ABSTRACT
This chapter extends the analysis of justice to the intergenerational sphere. How should we think about the interests of future people in our policy deliberations? Why should they count and how much? This chapter examines those questions. We begin with Gardiner’s analysis of how bad things might get for future people under business as usual. Next, focusing on Parfit’s non-identity problem, we examine why it is so problematic to say we wrong these people by continuing down this path. This brings us to a sustained engagement with a broadly contractarian approach to intergenerational obligations, rooted in the philosophy of John Rawls. We close with some skeptical reflections on this approach to the problem.
