## 1. How Intergenerational Relations Differ from Relations Among Contemporaries



It may seem that considerations of justice do not apply to
intergenerational relations, because there is a lack of direct
reciprocity between generations of people who are not contemporaries.
Among non-contemporaries, there is no mutual cooperation and there are
no exchanges in kind (see Barry 1989b: 189-203; Barry 1991:
231-234; Heyd 2009a: 167-176; but see Gosseries 2009,
Mazor 2010, and Brandstedt 2015 for conceptions of indirect and
transgenerational reciprocity that do not require that the initial
contributor is among the final beneficiaries). This fact about the
relations between present and remote past or future generations is
closely related to a second feature of intergenerational relations:
the permanent asymmetry in power-relations between living people and
those who will live in the future. These power relations are
qualitatively different from those among contemporaries, which are
relatively fluid and subject to change (Barry 1977: 243-44;
Barry 1989b: 189).



Not only can the present generation influence the conduct of future
people by affecting their desires and circumstances, it can also
exercise power by setting back the interests of future generations. It
can, for example, pursue a natural-resource policy with long-term
negative consequences. In this case, the present generation imposes
upon future generations the risk of having their options reduced to an
inadequate range--unless, that is, future generations will have
available to them and can afford to use technologies that allow them
to adapt to the circumstances (Barry 1999; Beckerman 1999; Heyward
2017). By contrast, remote future people cannot at all affect the
well-being of the lives of the presently living, at least not today
and according to conceptions of well-being that have a subjective
component. Still, such future people might nevertheless be considered
able to set back the interests of or even wrong present or past
persons insofar as the latter have, or had, interests with respect to
posthumous future states of affairs. In the same way, the presently
living may be morally constrained in their actions that relate to
people who lived in the remote past (see
 SS5.4).



Third, those presently alive can affect the very existence of future
people (whether or not future people will exist), the number of future
people (how many future people will exist), and the identity of future
people (who will exist). In short: future people's existence,
number, and specific identity depend (are contingent) upon currently
living people's decisions and actions. A decision taken by
present generations could conceivably result in the termination of
human life (see, e.g., Scheffler 2013; Mulgan 2015; McKinnon 2017);
there is a long tradition of institutionalized population policy whose
goal is to control the size of future generations (see, e.g., McMahan
1981); and, more prosaically, a couple can certainly decide whether or
not to have children (see
 SS2.2
 and
 SS3.2).
 Furthermore, many of our decisions have indirect effects on how many
people will live and who they are, for many of our decisions affect
who meets whom and who decides to have children with whom. To explain
such "different people choices", Parfit adopts the genetic
identity view of personal identity: the identity of a person is at
least in part constituted by the DNA the person has as a result of
which ovum was fertilized by this or that spermatozoon in the creation
of this person. Our actions thus have an effect on the genetic
identity of future people in so far as they affect from which
particular pairs of cells future people will grow--and any action
that affects people's reproductive choices, directly or
indirectly, will do that. Many of our actions in fact have an indirect
effect on when future people will be conceived. If we decide between
two long-term policies regarding the use of natural resources, for
example, we know that depending on which we choose, different (and
most likely also a different number of) future people will come into
existence. For example, the European Commission finds that more than
one million babies may have been produced as a result of the Erasmus
Programme (the European Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of
University Students, and with more than three million students
participating since 1987), most of who would very likely not have come
to existence without at least one of their parents participating in
the Programme (European Commission 2014: 130-131).



By contrast, when we make decisions affecting our contemporaries, we
do not face different people choices. Our decisions may affect their
existence only with respect to their survival; their number only with
respect to how many survive; their identity only in the sense that we
might be in a position to change their conditions of life, character,
and self-understanding. Of course, we can affect neither the number
nor the identity of past generations.



Lastly, our knowledge of the future is limited. While we can know the
particular identities of presently existing people (and very many
previously living people), we are normally not in a position to refer
to specifically identifiable future persons. It is not that all
predictions about the future decrease in certainty at some constant
rate (see Cowen & Parfit 1992: 148). Indeed, many predictions are
more likely to be true concerning the further future than the more
immediate future. For example, the prediction that some policy will
have changed or that certain resources will have been exhausted is
more likely to be true in the further future. Nonetheless, we cannot
know the specific identities of persons in the further future. Our
lack of certain knowledge of the future also means that we often will
be in a position to know at best merely the likelihood of normatively
relevant consequences of alternative long-term policies.



These differences between our relations to one another and our
relations to subsequent or antecedent generations give rise to a
number of important debates. Among them are the following: The first
concerns the normative significance of the non-changeable fact that
remote future people as well as deceased people do not even have the
potential for exercising power over presently living people. According
to the Will Theory, for a person to have a right vis-a-vis
another person requires the former to be able to exercise his or her
rights with respect to the conduct of the latter (Hart 1955:
183-184; Hart 1982: 183; Wellman 1995: 91-92; Steiner
1994: 59-73). Thus, the unchangeable power-asymmetry among
non-contemporaries will exclude the possibility of future
non-contemporaries and deceased people being bearers of rights claims
against presently living people (Steiner 1983; Steiner 1994:
249-261; Fabre 2001; see also Ackerman 1980: 70-75).
Consequently, for the proponents of the Will Theory considerations of
justice (as understood in this entry) do not apply to
intergenerational relations. According to the Interest Theory of
Rights (Raz 1984; Raz 1986: 166-188; Raz 1994: 45-51;
Kramer 1998: 60-101) being able to exercise one's
rights--to demand or waive the enforcement of a right--is
neither sufficient nor necessary for someone to be the bearer of the
right. For a person to hold a right, the right, when actual,
necessarily preserves one or more of the persons' interests
(Kramer 1998: 62). Understanding the relations between currently
living people and future non-contemporaries in terms of justice
assumes that for a person to have a valid justice claim
vis-a-vis another person (who stands under the correlative
duties) does not depend upon being able to harm or benefit the other
person (Barry 1989b: chs. 4-6; Buchanan 1990; but see Gauthier
1986; Heyd 2009a; Hiskes 2009: 9).



The second debate concerns the normative significance of the
contingency of future people upon currently living people's
decisions and actions. If and insofar as the existence, identity, or
number of future people depend upon present decisions and actions, to
what extent can the former be said to be harmed by the latter?
Furthermore, can presently existing persons, in making such decisions,
be guided by the interests of future persons? These are the questions
that underlie the so-called "Non-Identity-Problem" (see
 SS3
 and
 SS4;
 see also entry on
 nonidentity problem).



The third debate concerns the status of previously living people. Is
it possible for currently living people to harm past people, and do
currently living people have duties toward them? (See
 SS5)



Other important debates include the interpretation of the significance
of our limited knowledge of the future. As we know at best merely the
likelihood of the differing consequences of alternative policies, how
should we assess the imposition of differing risks on and the likely
or uncertain provision of benefits for future people? (See, e.g.,
Birnbacher 1988: 140-172, 175-179; Jonas' notion of
a "*Heuristik der Furcht*" (heuristics of fear) in
1979: 63-64; Mintz-Woo 2019). Some focus on how how to assess
the imposition of differing risks of rights violations (see, e.g.,
McCarthy 1997; Oberdiek 2012; Perry 2014; Meyer & Stelzer 2018).
Another issue is whether we have reasons to discount the future in the
sense of discounting future persons' well-being (see, e.g.,
Sidgwick 1907 [1981: 414]; Ramsey 1928: 261; Rawls 1971: 263; Parfit
1984: appendix F; Cowen & Parfit 1992; Broome 1994; Mintz-Woo
forthcoming). A further debate concerns the motivation that currently
living have for fulfilling their supposed duties to future people,
given that currently living people know neither future people's
individual identities nor their particular preferences. Partly due to
these features as well as the unchangeable asymmetry in
power-relations between currently living people and remote future
generations, currently living people's compliance with their
obligations to remote future people is likely to be less reliable (see
Birnbacher 2009)



The entry will report on the second and third debates as they are
centrally important for understanding the very possibility of
intergenerational justice. In both debates one needs to be clear about
how one assesses an act as harmful or beneficial. Owing to the death
of the bearer of interests and the contingency of future people the
way in which currently living people can be said to harm or benefit
previously living and future people is problematic. According to the
so-called person-affecting view, an act can be wrong only if that act
harms, or will harm or can be expected to harm, a person who does or
will exist (see especially Parfit 1984: 363, 295-396; Heyd 1992
and 2014: 2-3; Boonin 2008; Roberts 2013). One important issue
is whether one should adopt a person-affecting view or an impersonal
view. Some interpret duties of intergenerational justice on the basis
of what might be called a weak person-affecting view. According to
this view, in assessing whether an act is harmful or wrongful what
matters is what has been done to a particular existing or future
person. A weakly person-affecting assessment does not require that the
act under scrutiny make an existing or future person worse off or harm
that person by comparing how well off the person was before.
Concerning the questions of whether a future person will be harmed or
wronged by having been brought into existence under certain conditions
the weak person affecting view relies neither on a comparison with the
state the person would have been in had she not been brought into
existence, that is with the person's never-ever existing, nor on
a comparison with how well off other people would have been had
currently living people acted differently. Never-ever existing and
potentially existing people do not count; only those people who
actually exist at some time count.



This weak person-affecting view stands in contrast to a strong
person-affecting view according to which an act or action harms a
person only if the same person is worse off than she would otherwise
at that time have been. Both the weak and the strong person-affecting
views differ from impersonal views according to which the value of
states of affairs is not reducible to their effect on the interests of
actual people. Currently living people ought to choose to bring about
the state of affairs in which more of the morally relevant values will
be realized irrespective of who the people are who will live. Many
theorists claim that a plausible understanding of intergenerational
ethics must be impersonal or must combine person-affecting and
impersonal considerations (see especially J. Harris 1992: 94-95;
Singer 1998; Buchanan et al. 2000: 249; Harman 2004: 101-102;
McBrayer 2008: 304; Holtug 2009: 71-92; McMahan 2009:
49-68; Temkin 2012: 313-362; Williams & Harris 2014:
347; Heyd's interpretation of Parfit 2011 in Heyd 2014; Parfit
2017). The differences between the person-affecting and impersonal
understandings will come to the fore in
 Section 2.2
 and
 Section 3
 on intergenerational duties that reflect what is owed to future
people as a matter of justice as well as in
 Section 4.6
 on the limits of a rights-based account of intergenerational
ethics.


