient of a functioning moral sense, or even
of an integrated, well-functioning, personality?
Does an understanding of the past
illuminate a responsibility to the future?
Do "potential persons" have a "right"
to be brought into existence?
Empirical and Practical Questions:
Are we able adequately to predict the
future so as to make proper provision for the needs of posterity? That
is to say, have we both the knowledge and the power to do so?
Can we anticipate the interests,
needs, and tastes of posterity? Will our descendants want what we
preserve and prepare for them?
Will posterity miss what it has never
known (e.g., wildlife, wilderness, and so on?
Are we able to plan and act
appropriately to bring about desired results or to avoid projected
Might not the political, social,
economic, psychological, and aesthetic costs of significant improvement
of posterity's prospects simply be beyond what our generation should
reasonably be called upon to bear?
Will not the poor and disadvantaged
members of present generations be called upon to bear a disproportionate
share of the cost of benefitting those who are yet unborn?
Does posterity need our care? Can't
future generations take care of themselves so long as we turn over our
scientific and technological knowledge and techniques? Won't they find
adequate resources and solutions on their own?
What prospects are there for educating
and motivating members of the present generation to fulfill these duties
The list, however long, is only partial,
and the reader should be able to add to it with little difficulty. It will
soon be apparent to the reader that the issues discussed in this collection
are more "philosophical" (that is to say, metaethical and normative) than
empirical. This emphasis is deliberate and follows from the editor's
conviction that most empirical analyses of long-term effects upon the future
(namely, "cost-benefit studies," "environmental impact studies," "policy
analyses," "alternative futures forecasting," and so on) are long on data
and short on evaluative concepts, techniques, and norms. In short, we have
an abundance of "facts" but are ill equipped to make moral sense of it
[About the plan of the book and the
criteria of selection of the included papers].
. . . .
This anthology is intended to serve as a
prologue, as a stimulus to thought, research, discussion and action, by
philosophers, behavioral scientists, life and physical scientists,
policy-makers, administrators, legislators, and concerned citizens. Included
in these nontechnical papers are appeals for responsible reflection and
concern and for thoughtful and resolute action. The appeals are directed to
us all: to students, to scholars, to professionals, to practitioners. The
call to reflection and action is urgent, but it is neither clear nor
unambiguous. Few of the issues are sharply defined, and many of the moral
imperatives are confused, conflicting, and uncoordinated. We bear a burden
of incalculable responsibility. And yet we find that we must clarify the
issues, analyze the concepts, defend the moral principles, and assess the
implications, even as we attempt appropriate action in behalf of our
successors. In short, the task before us is not only political, economic,
and technological. It is also profoundly, and even inescapably,
philosophical. What, then, are we to do?
The metaethical task of explicating the moral concepts that may apply to the
posterity question and defining the rules for justifying claims of
responsibility to the future falls to the moral philosopher, who also has
the normative task of articulating moral principles of duty to future
generations. And yet, while occupied with these abstract and theoretical
questions, the moral philosopher must endeavor, with deliberate haste, to
bridge the gap between concepts, principles, and theories, on the one hand,
and working policies and practical moral judgments on the other. The issues
are urgent and momentous, and the political and economic conditions of our
time are forcing us to make immediate decisions of permanent significance
and consequence for the future.
The events of the day will not await clear articulations and prolonged
deliberations by the philosophers. Once again, we find that history has not
well accommodated our needs and comforts. Time is needed to effect
clarification and explication of the moral issues that we face, and time is
what we do not have. The best that we can hope for is more philosophers to
engage in better philosophizing. And much of that philosophizing will have
to be done outside of academic departments of philosophy. Some philosophers
have responded to this challenge, but that response has, to this date, been
too little and possibly too late. For all the recent and accelerating
philosophical discussion and publication on the issue, the posterity
question remains a matter of minor interest and attention among contemporary
moral philosophers. This should not and need not be the case; for here is a
topic well suited to excite the young philosophers who, in their student
days a decade ago, clamored for academic "relevance" and professional
involvement with the moral and social issues of our time.