## 2. Rights of Future People vis-a-vis Presently Living People



On a person-affecting view, future people count if, and insofar as,
they have interests, just claims, or rights vis-a-vis currently
living people. Some philosophers deny that this can ever be the case.
In addition to an argument reflecting the
"Non-Identity-Problem"
 (SSSS2.2; 3-4.3)
 we can distinguish at least three further arguments in support of the
denial of the possibility of future people having rights
vis-a-vis us.


### 2.1 Doubts about the Possibility of Future People Having Rights



First, some philosophers have denied that future people can have
rights (or just claims), based simply on the fact that they will live
in the future. Consider the following claim: 



> 
> 
> Future generations by definition do not exist now. They cannot now,
> therefore, be the present bearer or subject of anything, including
> rights. (De George 1981: 161; see also Macklin 1981: 151-152;
> Beckerman & Pasek 2001: 14-23; Herstein 2009:
> 1180-1182) 
> 
> 
> 



Claiming that we can violate the rights of future people now does not,
however, imply that future people have rights now (though see
Partridge 1990: 54-55, who suggests that future people have
rights in the present). That implication would hold only if it were
conceded that presently existing rights alone constrain present
action. But we can safely assume, first, that future people will be
bearers of rights in the future, second, that the rights they have
will be determined by the interests they have then, and third, that
our present actions and policies can affect their interests. If we can
violate a person's rights by frustrating her interests severely,
and if we can so severely frustrate such interests of future people,
we can violate their future rights (see Hoerster 1991: 98-102).
Their future existence itself is thus insufficient to ground the claim
that we cannot now violate the rights of future persons.



According to the second argument, for future people to have rights
vis-a-vis us we would have to ascribe a right to existence to
them. However, we are not committed to the claim that if we are able
now to violate the rights of future generations, it is their rights to
*existence* that we violate. Since it is implausible that
*anyone* has a right to existence as such, it is implausible
that future persons have rights to existence. Furthermore, when we
prevent someone's existence, we do not thereby harm the
hypothetical interests of this potential subject. Thus, claiming that
actual future people have rights vis-a-vis currently living
people now cannot commit us to claiming that possible future people
have a right to existence.



The third argument points to the fact that our epistemic situation
does not allow us to relate to future people as individuals. Can our
present actions nonetheless be constrained by rights of future
generations that are based on interests other than existence as such,
interests such as subsistence, etc.? This is possible only if
attributing rights to people does not require us to make reference to
individual persons (Herstein 2009: 1180-1182). However, third,
lack of particular knowledge of future people as individuals does not
stand in the way of attributing to them welfare rights, such as a
right to subsistence.
 [1]
 The corresponding obligations do not depend on the
*particular* identity of future persons. Rather, such
obligations are grounded in the fact that future persons are human
beings; that is, they share those properties of being human that
permit and require us to relate morally to them as fellow humans who
should be able to pursue their own well-being.



Having reported on skeptical doubts concerning the possibility of
future people having rights vis-a-vis currently living people
we now turn to an analysis of the relevance of the contingency of
future people--the subject that, under the title of the
"Non-Identity-Problem" has been at the core of much of the
philosophical inquiry into the foundations of intergenerational
justice
 (SSSS3-4.4;
 see also entry
 nonidentity problem).
 We will introduce that core issue by addressing a specific criticism
of the person-affecting view in the context of intergenerational
justice
 (SS2.2):
 Some have argued that a person-affecting view cannot account for the
widely held belief that persons have the right not to be brought into
existence if the person-to-be would not reach a sufficiently good (or
decent) level of well-being.


### 2.2 A Right to Non-Existence?



Can prospective children be said to have an interest that their
parents not act in a way likely to lead to their birth when the
parents are in a position to know that the life of the child, should
it be born, would fall below some relevant threshold of well-being?
(On the significance of the notion of a threshold level of well-being,
see below,
 SS3
 and
 SS4).
 John Stuart Mill endorses the idea of a procreational duty of
omission, namely, not to bring a person into existence unless the
person will have "at least the ordinary chances of a desirable
existence" (see Mill 1859 [1977: 301-304]). It is a widely
held belief that under certain circumstances prospective parents
should refrain from procreating owing to the predicted plight of the
would-be child. Antinatalists hold that these conditions hold
generally (see, e.g., Schopenhauer, 1851: vol. 2, ch. xii, SS 149;
Cioran, 1978: 117; Horstmann 1983: 99-101). More recently, for
example, Seana Shiffrin (1999) and David Benatar (2006: esp. ch. 2)
have argued that causing someone to exist always entails the
frustration of some of the person's interests and nontrivial
harm to that person, and therefore we ought to refrain from
procreating.



Since the publication of Narveson's seminal paper
"Utilitarianism and New Generations" (Narveson 1967; see
also Narveson 1973), many have contributed to the debate on whether a
person-affecting approach can account for the asymmetry of our
procreational duties (Parfit 1976; Feinberg 1984: 101, and 1986;
Mulgan 2006: ch. 6; Rivera-Lopez 2009). The claimed asymmetry
is the following: while prospective parents have no obligation to
procreate out of regard for the interests of possible future children,
they have an obligation not to beget children who are going to be
miserable.



Some have argued that belief in such an asymmetry is incompatible with
a person-affecting view and, more particularly, with the claim that
possible people cannot be said to have, against us, a right to
 existence.[2]
 It is helpful at this point to make a distinction between the
reasoning of potential parents that involves a *possible*
future child and reasoning that involves *their* future child
(see Govier 1979: 111). For instance, in deciding not to procreate at
all people do not thereby harm the children they could have brought
into existence (see
 SS2.1)
 since these are merely possible individuals. Thus, much reasoning
about whether or not to have a child should concern the interests of
those already alive; it is actual people's lives that would be
affected by whether or not the child comes into existence (see Heyd
1992: 96-97; Roberts 2009: sec. 2). Nonetheless, people might
make choices about procreation based on the welfare of their future
child; that is, the welfare of that as yet non-existent individual
would feature in their reasoning. When prospective parents decide in
favor of having a child and now learn that this child, if born, would
have a life that falls below a certain threshold of well-being (see
 SS4)
 they ought to consider the effects of their actions on *their
child* and might well decide not to have a child after all.



Objections to the asymmetry view presented above concern, in
particular, the claim that after having made a decision to have
children, prospective parents should revise their decision out of
regard for their would-be child(ren) when they learn that the
prospective child(ren) would have a life that falls below the relevant
threshold. Why, under these circumstances, should parents revise their
decision to have children out of regard for the children? Some argue
that they would harm the would-be child, and, thus, arguably, would
act wrongly toward it. Here, harming their child-to-be would inflict a
wrong on it. When prospective parents learn that their child would
have a life that falls below the relevant threshold, they should
refrain from having it, for by bringing the child into existence they
would cause harm to it. In bringing about a child's existence
they can harm this child.



This claim has been said to be incompatible with a person-affecting
view (see Heyd 1992: 102, 105-106, 241-242). In
 Section 3,
 two notions of harm will be distinguished. The first relies on
comparing a person's actual state to a counterfactual (or
historical) state of the same person. The second relies on no such
comparison. Both notions of harm require us to ask: for whom is the
action worse? However, while both notions can be understood to reflect
the person-affecting view as specified above
 (SS1),
 only the first fulfills the stronger conditions of Parfit's
"two-state requirement" or
"better-or-worse-for-the-same-person" requirement: 



> 
> 
> we benefit or harm someone only if we cause him to be better or worse
> off than he would otherwise at that time have been. (Parfit 1984: 487)
> 
> 
> 
> 



This requirement characterizes the strong person-affecting view (as
introduced in
 SS1).
 The contingency of future people will often mean that the same person
could not or is not likely to have come into existence as a result of
two alternative acts or actions (see below
 SS3.1).
 As will be shown in
 Section 3.2
 below, in applying the second notion of harm, we do not have to
compare the value of life below some threshold with nonexistence (or
with how well off another person or other people would have been) in
order to be able to claim that we can cause harm to a person by
bringing about that person's existence. The second notion
fulfills the conditions of the weak person-affecting view (as
introduced in
 SS1).



If on the basis of this reflection we assume that the person can be
considered harmed, why was the person wronged by having been brought
into existence if the person has a life worth living? If we specify
the threshold in terms of rights we might think that the person would
waive whatever right was violated by having been brought into
existence as the person can be assumed to much prefer living to
never-ever-coming into existence. Then we might believe that bringing
into existence a person whose life is worth living, but below the
threshold, is a case of wrongless harm-doing if we consider the issue
in person-affecting terms (see J. Harris 1992: 94-96; Williams
& Harris 2014, 347-348).



The assumed fact that the person would waive her right clearly does
not settle the matter of whether she was wronged by having been
brought into existence (Harman 2004: 89-101; Liberto 2014:
79-80). A person can have a legitimate complaint about having
been brought into existence although she does not wish that the action
had not occurred, although she (the same person) could not be in the
state of not having been wronged (but see Heyd 2014: 4-5), and
even though she enjoys a life worth living.



The claim that bringing into existence a person in a harmed state
according to a certain threshold is wrongful implies that this person
is worse off than she ought to be. That the person will have a life
worth living is not a sufficient reason to render permissible bringing
the person into existence and in a harmed sub-threshold state. The
ground for this reason does not rely on a comparison with how well off
the person or other people would be if we refrain from bringing the
person into existence or acted differently (but see Harman 2004:
101-102; McBrayer 2008: 304; Woollard 2012). The reason
understood in person-affecting terms does not reflect the view that
the person would be better off if he or she would never ever come to
existence or the view that we should bring into existence another
person whose life is above the threshold or the view that we should
maximize the number of people with lives above the threshold. Rather,
if we have a choice between bringing into existence a person with a
life worth living, but below the threshold, and bringing into
existence a person with a life worth living at or above the threshold,
the reason, namely, that persons can be worse off than they ought to
be, speaks against doing the former but not in favor of doing the
latter. This is how we can argue on the basis of a weak
person-affecting view (see
 SS1)
 and a threshold conception of harm (see
 SS3).



Let us note that one can also defend the asymmetry of our
procreational duties from an impersonal view, according to which the
value of states of affairs is not reducible to how these states affect
the interests of people. From an impersonal view one does not have to
claim that prospective parents should refrain from procreation *out
of regard for the children they would have*. Based on this view,
two alternative interpretations of the asymmetry of our procreational
duties have been discussed in the literature. One could adopt a
version of negative consequentialism and argue that the universe would
be better if present generations were guided by a criterion of right
action that requires them to give priority to the prevention of
suffering over the creation of good and happiness (see Heyd 1992:
59-60, for problems with this account). Alternatively, an
impersonal approach could argue that we have a *prima facie*
duty to promote over-all happiness by creating new well off
people--which duty, however, may be more easily overridden than
duties not to cause harm. The paradoxical implications of the latter
view have been prominently explored by Derek
 Parfit.[3]


## 3. No Rights Due to Contingency of Future People Upon Our Decisions?



The main source of skepticism concerning the very possibility of
future people having welfare rights vis-a-vis those currently
living rests upon the contingency of future people upon currently
living people's decisions and actions. We know, of course, that
when we harm future people's interests and violate their rights,
specific persons are harmed. But the decision we take counts as a
necessary condition of the very existence of this genetically and
numerically specific set of people at some future point in time. The
so-called "Non-Identity-Problem" presupposes this fact and
interprets it as a challenge to the very possibility of
intergenerational justice.


### 3.1 Responses to the "Non-Identity-Problem"



Consider a policy of making intensive and extensive use of exhaustible
resources for the aim of increasing the welfare of currently living
people. If the policy is criticized for harming future people on the
ground that this policy will predictably worsen their conditions of
life and thus is likely to violate their welfare rights, a defender of
the policy could reply by saying: many, if not
 all[4]
 of our actions have (indirect) effects not only on the conditions of
life, but also on the number, existence, and identity of future
persons. This is also true for actions that allegedly harm future
persons. If the non-performance of the allegedly harmful action would
have resulted in the allegedly harmed person not coming into
existence, then that person cannot be said to have been harmed by this
action--or, at any rate, according to the common understanding of
harm (see Meyer 2003: 147-149, 155-158, for a detailed
discussion).



The common understanding is informed by a diachronic notion of harm
and a notion that requires a subjunctive comparison with a historical
baseline (hereinafter subjunctive-historical notion of
 harm).[5]
 Both the diachronic and the subjunctive-historical notions of harm
require that the existence of the harmed person or people qua
individuals is independent of the harming act or policy. On the
diachronic notion of harm, the following formula holds:



(I)
 (diachronic) An action (or
 inaction)[6]
 at time \(t\_1\) harms someone only if the agent causes (allows) this
person to be worse off at some later time
 \(t\_2\)[7]
 than the person was before \(t\_1\).


On the subjunctive-historical notion of harm, the corresponding
necessary condition for harming is:



(II)
 (subjunctive-historical) An action (or inaction) at time \(t\_1\)
harms someone only if the agent causes (or allows) this person to be
worse off at some later time \(t\_2\) than the person would have been
at \(t\_2\) had the agent not interacted with (or acted with respect
to) this person at
 all.[8]


When considering future individuals as possible individuals both the
diachronic and the subjunctive-historical notions of harm will exclude
the possibility of present people harming future people, for the
(future) people whose interests and rights they are required to
respect are not in a particular state of well-being at the time they
take their decision--they do not, at that time, exist. But
according to
 (I)
 unless we can claim that the person is in a particular state of
well-being at the time of our decision, that is, at \(t\_1\), we cannot
say that the person is worse off at \(t\_2\) owing to our decision at
\(t\_1\). And likewise with
 (II):
 unless we can claim that there is a specific person who would have
been better off at \(t\_2\) than this person actually is at \(t\_2\) had
we not acted with respect to this person at all, this notion of harm
makes no sense.



Adopting either the diachronic or the subjunctive-historical notions
of harm excludes the possibility of our harming future people when we
choose among long-term policies with significantly differing
consequences for the quality of life of future people. With respect to
persons whose existence is dependent upon the allegedly harming
action, they cannot be worse (or, indeed, better) off owing to this
action than they would have been had this action not been carried out.
For in that case, they would not have existed.



We can distinguish four main responses to the
"Non-Identity-Problem" so understood (compare Boonin 2008:
134 ff; Page 2008; Heyd 2009b; Roberts 2013; Wrigley 2012: 178):
First, some philosophers hold the view that future people whose
existence depends upon currently living people's actions cannot
have rights vis-a-vis the latter people's actions (see
Schwartz 1978; cf. Adams 1979; Kavka 1982; Parfit 1984: part iv;
Boonin 2008; Roberts 2009). Second, others argue that currently living
people can violate the rights of future people even if the former
cannot harm the latter (see Kumar 2003). If so, future people cannot
have welfare rights vis-a-vis currently living people insofar
as violating welfare rights implies setting back or harming the
interests of the right holders. Third, we can attempt to limit the
practical significance of the non-identity-problem by limiting the
relevant actions to those that are not only likely but indeed
necessary conditions of the existence of the concerned
 person.[9]



Finally, some have sought to circumvent the non-identity-problem by
suggesting an alternative notion of harm that is unaffected by the
non-identity-problem, the so-called "Threshold Conception of
Harm" (Hanser 1990, 2009; McMahan 1998; Shiffrin 1999; Meyer
2003, 2009a; Harman 2004, 2009; Rivera-Lopez 2009). The
response to the "Non-Identity-Problem" based on the
threshold conception is relevantly different from other responses
(such as those criticized by Heyd in 2009b). The threshold response
can be understood to be person-affecting in the weak sense (see
 SS1
 above): While the person being harmed according to the threshold
notion does not imply that the same person is worse off than she would
have otherwise been at that time, it does imply that this person is
worse off than she ought to be. We owe it to the person when she will
have come to existence that she is not in a harmed state (see
 SS2.2
 above). Such an understanding is relevantly different from an
impersonal understanding according to which the universe is a better
place when it does not include people in a harmed state as judged by
the threshold Notion (but see Wrigley 2012: 178).



The threshold notion substitutes the necessary condition:



(III)
 (threshold) An action (or inaction) at time \(t\_1\) harms a
person only if the agent thereby causes (allows) either the coming
into existence of this person in a sub-threshold state or the already
existing person to be in a sub-threshold state; further, only if this
person would not be in the harmed state had the agent not interacted
with (or acted with respect to) this person at all; and furthermore,
only if the agent, if he cannot avoid causing harm in this sense, does
not minimize the harm.


According to such a threshold notion of harm an action harms a person
only if, as a consequence of that action, the (then existing) person
falls below a normatively defined threshold (see McMahan 1998:
223-229; Shiffrin 1999). This threshold notion is unaffected by
the non-identity-problem, for here the finding of harm does not
require that the person who is in the sub-threshold state would be in
a better state in the situation that would have obtained in the
absence of the harming action. Thus, future people can be said to be
harmed by currently living people's actions even if these
actions are among the necessary conditions of the existence, identity
or number of future people. Such a notion of harm limits the practical
significance of the non-identity-problem to different degrees
depending upon how the threshold is substantially defined (see
 SS4
 below).



Both of the claims discussed above (in
 SS1
 and
 SS2,
 passim), namely,



> 
> 
> first, that considerations reflecting the welfare rights of future
> people vis-a-vis present people can guide the latter in
> choosing among long-term policies, and
> 
> 
> 
> second, that considerations of the rights of people not to be brought
> into existence if they are likely not to realise a certain level of
> well-being can guide prospective parents in deciding not to conceive
> out of regard for the children they would otherwise have,
> 
> 
> 



can be read as relying upon a threshold notion of harm (Meyer
2003).



Adopting either the diachronic or the subjunctive-historical notions
of harm
 (I
 and
 II,
 above) or both excludes, firstly, the possibility of our harming
future people when we choose among long-term policies with
significantly differing consequences for the quality of life of future
people, and, secondly, the possibility that we harm persons by
bringing them into existence if they will have a life worth living.
But if we adopt the threshold notion of harm at
 ((III)
 above), future people can be said to be wronged by our choice of a
policy that harms them, notwithstanding the fact that the existence of
the specific people who are said to be harmed is causally dependent on
our decision to pursue this
 policy.[10]
 According to (III) parents could act in light of an interest on the
part of their would-be child in never existing at all: if the child
were to be born, it would have a life below the relevant threshold.
The subject of harm is the person when she is brought into existence
in a harmed state. That she would not be worse or better off than she
otherwise would have been is irrelevant for determining that she is or
will be in a harmed sub-threshold state (see
 SS2.2).


### 3.2 Derek Parfit's No-Difference View and the Disjunctive Notion of Harm



Derek Parfit has introduced the "No-Difference View": It
makes no (theoretical or practical) difference to how we should act,
all things considered, whether the size and composition of future
generations depend upon our present decision or not. The relevant
reasons are the same or have the same strength.



To what extent we can defend that view will depend on how we
understand the relation between the notions of harm as distinguished
in
 Section 3.1.
 Here we will delineate two views of how to understand these notions
of harm and investigate the question of the extent to which these two
alternative views support Parfit's "No-Difference
View". According to our first view, one must choose between the
"single threshold" and the "single
subjunctive-historical" notion of harm: to claim that
rights-considerations can guide us in choosing among long-term
policies we will have to adopt one of these notions of harm as
specifying necessary conditions of harm; in doing so, we have to deny
that the other notion specifies necessary (or sufficient) conditions
of harm. In other words, the first view considers the "single
threshold" and the "single subjunctive-historical"
notion of harm as exclusive notions. According to the second view, the
threshold notion of harm and the subjunctive-historical notion can be
combined.