There are also urgent questions to be addressed by researchers in moral
philosophy. Among these questions are the following: Can we and should we
care about the remote future? What basic human capacities, needs, and
motives, if any, are involved in transpersonal concern for the future? Do
we, in some significant psychological sense, need the future now? That is to
say, do we need to hope and work for the welfare of those who will never
share our lives? Perhaps not. But, if not, we should know this. If, on the
other hand, we have such capacities, needs, and motives, how might they be
evoked, nurtured, and enlisted in behalf of our posterity and, at the same
time, in behalf of our own needs for self-transcending moral commitment and
activity? Once they discover and articulate answers to these crucial
questions, the moral psychologists have the task of translating those
answers into effective procedures and methods of moral education and
Psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists have a further task to
perform in behalf of posterity. We urgently need to know what future human
beings will need just because they will be human beings. Consider one timely
example: We may soon be destroying the last of the unspoiled natural
wilderness. Will this be a loss to future generations, or are human beings
sufficiently adaptable that they will manage quite well, say, with astroturf
lawns and plastic trees in lieu of wilderness—or even with no turf or trees
at all? Some biologists and psychologists believe that man cannot adapt well
to a totally artificial world, that man needs the environment in which he
evolved as a species simply because that need is in his genes. Is this so?
We need to know this, and soon, while there is still a natural environment
to he preserved. Otherwise, Our successors nay he permanently impoverished.
If the philosophers define the concepts and prescribe the principles of duty
to the Future, and if the psychologists and the biologists determine the
fundamental needy of future human beings, what then? Then we turn to the
life scientists and the physical scientists. We will turn to them for
projections and sketches of alternative futures. We will rely on them to
forecast the short- and long-term effects of our various choices. We will
need them to guide us in our attempts to fulfill our duties to the future,
in our attempts to avoid harm and promote benefits for those who will follow
us. And we need the sciences, not only for knowledge but also for capacity
and action. We must act, and act effectively and soon, but we must also act
prudently and cautiously. For while we have, in the past, both benefitted
enormously from our technological advances and paid heavily for our
technological miscalculations, now the stakes are much higher. For now our
brain cells, our germ plasm, and our supporting planetary atmosphere and
life communities are all in our own, often careless, hands. We cannot afford
more sudden, catastrophic surprises. Our successors will need energy, basic
resources, and a life-supporting ecosystem. We, should thus endeavor to
develop new and benign technologies that will supply these needs without
exacting the ruinous long-term costs that we have heretofore assessed to the
future and, to some degree, to ourselves. Thus do the scientists, the
technologists. and the industrialists share in a responsibility to the
The conditions of future life are contingent not only upon the scientific
knowledge and capabilities available to this generation but also upon the
moral presuppositions and the motives that underlie and direct the selection
and evaluation of this information and capability in the formulation of
policy, and the consequent investment, implementation, and regulation of
technology. Accordingly, in addition to the data and projections of the
scientists and technologists, the judgments of the philosophers and the
psychologists should he made available to policy-makers, administrators, and
legislators, whose difficult and awesome task it is to interpret and
integrate this mass of information and opinion, to assess and weigh options,
and finally to select specific courses of action and to enact particular
items of regulation and legislation.
Clearly we haven't the space even to begin a discussion of the difficult
issue of "policy analysis." Let it suffice for us to note that the insights
of the moral philosophers are needed as policy-makers attempt, as they must,
to clarify the moral assumptions, implications, and constraints that are to
guide their decision-making. Decisions of enduring moral significance are
being made in our generation because they must he made. We cannot avoid our
responsibility, since postponement and evasion of many moral decisions may
prove to he ultimately irresponsible. "Not to decide is to decide," that is,
to decide in favor of the status quo (which, as we have noted, is not
"static"). And so, in the face of forced moral decisions of transcending and
permanent significance, policy-makers have the responsibility to consult the
experts, the moral philosophers, for clarification of moral issues and for
guidance in moral judgment. Conversely, the philosophers (or at least an
appreciable number of them) should conduct their research with an eye toward
application. "Applied philosophy" need not and should not be regarded in the
profession as second-rate work – as a sell-out or a compromise of academic
purity and abstraction. Like it or not, "men of affairs" in government and
business hold the future hostage to their decisions. Philosophers, of
various persuasions, can and should have a voice in these decisions. If not,
generations net unborn will justly regard the profession to have been in
default of its moral responsibility.