According to this "disjunctive notion" the necessary
condition for harming is the disjunction of the conditions for harming
as set out by the notions of harm at
 (II)
 and
 (III).
 The proposal is this: instead of interpreting accounts of harm at
(II) and (III) as providing alternative necessary conditions for
harming, we can take these two notions to provide the disjuncts for a
necessary condition for harming. This disjunctive notion of harm
substitutes yet a fourth necessary condition of what it means to harm
someone:



(IV)
 (disjunctive) An action (or inaction) at time \(t\_1\) harms
someone only if either the conditions of harming as in
 III
 or as in
 II
 are fulfilled.


We clearly ought to prefer the disjunctive notion to the single
subjunctive-historical view according to which the
subjunctive-historical notion of harm specifies necessary conditions
of harm (and the threshold notion at
 (III)
 specifies neither necessary nor sufficient conditions). The
disjunctive notion is compatible with the thesis of this entry that
relies upon our employing a threshold notion of harm where the
subjunctive-historical and the diachronic notions do not
 apply.[11]
 Some authors also argue that being worse off than the same person was
or would have been is not a necessary condition for harm where the
identity of the person is independent of the harming action (Hanser
1990; Shiffrin 1999; Harman 2004: 98-101; Woollard 2012:
681-683; but see Roberts 2009: 19-20). Ought we to prefer
the disjunctive notion to the single threshold notion according to
which the threshold condition is a necessary condition of harm? The
advantage of the disjunctive notion is that this view of harm allows
us to rely on the subjunctive-historical notion of harm whenever it is
applicable, that is, when we will harm an existing person. In these
cases the notion of harm at
 (II)
 provides us with what most consider a straightforward account of the
harm caused (see also
 SS5.2).



Consider the type of case where we can act in a way that diminishes
the well-being of a person who lives above any plausibly construed
threshold. However, we will diminish the person's well-being to
a level still clearly above the threshold. For example, someone breaks
into the garage of a mansion and steals the new convertible while the
wealthy owner is at his penthouse in the city. This theft is not
likely to cause the wealthy person's well-being to fall below
any plausibly construed threshold of harm, and thus according to
 (III)
 does not harm him. This seems implausible. Such a case is normally
understood as a case in which the affected person is clearly harmed.
More generally, the objection is that the threshold conception is
under-inclusive in interpreting which acts we consider harmful.



The single threshold view by itself does not provide us with a
response to this objection. For a plausible substantive specification
of a threshold notion (see
 SS4.3
 below) will not include a concern for the well-being of those above
the threshold. Thus, in responding to the objection we would have to
add an additional obligation. For example, we could appeal to the
additional obligation of minimizing harm to other persons: The
obligation requires that we not cause another person to fall to a
lower level of well-being quite independently of the level of
well-being the person already realizes. What counts as a lower level
of well-being can be measured by the specified threshold.



On the other hand, the disjunctive notion allows us to rely on the
notion of harm at
 (II).
 This provides us with a straightforward account of the harm caused.
Thus, the disjunctive notion is not open to the objection as stated.
However, while the single threshold view can be shown to be fully
compatible with Parfit's No-Difference View, the disjunctive
notion of harm raises difficult questions of interpretation of its
own.



Parfit illustrates the No-Difference View by considering two medical
programs (1984: 367). In each case a certain rare condition can be
passed from mother to child. One involves pregnancy testing. If the
test comes out positive, fetuses are treated for the rare condition.
The other involves preconception testing. The women who test positive
as carriers of the rare condition are told to postpone conception for
at least two months and to undergo (harmless) treatment after which
the condition will have disappeared. Available funds can be spent on
one or the other program, and the other must be cancelled. Assuming
that both programs have equivalent effects on parents, that the
conditions lead to the same particular handicap in children, and that
the two programs will achieve a similar success rate, the programs
differ only in affecting actual people (pregnancy testing) or possible
people (preconception testing). The (practical) no-difference view
says: our reason to prevent harm to possible future people (those who
might be conceived) is as strong as our reason to prevent harm to
actual people (those already conceived who will develop from the
already existing fetuses in due course). The two medical programs in
Parfit's example are equally worthy and it makes no moral
difference which is cancelled.



Is the disjunctive notion of harm compatible with the no-difference
view, thus understood? Here we cannot discuss the implications of the
disjunctive notion in any detail. We might first observe that both the
subjunctive-historical and threshold notions of harm can be employed
to interpret many core cases of harm. That is to say, both sets of
conditions as specified by the two notions of harm will arguably be
satisfied in many cases where most people agree that harm was
caused--at least under plausible construals of both notions of
harm. Second, in the cases in which not both sets of conditions
obtain, we still find that harm was caused, namely, as long as at
least one set of conditions obtains. If the threshold notion of harm
applies, we find that harm was caused. The disjunctive notion entails
that canceling either test causes harm.



However, the disjunctive notion does not entail that it makes no
practical difference which test we cancel. A plausible interpretation
of the disjunctive notion might be the following: satisfying either
set of the conditions provides a reason for objecting to the proposed
action; if both sets of conditions obtain, the objection is presumably
stronger than when only one set of conditions obtains. According to
this understanding of the disjunctive notion and assuming that in
Parfit's example of the two medical programs the children, if
either they or their mothers are not treated, will suffer a severe
handicap, the objection to canceling pregnancy testing is stronger
than the objection to canceling the preconception testing program.
Because the handicap is severe, the children will fall below the
threshold and the threshold notion of harm provides the same reason
for objecting to canceling either program. But if pregnancy testing is
cancelled this will be worse for the children who are not
treated--the subjunctive-historical notion of harm applies. The
subjunctive-historical notion of harm does not, however, provide a
reason for objecting to cancellation of preconception testing. The
children who will be born handicapped would never have existed if
there had been testing prior to
 conception.[12]
 This understanding of the disjunctive notion may not, then, be
compatible with the no-difference view. An alternative understanding
would deny that where both notions of harm are applicable this
strengthens the objection to the harmful act. Whether this strengthens
the objection and, if so, how much more is a matter of future research
(see Woollard 2012: 684-689).



The single threshold interpretation of harm is also compatible with a
second and stronger understanding of the no-difference view (Woodward
1986: sects. II and III; Parfit 1986: 856-859): there is no
*theoretical* difference in harming possible future people and
harming actual people since the very same reasons hold against harming
either group. The disjunctive notion is clearly incompatible with the
theoretical understanding of the no-difference view. According to the
disjunctive notion it would often not be true that the same reasons
hold against harming either such group. When we object to the harming
of actual people we will often have additional reasons that reflect
the fact that the subjunctive-historical notion of harm applies.


## 4. How to Specify the Threshold



In
 Section 2.2
 and
 Section 3
 we introduced (the weak person-affecting interpretation of) the
threshold conception of harm as a response to the logical-conceptual
non-identity-problem. By itself this does not answer the question how
this conception is to be understood as an element of a substantive
understanding of distributive justice of intergenerational relations.
Two debates are particularly relevant: first, the debate on how to
understand the principle of distributive justice; and, second, the
debate on the currency--that is, how to measure the relevant
differences in well-being.



An interpretation of the threshold as an element of a sufficiency
conception of intergenerational justice is not mandatory, but seems
plausible (as discussed in
 SS4.4):
 the threshold can be interpreted as a sufficiency standard that is
defined in terms of absolute, non-comparative conditions (defined by a
certain level of well-being and not comparing the well-being levels of
people) and which all people have a priority claim to achieve
(Shiffrin 1999: 123-124; McMahan 1998: 223-229; Page 2006:
esp. 90-95, 170-173; Casal 2007: 298-299; Meyer
& Roser 2009: 226-243; Huseby 2012; Shields 2016:
34-35; Meyer & Polzler forthcoming). Whether one and
the same threshold is applicable to all decisions is controversial.
Whether we wrongfully inflict non-comparative harms on a person by
causing this person's existence is often considered a special
case for which a particularly low threshold is relevant: we cause such
harm by bringing a person to existence only if this person's
postnatal potential of development and his life span are drastically
reduced (Kavka 1982: 105-106) and especially so if the person
experiences pain (C. E. Harris 1991: 65-66; Schone-Seifert
& Kruger 1993: 257-258; Merkel 2001).


### 4.1 Specifying the Threshold by Egalitarian Considerations



We might want to understand the threshold as an element of an
egalitarian understanding of intergenerational justice. Egalitarian
reasons allow us to object to inequalities, for egalitarian reasons
make it possible for us to understand relative differences between the
states of persons as something "which is itself to be eliminated
or reduced" (Scanlon 2005: 6). We might hold that the standing
of people relative to their contemporaries is (extrinsically or
intrinsically) important (see the entry on
 equality)
 and that the threshold notion of harm ought to reflect, say, the
average level of well-being that people realize--or that future
people will realize: the higher the average level of well-being, the
higher the threshold level of harm should be set.



Egalitarian considerations that address relative differences between
people can help specify the standard in at least two ways. First,
presently existing people may be thought to harm future people by
causing them to realize a (much) lower level of well-being than their
own contemporaries (Sher 1979: 389). In addition or alternatively, we
might hold that the threshold level ought to reflect, say, the average
level of well-being of the present generations upon whose decisions
the well-being of future people depend. According to such an
interpretation presently existing people harm future people by causing
them to realize a (much) lower level of well-being than they enjoy
themselves (see, for example, Barry 1999).



Still, even if egalitarian considerations that reflect a concern with
the relative differences between people can contribute to the
specification of the threshold, a plausible threshold arguably is not
going to be based on that concern only. Otherwise--this is an
implication of the first interpretation--any level of well-being
would be considered justified as long as all future people fare
equally badly. This presupposes attributing intrinsic value
exclusively to equality--an implausible view (see the entry on
 equality
 and
 SS4.2
 below and SS4.5
 below). Moreover, to define the
threshold standard of well-being of future people as the level of
well-being achieved by currently living people (whatever it may be) is
less than plausible, unless we were to attribute intrinsic value
exclusively to intergenerational equality, so understood (see Marmor
2003, Steiner 2003, Raz 2003, Gosepath 2004: 454-63; and Holtug
& Lippert-Rasmussen 2007). This understanding does not only imply
that it is worse for future generations to be worse off than the
present generation; it also implies that it is, in one respect, worse
for future generations to be better off. In the intragenerational
context some philosophers have argued that this implication (the
recommendation to "level down" persons' well-being)
is implausible (see Parfit 1997; Raz 1986: 230-235). An
analogous objection applies to intergenerational relations as well. It
is doubtful that a more equal distribution across generations is
better if it came at the cost of some generations being worse off, and
none being better off. Under certain circumstances this view would
deny that currently living people may stand under a duty of justice
positively to save for future people so that they will achieve a
sufficientarian level of well-being (see
 SS4.5
 on Rawls' "savings principle").


### 4.2 Specifying the Threshold by Prioritarian Reasoning



According to the *priority view* (Parfit 1997: 213; Holtug
2007; Attas 2009:
207-211), equality as such does not matter. It is therefore not
open to objections against holding equality to be of intrinsic value.
A plausible version of the priority view reads as follows:



> 
> 
> *Priority view*: Benefiting persons matters more the worse off
> the person is to whom the benefits accrue, the more people are being
> benefited and the greater the benefits in question.
> 
> 
> 



The priority view has a built-in tendency towards equality, for the
view accepts the following egalitarian condition: If *X* is worse
off than *Y*, we have at least a *prima facie* reason for
promoting the well-being of *X* rather than *Y* (unless
conditions obtain under which the only or best way of raising the
well-being of *X* is by raising the well-being of *Y* or
conditions under which promoting the well-being of *X* brings
about raising the well-being of *Y* as a side-effect). Even if
prioritarians do not see anything intrinsically bad in social,
economic or other differences, their priority view is a derivatively
egalitarian view. To this extent it is correctly described as
non-relational egalitarianism.



We might want to rely on the priority view for specifying the
threshold of harm. On this interpretation, future people are in a
harmed state unless they are as well off as such a prioritarian view
requires. There are at least two problems in understanding the
threshold as an element of a prioritarian understanding of
intergenerational justice: First, the priority view is likely to
entail excessive intergenerational requirements. Present actions or
inactions can improve the well-being of many future generations to at
least some extent. Moreover, the number of future people will likely
be very large and depends in part upon currently living people's
decisions and actions. Hence, according to prioritarianism, we ought
to sacrifice more of our present well-being for the sake of future
generations than seems plausible. It might even be the case that we
are required to incur significant costs for the sake of only minuscule
future benefits (as in this way we might maximize the weighted sum of
benefits for future persons (see Rawls 1999: 287; Wolf 2009: 373; Meyer & Roser 2009:
233-235). How likely it is that the priority view has this
implication will also depend upon the strength the view gives to the
priority of the worse off who are (very) badly off. Of course, the
priority view will not have this implication if (whatever currently
living people do) all future people were to enjoy levels of well-being
that are higher than those of all or most currently living people.



Second, the priority view does not entail a plausible population cap.
Under some circumstances having large but badly off future generations
might be consistent with prioritizing the number of beneficiaries, the
size of benefits and those who are worse off (see entry on
 repugnant conclusion;
 Meyer 1997: 139-140).


### 4.3 Specifying the Threshold as a Sufficientarian Standard



Interpreting the threshold concept as an element of a sufficiency
conception of intergenerational justice can take a number of different
forms (see Benbaji 2005: 316-321 and 2006; Casal 2007:
312-326; Huseby 2010a). A plausible version is characterized by
two theses, namely by what scholars have called the "Positive
Thesis" (see especially Casal 2007: 298-299) and the
"Shift Thesis" (Shields 2016: 34-35). The Positive
Thesis states that we have weighty non-instrumental reasons to secure
at least enough of some benefit(s). According to the Shift Thesis,




> 
> 
> once people have secured enough there is a discontinuity in the rate
> of change of the marginal weight of our reasons to benefit individuals
> further. (Shields 2018: 211) 
> 
> 
> 



The Shift Thesis is compatible with several understandings of the
relevance of justice-based reasons above the threshold, among them:
First, once a person is above the threshold of sufficiency there is no
justice-based reason to benefit this person. This claim is often
referred to as the "Negative Thesis" of sufficientarianism
and has been much criticized (Casal 2007: 299-304). Second,
other justice-based reasons apply above the threshold that are less
weighty. This would mean that additional justice claims reflecting,
for example, prioritarian or egalitarian reasoning (see
 SS4.2
 and
 SS4.3)
 can be valid. Third, the same justice-based reasons as below the
threshold undergo a relative change of weight at the sufficiency
threshold.



The third understanding of the Shift Thesis relates to a further
distinction of how to understand the sufficiency conception. Versions
of sufficientarianism differ in how they take into account ethical or
justice-based reasons to benefit persons above the threshold of
sufficiency. Strong sufficientarianism gives absolute, weak
sufficientarianism gives some but not absolute priority to those who
are below the threshold. In the intergenerational context weak
sufficientiarianism seems more plausible than strong
sufficientarianism (Meyer & Stelzer 2018).



Suppose not all presently living and future persons' claims to
sufficiency well-being can be met (but see Wolf 2009: 362). Then we would need to weigh
all people's claims. Proponents of sufficientarianism have
proposed different principles of distribution below the threshold of
sufficiency. Most prominently, they have argued that we ought to
maximize the well-being of present and future individuals below the
threshold (so-called "min-deprivation"; Wolf 2009:
356-357); or that
we ought to maximize the number of individuals who are sufficiently
well-off (so-called "headcount"; Page 2007a: 85-95).
Both of these below-threshold principles seem problematic. They will
often imply that we ought to sacrifice the worst-off present or future
persons for the sake of better-off, but still badly-off persons.
According to a third understanding, we should rely on a priority view
for unavoidable sub-threshold distributions: benefitting persons below
the threshold of sufficiency matters more the more claimants are
benefitted and the greater these benefits (Meyer 2009a, 2009b, 2015;
Meyer & Roser 2009). This understanding only entails sacrificing
the worst-off individuals for the sake of better off but still badly
off individuals under circumstances where the former higher weighted
claims will be outweighed by the sum of the less weighty claims of
more better-off people.



Richard Arneson and others (Arneson 1999, 2000; Roemer 2004; and see
Casal 2007: esp. 312-314, 315-318) have objected to
thresholds, and especially those that designate an absolute
priority--as is characteristic of the position of strong
sufficientarianism--on the grounds that we cannot avoid an
arbitrary specification of such priority thresholds and, further, that
such thresholds are incompatible with our distributive
convictions' being continuous (that is, that they all can be
accounted for by means of one principle of distribution). Others have
defended a priority threshold against both objections (Crisp 2003:
753-757; Benbaji 2006: 332-344; Page 2007a: 16-18;
Dorsey 2008; Huseby 2010b: 180-182; Freiman 2012: 30-33;
Shields 2012: 111-115; Sher 2014: chs. 8 and 9; Meyer &
Polzler forthcoming). In specifying a priority threshold one
important issue is on what currency we should rely (see
 SS4.4).
 .



Defining a threshold of well-being according to which both currently
and future living people are able to reach a sufficientarian threshold
arguably avoids the implausible implications of the egalitarian and
prioritarian alternatives when we understand the latter to define
thresholds of harm (see
 SS4.1
 and
 SS4.2):
 First, avoiding or reducing differences must not lead to a state of
affairs in which people are worse off than they ought to be. Secondly,
claims against currently living people are unreasonable if in
fulfilling them the currently living people will bring about minimal
or even trivial improvements of the well-being of future people but
suffer losses themselves, causing them to fall below a plausible
threshold level of well-being. Third, the number of people brought
into existence ought to be compatible with all people having
sufficiently good lives or lives worth living (see Meyer 1997:
139-140).



To be sure, according to the "shift thesis" justice-based
reasons may apply above the threshold and they can include egalitarian
or prioritarian reasons. And one should note that the reasons for a
sufficientarian understanding of intergenerational justice are at
least in part specific reasons and are not necessarily relevant for
understanding either global justice or the notion of justice that
holds among contemporary members of well-ordered societies.


### 4.4 On the Currency of Intergenerational Justice


 If we interpret the threshold as an element of a sufficiency
conception of intergenerational justice the threshold identifies a
sufficiency standard which all people have a priority claim to
achieve. Such an interpretation is supported by a view of the currency
of well-being that helps explain why failure to meet the threshold
significantly harms people. Basic needs are such a view. If people
cannot satisfy their basic needs, they are necessarily and severely
damaged: necessarily as the damage does not occur because of special
environmental conditions or as the person concerned has special
characteristics. Rather, it is because of such conditions and
characteristics that currently apply and will remain foreseeably and
largely unchanged (Wiggins 1998: 15). The damage is significant
because it undermines the conditions for the possibility of a
minimally good life (Wiggins 1998: 14). For example, if a person has
no access to food, this leads to apathy, organ damage or even death of
the person. Such damage is physiologically necessary, regardless of,
for example, the nationality, social status or religion of the person
concerned. Being able to satisfy basic needs when understood in this
way can be protected for reasons of justice by ascribing the
corresponding moral rights. The same list of such rights is attributed
to all people (wherever and whenever they live), which does not
exclude the possibility that changing social, economic and cultural
conditions also change the means of satisfying basic needs (the
so-called satisfiers of basic needs) (see, e.g., Braybrooke 1987; Sen
1984; Nussbaum 2000: 132-133; Page 2006: 71-75).