The need for an involvement of the philosophical profession in policy
analysis seems especially acute when one reviews the practices and
assumptions that are regarded as virtually axiomatic among many
policy-makers today. In a deliberate attempt both to avoid ideological bias
and to obtain precision, policy-makers have generally adopted the economists
methodology of "value-free, cost-benefit analysis" and the economists habit
of substituting measurable market costs for "qualitative" and "subjective"
values. This philosopher might object that, despite deliberate efforts to
avoid bias, such methods and assumptions are biased and that they are biased
toward a highly controversial ethical theory, namely, utilitarianism. Not
only that, but the "market value" criterions of cost and benefit assessment
leads directly to the policy of "discounting the future" – a policy based
upon the assumption that the value of future costs and benefits is directly
proportional to their proximity in the future, (Thus, according to this
"social discount theory," at a per-annum discount rate of 5 percent, one
death a year is equivalent to over two deaths three-hundred years in the
future.) This conclusion is repugnant even to utilitarians (such as Henry
Sidgwick) who generally argue that time, per se, is not relevant to value
assessments. Another remarkable assumption, uncritically borrowed from
prevailing economic theory, is that public policy is to be regarded as
similar in kind to private or corporate policy, though different in degree,
and that "society," in other words, is to he regarded as the sum of its
individual decision-making parts.
Are the current presuppositions and procedures of policy analysis correct or
are they not? I do not propose to answer that question here. Perhaps the
economic approach to policy analysis is valid. But, if it is, the validity
of this approach, and of the fundamental presuppositions upon which it is
based should be articulated and justified, and not merely assumed by
government administrators and legislators. However, if the economic approach
to policy analysis is inappropriate, then the foundation of much, if not
most, of our traditional policy analysis is untenable, and many decisions of
lasting importance to future generations may he fundamentally misguided. Our
entire structure of policy theory and application should he reviewed and
reassessed, and philosophers should have an important role in this work.
Ultimately, posterity will not be cared for unless the citizens care enough.
There are many temptations before us to rob the future for the sake of the
present, And posterity has no retaliation for such villainy, except,
abstractly. through our consciences. All our power, knowledge, and good
intentions will fail to serve the future if we lack collective will. And
that means political will. Thus the responsibility ultimately reside in the
citizens. In particular, the citizen's duty to posterity translates into a
responsibility to be informed of the threats we pose and the opportunities
we promise for the future. It also translates into a responsibility to
develop and to sustain, through reflection and practice, a sound moral sense
and judgment. this means that the citizen must also expand his time sense so
that he might perceive himself and his generation as part of an ongoing
historical adventure. Thus our duty to generations past and future requires
us to acquire a historical consciousness and to reflect and act from the
broad perspective of such a consciousness. In acquiring, reflecting, and
acting with historical consciousness and conscience, we may favor ourselves
with a sense of transcending involvement and worth. And finally, with this
knowledge, this perspective, and this commitment and conscience, the citizen
has a duty to insist that his political leaders count, as constituents, the
"silent majority" of those yet to be born. And if the leaders do not, it is
the citizen's duty, in behalf of posterity, to select and to install new
In 1862, Abraham Lincoln said:
We cannot escape history. We ... will be remembered In spite of ourselves.
No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us.
The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or
dishonor to the latest generation.... We, even we here, hold the power and
bear the responsibility.
When he spoke those words, Lincoln was addressing the Congress of the United
States. Today, more than ever before, and possibly more than ever again,
those words apply to an entire generation – to our generation. But before we
can act responsibly we must recognize and acknowledge our responsibility.
These papers have been collected and published here to serve that purpose.
NOTES AND REFERENCES
1. Garrett Hardin, “Who Cares for Posterity?”,
Responsibilities to Future Generations, Ernest Partridge (ed),
Prometheus Books, Buffalo NY, 1981, p. 221
2. Marting P. Golding, “Obligations to Future Generations,”
Responsibilities to Future Generations, Ernest Partridge (ed),
Prometheus Books, Buffalo NY, 1981, p 62.
3. Derek Parfit, “On Doing the Best for Our Children,”
Ethics and Population, Michael Bayles (ed), Cambridge Mass:, Schenkman,
4. Thomas Schwartz, “Obligations to Posterity,”
Obligations to Future Generations, Brian Barry and R. I. Sikora, eds.,
Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 1976.
5. Michael bayles, Ed., Ethics and Population,
Cambridge, Mass:.: Schenkman, 1976.
6. Brian Barry and R. I. Sikora, eds,. Obligations to
Future Generations, Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 1976.
7. Garrett Hardin, “What Do We Owe Posterity?”,
Responsibilities to Future Generations, Ernest Partridge (ed),
Prometheus Books, Buffalo NY, 1981, p. 223.
8. A Theory of Justice, Cambridge, Mass.:, Harvard
University Press, 1971, §45.
9. I deal with the discounting issue at some length in "In
Search of Sustainable Values,"
International Journal of
Sustainable Development, 6:1, 2003. Also at “The Online Gadfly,”