The currency of central capabilities (see Nussbaum 2006; Petz 2018) is
highly similar to basic needs. Other currencies differ in relevant
ways (Meyer & Polzler forthcoming). For example, the currency
of preference-satisfaction (whatever these preferences happen to be)
(see, e.g., Arrow 1963; Goodin 1995; Singer 1979) measures well-being
not in objective, but in subjective terms: what a person prefers is
contingent on mental states, namely on the preferences of this person.
Also, the direction of future changes in preferences is difficult to
predict; it is possible and plausible that future persons will have
(fundamentally) different preferences than persons living today. The
currency of impersonal resources (i.e., goods that can be used to
produce many kinds of benefits; for example, income and wealth) (see,
e.g., Barry 1989a; Rawls 2001) faces a different problem:
people's levels of impersonal resources do not necessarily
correlate with levels of well-being realized. Impersonal resources are
unreliable indicators of well-being (see Page 2007b: 457-458;
Sen 1982: 19-21, 26-30).


### 4.5 Rawls's Just Savings Principle



John Rawls was the first to develop a systematic account of
obligations to future people as a central element of a theory of
justice (Rawls 1971, 1999, especially section 44; Rawls 1993: 274;
Rawls 2001: especially sections 49.2 and 3). Rawls proposes a
principle of "just savings". Long before Rawls Frank
Ramsey developed a model for determining the optimal savings within a
utilitarian framework (Ramsey 1928; see entry on
 Ramsey and intergenerational welfare economics)
 disregarding distributional considerations. Following Sidgwick (1907
[1981: 414]) Ramsey (1928: 261) as well as Rawls (1971: 263) and Parfit (1984: appendix
F) reject what is called "pure time discounting", that is,
giving less weight to the well-being or legitimate claims of future
people just because they live in the future. A long-standing issue in
economics is how loans and taxes for financing public policies compare
in terms of the burdens imposed on future generations (see e.g., Pigou
1920: ch. ix; Viner 1920; Mishan 1963). Provisions to protect the
welfare interests of future generations have been in place since
ancient times (Auerbach 1995: 27-35; Wissowa et al. 1937: vol.
xi, 2011, 2014, 2021).



In proposing a principle of "just savings" Rawls never
discusses the non-identity-problem and for most of his discussions
(but see Rawls rev. edition 1999: 141) he assumes that the number of
future people is constant (for criticism see Heyd 1992: 47; Dasgupta
1994; Casal & Williams 1995; Barry 1999: 107-111; Gosseries
2001: 330-333). However, his principle of just savings can be
understood to provide us with a substantive understanding of
intergenerational sufficientarianism. It can be understood as an
interpretation of a threshold notion of harm in different number
choices (see Reiman 2007; Attas 2009).



Rawls specifies the sufficientarian threshold relevant for defining
currently living people's obligations of justice
vis-a-vis future people: "the conditions needed to
establish and to preserve a just basic structure over time"
(Rawls 2001: 159; on the basic structure as the subject of the
application of a sufficientarian principle see also Freiman 2012:
33-37; Meyer 2015). Rawls distinguishes two stages of societal
development for the application of his principle of just savings.
Currently living people have a justice-based reason to save for future
people only if such saving is necessary for allowing future people to
reach the sufficientarian threshold as specified. This is known as the
accumulation stage. Once just institutions are securely
established--this is known as the steady-state
stage--justice does not require people to save for future people.
Rather they should do what is necessary to allow future people to
continue to live under just institutions. Rawls also holds that, in
that second stage, people ought to leave their descendants at least
the equivalent of what they received from the previous generation (see
Gosseries 2001 for a comparative assessment of Rawls's
substantive principle). This additional claim can be supported by
egalitarian considerations (see
 SS4.1),
 the idea of a presumption in favor of equality (see Sidgwick 1907
[1981: 379-380], and the entry on
 equality)
 and by the considerations delineated in the next section
 (SS4.6).



As is characteristic of Rawls's work, he presents the just
savings principle as the outcome of a decision reached in the
contractualist (hypothetical and non-historical) decision-situation of
the original position. Who are the persons in the original position?
Rawls considers an original position in which every generation is
represented. However, as the relations between the contractors so
conceived are not characterized by the "circumstances of
justice" (Rawls 1971: paragraph 22), the question of justice
as Rawls understands it does not arise: We cannot cooperate with
previous generations and, while previous generations can benefit or
harm us, we cannot benefit or harm them (see
 SS1).[13]
 Instead Rawls therefore adjusts the (present-time of entry)
interpretation of the original position for the intergenerational
context (Rawls 1993: 274; Rawls 2001: paragraph 25.2). The contractors
know that they belong to one generation, but the veil of ignorance
blinds them to which particular generation they belong (see Gardiner
2009: esp. 97-116, and Heyd 2009a: esp. 170-176, for a
comparative analysis of how contract theories can be extended to the
subject matter of intergenerational relations). From the position of
the original position the contractors determine a just savings
rate.



While the circumstances of justice clearly hold among contemporaries,
the contractors cannot know whether previous generations have saved
for them. Why then should they agree to save for future generations?
In *A Theory of Justice* (1971: 284-293), Rawls stipulates "a
motivational assumption" according to which the contractors care
for their descendants so that they will want to agree to save for
their successors--irrespective of whether previous generations
saved for them (for criticism see, e.g., Hubin 1976/77: 70-83;
English 1977: 91-104; Heyd 1992: 41-51). In *Political
Liberalism*, Rawls withdraws this motivational assumption. He now
understands previous generations' non-compliance with a just
savings principle as a problem of non-ideal theory (Rawls 1993: 274,
fn. 12; for criticism see, e.g., Dasgupta 1994: 107-108).The
original position, however, belongs to ideal theory: strict compliance
with whatever principles are agreed on is assumed (Rawls 1971:
144-145). Rawls
introduces problems of partial and non-compliance only at the level of
non-ideal theory (Rawls 1971: ch. iv). In accordance with this understanding of ideal
theory, Rawls assumes that the generations are mutually disinterested.
He takes the contractors to agree to a savings principle 



> 
> 
> subject to the further condition that they must want all
> *previous* generations to have followed it. 
> 
> 
> 



Rawls continues: 



> 
> 
> Thus the correct principle is that which the members of any generation
> (and so all generations) would adopt as the one their generation is to
> follow and as the principle they would want preceding generations to
> have followed (and later generations to follow), no matter how far
> back (or forward) in time. (Rawls 1993: 274; Rawls 2001: 160) 
> 
> 
> 



The principle of just savings thus agreed on is thought to be binding
for all previous and future generations.


### 4.6 Limits of a Rights-Based Account: Duties Towards the Future



A sufficientarian interpretation of the threshold notion of harm
(together with an appropriate conception of wrongdoing) seems to
provide us with a plausible understanding of what is owed to future
people: the fact that future persons' existence is contingent on
our present decisions does not matter where what is in question is our
ability to harm future people's interests and to violate their
rights. By employing a non-comparative notion of harm one can justify
the present generation's duties not to violate the rights of
future generations against being harmed. Accordingly, rights-based
considerations may not bear merely upon "same people
choices", but will bear also upon both types of "different
people choices" that Parfit distinguishes, namely "same
number choices" (in which the same number of future people live,
irrespective of present choices) and "different number
choices" (in which a different number of future people will live
depending on which choices we now make) (Parfit 1984: 355-356).
Thus, intergenerational sufficientarianism allows us to specify the
considerations of justice relevant for decisions concerning population
policies: Future people have rights vis-a-vis us that reflect
considerations of justice as specified by intergenerational
sufficientarianism. Our correlative duties set a normative framework
for most of our decisions concerning future people, including those
that have an impact on their number and identity.



However, such a framework does not provide a complete moral theory of
intergenerational relations and especially not in the context of
decisions on the existence, number, and identity of future people.
There are concerns for future people that cannot be accounted for by
rights-based considerations (Jonas 1979; Heyd 1992 and 2009a;
De-Shalit 1995: ch. 1; Meyer 1997; Thompson 2009; Scheffler 2013:
60-63, 72-73,80-81; Sanklecha 2017a, 2017b). First,
consider the notion that it is important that there be future people
at all. However, a person-affecting intergenerational
sufficientarianism will account for the asymmetry of our procreational
duties (see
 SS2.2):
 On the one hand, prospective parents should refrain from procreation
out of regard for the child(ren) they would have if the life of their
child(ren) would fall below the relevant sufficientarian threshold. On
the other hand, people have no obligation to procreate out of regard
for the interests of possible future children. Possible people have no
right to be brought into existence (and we do not have the correlative
obligation to procreate).



Second, consider the claim that future people should have a life that
is well above the level of well-being specified by a threshold notion
of harm. According to the Shift Thesis (introduced in
 SS4.3)
 intergenerational sufficientarianism is compatible with denying that
people have above-threshold justice claims and with understanding
these claims as less weighty justice
 claims.[14]
 The second concern, in part, reflects a third concern, namely the
notion that future people should be able to share (at least certain
aspects of) the particular way of life of currently living people.
But, presumably, currently living people do not violate the rights of
future people by failing to sustain particularly valuable aspects of
their way of life for them. Thus, if we take into account all three of
the above restrictions, intergenerational sufficientarianism may
specify no reason for preferring a future with people all of whom have
lives far above the level of a sufficiency threshold to a future with
no
 people.[15]



Clearly, considerations based on the rights of future people cannot or
cannot fully account for all the concerns we might have for future
people. What considerations besides rights-based considerations can
guide us in our relations to future people? It has been suggested that
the widely shared concerns about the continuation of human life on
earth at a high level of well-being can, at least in part, be
accounted for by an obligation toward future people that have no
correlatives in future people's rights vis-a-vis current
people. This obligation reflects those widely shared concerns about
future people which cannot be accounted for by rights-based
considerations. The obligation can be described along the following
lines (Baier 1981; Meyer 2005: chs. 4 and 5; Thompson 2009): those
currently alive owe respect to highly valuable goods that their
predecessors bequeathed to them as well as to more remote future
people, and they also owe respect to the highly valuable
future-oriented projects of their contemporaries. Owing such respect
gives rise to a general obligation, namely that current people should
not willfully destroy the inherited goods and the conditions that are
constitutive of persons' pursuit of future-oriented projects. In
other words, such respect gives rise to a general obligation that one
not willfully destroy the social practices on which the possibility of
people pursuing future-oriented projects depends. While future people
belong to the beneficiaries, the obligation is owed to both present
and past people (see also
 SS5.4).


## 5. The Significance of Past Wrongdoing



Intergenerational justice concerns the relations between generations.
This section discusses the three issues that have been central to the
philosophical investigation of the relations between past people and
currently living people and to understanding the significance of what
happened in the past (and, in particular, of past wrongs) for
currently living (and future) people's justice claims: First,
how can currently living people be understood to be negatively
affected by historical injustices? Second, can the ongoing effect of
past wrongs become legitimate when circumstances change? And, thirdly,
we need to address the question of the moral status of deceased
persons and dead victims of injustice in particular.


### 5.1 Non-Identity-Problem and Claims to Compensation



Concerning the first issue the non-identity-problem can be relevant:
how can individuals today have a just claim to compensation owing to
what was done to others in the past when the (potential) claimants may
not exist today had past people not suffered these harms (Morris 1984;
Kumar & Silver 2004; Kershnar 2004: 70-75; Meyer 2004b and
2013)? For
 example,[16]
 do African Americans, whose ancestors were subjected to the terrible
injustices of being kidnapped in Africa and subsequently enslaved,
have a just claim to compensation? (See, e.g., Bedau 1972; Boxill 1984
[1992]; Brooks 1999: parts 6 and 7; Soyinka 1999: 44-69;
Fullinwider 2000; Lyons 2004b; Miller & Kumar [eds] 2007) Let us
set aside a host of specifically legal questions concerning, for
example, the statute of limitations and liability. Let us also assume
that it is sometimes possible to identify with certainty direct
descendants of enslaved people. Consider the case of Robert, who has
been identified as one such person (see Fishkin 1991: 91-93).
People can claim compensation for harms they suffered. As a descendant
of enslaved people, has Robert been harmed owing to the injustices
suffered by his ancestors?



First, consider briefly the common understanding of harm, namely the
subjunctive-historical understanding (see
 SS3.1).
 According to this interpretation of harm, a person can be understood
to be fully compensated for an act or policy (or event) when she is as
well off as she would have been had the act not been carried out.
According to this interpretation of harm, it is not the case that
Robert has been harmed by his ancestors' having been kidnapped
and enslaved. If his ancestors had not been kidnapped and enslaved,
Robert would not exist today. His existence depends on the fact that
the genealogical chain was not broken at any point. Hence, the initial
kidnapping in Africa, the transport to America, and the slavery of his
ancestors are necessary conditions for Robert's having come into
existence at all. He would not have been better off had his ancestors
not been badly wronged. Thus, we cannot rely upon this interpretation
of harm and its accompanying interpretations of compensation in
claiming that Robert has been harmed and should be compensated; the
required state of affairs under this interpretation implies the
nonexistence of the claimant to
 compensation.[17]



To this claim we can respond in a number of ways. As suggested by our
discussion in
 section 3
 and
 section 4
 we can allow for an identity-independent notion of harm in addition
to the common identity-dependent notion of harm. Consider the
threshold notion of harm at
 (III).
 Under this interpretation of harm, a person can be understood to be
fully compensated for an act or policy (or event) if that person does
not fall below the specified standard. According to this
interpretation, Robert can be harmed because his ancestors were
kidnapped and enslaved. Whether Robert has been harmed due to the way
his ancestors were treated depends upon whether the way they were
treated has led to Robert's falling below the specified standard
of well-being. That this is true in the case of Robert, however, will
turn on a causal link between the past injustices and his
*current* state of well-being. Employing this interpretation of
harm and its accompanying interpretation of compensation requires a
forward-looking assessment of what others ought to do today in terms
of providing compensation for past
 injustice.[18]
 By providing measures of compensation they ought to counteract the
consequences of past wrongs in such a way that the indirect currently
living and future indirect victims are as well off as they ought to
be. When we analyze historical claims on the basis of such a threshold
notion of harm, the current (and future) normative relevance of past
wrongs will depend upon their causal relevance for the well-being of
currently living (and future) generations. Fulfilling our duties to
both the latter might well require compensation for the consequences
that stem from the fact that their predecessors have been badly
wronged. That their predecessors were wronged, however, does not in
itself (independently from its particular consequences) give rise to
just claims of compensation on the part of their descendants
today.


### 5.2 The Common Understanding of Harm and Compensation for Past Injustices



The common understanding of harm (see
 SS3.1)
 can be relevant for the justification of measures of compensation for
past injustices. First, the non-identity-problem does not arise with
respect to surviving victims of wrongs. The harm done to surviving
victims can be understood in accordance with the common understanding
of harm: the past wrongdoing caused these people to be worse off than
they would have been in the absence of that act or policy. These
individuals would be fully compensated for the harm done to them where
it the case that as a result of compensation undertaken they are as
well off as they would be if the policy had not been carried out.



Second, consider the case of people having been wrongfully expelled
from their homeland and not having received compensation for the
wrongs inflicted upon them. For their descendants it might well be
true that they would not exist had their parents and (great-)
grandparents not been expelled. However, the descendants can be said
to be victims of the additional wrong that their parents did not
receive compensation for the wrongs inflicted upon them. The
individual descendants can be said to have been harmed from conception
or birth because of the lack of sufficient compensation to their
parents (Sher 2005; and see Butt 2006, Cohen 2009, and Herstein 2008).
Again, the harm done to them can be understood in accordance with the
common understanding of harm: If those entities which stand under the
obligation to provide compensation to the first generation of
displaced persons do not (entirely) fulfill their obligations, they
thereby harm the descendants of the first generation of displaced
people by making those descendants worse off than they would otherwise
be--that is, if (sufficient) compensation had been provided by
the first generation. This line of argument can be extended to the
second, third, fourth etc. generation: generation *X* of
displaced people would be fully compensated for the harm done to them
were it the case that as a result of compensation undertaken the
people of generation *X* are as well off as the people of this
generation would be if the first generation of displaced people had
received the compensation they were entitled to. While it is clear
that thus understood the later generations' claims to
compensation do not have to contend with the non-identity-problem
(Sher 2005), what is owed to them will depend on how best to
understand the counterfactual relevant to determine the amount of
compensation owed.



How best to understand the relevant counterfactual is an intricate
problem (cf. Sher 1979, 1981). Let us take note of two issues. First,
the legitimacy of people's claims to compensation arguably can
depend upon their actions (and inactions) and the impact these have on
their well-being. Of course, these actions (and inactions) can
normatively be attributed to people only insofar as they make the
decision to act (or not act) under certain conditions, for example,
specified in terms of rational and autonomous agency. If so, then the
strength of later generations' claim to compensation--owing
to the failure of providing sufficient compensation to the first
generation that suffered the initial harm--may wane over time.
The more the descendants' well-being can be attributed to
actions or inactions for which they themselves or members of the
intermediate generations are responsible, the less the hypothetical
state of affairs that would obtain had the direct victims received
adequate compensation is relevant for the determination of the claims
of the indirect victims (assuming we could know what that state would
be) (Sher 1981). This insight is likely to be of little practical
significance for the claims to compensation of the first couple of
generations of descendants for the direct victims. The harm done to
their ancestors is not ancient. Thus, the descendants' claim to
compensation--based on the harm inflicted on them due to the
failure of providing adequate compensation for the initial
harm--is likely to be strong.



Second, the claims to compensation may be thought to increase over
time. Historical injustices may well have resulted in ongoing
systemically unequal distributions of life chances due to the
inheritance of the benefits stemming from historical injustices on the
side of the descendants of the perpetrators (see Butt 2013). These
differences can be considered relevant for how much compensation is
owed to currently living indirect victims.


### 5.3 Superseding Historical Injustices



We now turn to a second source of doubts about the validity of
historical claims to reparations. Injustices committed against people
in the past may not give rise to claims to reparations today if such
claims can be understood to presuppose an indefensible interpretation
of property entitlements. Jeremy Waldron (Waldron 1992a; Waldron
1992b: 27; Waldron 2002, 2003, 2004a; Waldron 2004b: 37; Waldron
2006a, 2006b, 2007; Quist & Veraart 2009; see also Lyons 1977)
argues that the view that once we acquire entitlements they continue
until we transfer or relinquish them is indefensible since there are
reasons of principle (not only pragmatic reasons for, e.g., the
statutes of limitations and the doctrine of adverse possession (see
Marmor 2004: 326-329)) for holding that entitlements and rights
are sensitive to changes of circumstances that typically occur in
time. So-called "supersession" of claims owing to past
injustices arguably might concern different types of claims and occur
through changes in several types of circumstances, which have
consequences for the (1) distributions of goods, (2) connections to
specific objects, (3) group identity, and for (4) sovereignty (Meyer
& Waligore 2018).



Waldron put forward the supersession thesis with respect to indigenous
peoples in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and others
have discussed the idea in this context (Patton 2005; Sanderson 2011;
Spinner-Halev 2012; Waligore 2016, 2017, 2018). The supersession
thesis has also been discussed in the context of Israel/Palestine
(Meisels 2003, 2009: ch. 2; Meyer 2004b; Gans 2008: ch. 4), Fiji
(Carens 2000: ch. 9), and Pacific Island nations threatened by climate
change (Nine 2010). The supersession thesis has become influential
among theorists both skeptical and supportive of reparations for past
injustice (see, for example, Kymlicka 1995: 220; Thompson 2002; R.
Hill 2002; Wenar 2006; Nine 2008;; Waligore 2009; Marmor 2004; Hendrix
2005; Kolers 2009: ch. 3; Butt 2009: 145-48).



According to Waldron, entitlement to land is based upon the idea that
such entitlement can be an integral part of people's life plans
and projects as individuals and as members of groups. Entitlements to
land can be important for people being able to autonomously realize
particular goods of their way of life. When circumstances change the
entitlement might no longer be important in that sense or decrease in
its normative significance. For example, the entitlement of original
owners might weaken over time if they are separated from the land.
Having been separated from the land, entitlement to the land might no
longer be important for the original owners autonomously realizing
their way of life. Thus, generally speaking, entitlements are
sensitive to background circumstances and they are vulnerable to
prescription. As Waldron argues, property entitlement is a set of
claim rights, liberty rights and powers that are
"circumstantially sensitive" (Waldron 1992b: 23; see also
Lyons 1977 [1981: 370]).



Further, if legitimate entitlement is sensitive to background changes,
it is possible that the ongoing effect of an illegitimate acquisition
and, more generally, of unjust violations of rights of others can
become legitimate when circumstances change. Waldron's primary
example of supersession concerns "distributive
considerations". Waldron says that any plausible theory of
property must be "circumstantially sensitive" and
therefore must allow for the "possibility" of supersession
(Waldron 1992b: 25; Waldron 2004a: 67-71). He gives an example
in which the violation by one group of the legitimate rights of
another group to a given waterhole is superseded by ecological
catastrophe such that the interlopers acquire a right to share what
they had wrongly begun to use. In these circumstances, 



> 
> 
> they are entitled to share that water hole. Their use of [the
> waterhole] no longer counts as an injustice; it is now in fact part of
> what justice now requires. The initial injustice by [the first group]
> against [the second] has been superseded by circumstances. (Waldron
> 2004a: 67) 
> 
> 
> 



Hence justice may require that original owners of land share their
land with others and they may be required to share even with those who
unjustly appropriated the land.



Even in cases of so-called ancient historical injustice one might have
doubts that the conditions for supersession are fully met (Patton
2004: 167-171) (so that no historical claims continue to be
valid). With respect to more recent injustices the conditions for
their supersession will often not be met (see Lyons 2004a: 296; Meyer
2007: 301-305). One might also doubt that supersession is to be
understood as final. In order to account for the complexities of the
real world cases of historical injustice and their consequences it
might be helpful to distinguish between "partial
supersession" and "full supersession" (Meyer &
Waligore 2018: 227-228) and between "final
supersession" and "dormant supersession" (Meyer
& Waligore 2018:
 228-229).[19]


### 5.4 Surviving Duties



The considerations of
 section 5.1
 and
 section 5.2
 suggest that currently living and future people can have a just claim
to compensation owing to what was done to others in the past. If so,
currently living people ought to attempt to counteract the negative
impact of past wrongs for the well-being of current and future people.
However, one could argue that such an interpretation of the relevance
of past injustices is incomplete when understood as a statement of how
we ought to respond to the fact that past people were severely
wronged. To many it is intuitively plausible that present generations
can have duties to dead victims owing to the wrongs committed against
them (by others) in the past. The moral significance of past wrongs
does not exclusively lie in their impact on present and future
people's well-being; rather, the significance of past wrongs is
also to be seen in the fact that *past* people *were*
victims of these injustices. If this intuition can be defended, we
have duties to past generations that are grounded in past deeds. This
would imply that at least some aspects of historical injustice cannot
be accounted for by an historically informed theory of justice between
contemporaries (or between contemporaries and future people).



To attribute rights to dead people may seem unproblematic if we assume
that people continue to exist after their physical death and that they
may be affected by (and affect) events of this world. These
assumptions about the ontological status of previously living people
are, however, at least as controversial as their converse (see Mulgan
1999: 54-55). Assuming that dead people cannot be bearers of
interests or rights and thus that those presently alive can neither
harm nor wrong dead people, Joel Feinberg and others have discussed
two alternative interpretations of posthumous harm (Boonin 2019). Both
positions are compatible with the hypothesis that 



(A) 
either the deceased do not exist (a1) or, if they do exist, there
is no connection between them and those currently alive (a2). 


According to the first interpretation, present generations can be said
to owe something to surviving interests as such--that is, to
interests that the deceased had, while alive, with respect to future
posthumous states of affairs. However, while we have reasons to care
about individual people, it is not clear that we have reasons to care
about interests as such. According to the second (re-)interpretation
(see Feinberg 1974 [1980]; Feinberg 1977: 301-302), the
significance of posthumous events is fully accounted for by the harm
that these events cause a person during her life. However, this
interpretation is not an interpretation of posthumous harm as such but
of harm to living people that is caused by posthumous events.
Arguably, this position is not compatible with our normal
understanding of the significance of posthumous events (see Gosseries
2004: ch. iv, sects. 4-5).



A fourth position, the position of surviving duties, is compatible
with presupposition (A) and does not rely on any of the criticized
views (see Wellman 1995: 155-157; Meyer 2005: chs. 4 and 5;
Scheffler 2013: esp. 42-43, 52-53). The position of
surviving duties relies upon the following claims: Some rights are
future-oriented in the sense that they impose duties in the future.
Such rights can impose surviving duties; they imply duties that are
(also) binding after the death of the bearer of the right if the
appropriate bearer of the duty is identified. According to this
position, duties survive the death of the bearer of the right. While
the bearer of the right no longer exists, currently living people can
stand under the correlative duties. The notion of surviving duties
relies on the idea that the reasons for a person's right imply
reasons for a correlative duty under which other people may stand even
after the death of the bearer of the right. If it is a moral right,
then these reasons will also include general social reasons which are
relevant not only for the bearer of the right but also for the
bearer(s) of the surviving duty, his contemporaries (and future
people). For example, we all have reasons to protect people's
trust that promises be kept and that people have the reputation they
deserve. The reasons for the surviving duties also include the reasons
that are necessary for showing that a particular person had the moral
right.



The idea of surviving duties rests neither on the claim that deceased
people can be bearers of interests or rights (contrary to the first
position), nor on the claim that we have reason to care about
interests that have no current bearers (contrary to the second
position). The position of surviving duties does not reject the notion
that currently living people can be harmed by what are to them
posthumous events (for example, when people learn shortly before their
death that a project that they deeply care about is doomed to
failure). However, the position of surviving duties is meant to answer
a different question, namely, whether present generations can be said
to owe something to dead people and, in particular, to those who were
victims of past injustices.



One might wonder whether this interpretation of surviving duties is
compatible with the presupposition that dead people are bearers of
neither interests nor rights and that they cannot be affected by the
actions of present persons. At the very least, the position of
surviving duties as delineated presupposes the possibility of the
attribution of posthumous properties and, more particularly, of their
change--an assumption that has been defended as rather
unproblematic (see Ruben 1988: 223-231).


### 5.5 Carrying Out Acts of Symbolic Compensation in Fulfilling a Surviving Duty Towards the Dead Victims



Does the theory of surviving duties contribute to an understanding of
the moral significance of the *fact* that past people
*were* severely wronged? Here we consider the notion that if
people (possibly as members of ongoing societies) can be said to have
an obligation to compensate surviving and indirect victims of past
injustices (see
 SS5.1
 and
 SS5.2),
 they may also have an obligation symbolically to compensate dead
victims of past injustices, people who cannot now be affected by
actions of currently living people (Meyer 2005: ch. 3; Meyer
2018).



Let us suppose that currently living people can stand under surviving
duties toward past people even though they can neither change the
value to them of any moment of their lives since they cannot be
affected by what people do after their death nor can they be thought
to be bearers of interests or rights (see
 SS5.4).
 If so, currently living people can act in ways that will constitute a
violation of the surviving duties under which they stand owing to the
rights the deceased once held. Currently living people may be thought
to stand under particular surviving duties toward the deceased owing
to their future-oriented projects, the promises they made to them, or
the contractual obligations they entered into with them. However, not
all people have the opportunity or the wish to have a specific impact
on posthumous states of affairs. Not all people pursue projects that
are future-oriented in the relevant way and not all people oblige
others to bring about what for them are posthumous states of affairs.
Here one suggestion is that currently living people can stand under
surviving duties toward dead people owing to the fact that they were
victims of historical injustices. In order to show that currently
living people can stand under such duties, one will have to assume
that people generally have interests with respect to posthumous states
of affairs. Indeed, people can generally be thought to be interested
in enjoying a good reputation both during their lifetime and
posthumously (Meyer 2005: 99-104).



On the basis of this assumption the theory of surviving duties
contributes to an understanding of the moral significance of the
*fact* that past people *were* severely wronged When
people were violated in their rights, and badly so, their posthumous
reputation depends upon their being publicly acknowledged as victims
of these wrongs, and others being identified as the wrongdoers (see
also Margalit 2002: chs. 2-4). In acknowledging past individuals
as victims of egregious wrongs we cannot affect their well-being.
Also, such acknowledgment cannot be expressed face to face with the
dead victims, but only vis-a-vis currently living people in
light of the wrongs past people suffered. However, if it is true that
currently living people stand under surviving duties toward past
victims of historical injustice owing to the wrongs they suffered,
then currently living people fulfilling the duty by publicly
acknowledging the past injustices they suffered will change the
relation between them and the dead victims of historical injustice. It
will be true of the past victims of these injustices that they have
the posthumous property that currently living people fulfilled their
surviving duty toward them. To be sure, a change of the relation
between an existent person and a dead person does not bring about a
real change to the latter. Rather, the relational change is based upon
the real change of the person who carries out the act (see Ruben 1988:
223-31).



For currently living people to bring about public acknowledgment of
past people as victims of historical injustice can require different
measures under different circumstances. They can express their
acknowledgment of past people as victims of past wrongs in an indirect
way, namely, by providing compensation for those who are worse off
than they should be owing to the effects of the past injustices
suffered by their predecessors or by conferring benefits on living
people in whose well-being as members of a group we assume the dead
victims of past wrongs had an interest. The message of such
compensation can contain the acknowledgment that past people were
victims of past wrongs. Arguably, efforts at appropriate commemoration
of past victims can be understood as symbolic compensation and
restitution.



Establishing a memorial is the typical course of action where the
effort is made to realize the symbolic value of compensating those
victims who are no longer living. A memorial may be a public speech, a
day in the official calendar, a conference, a public space or a
monument--for example, a sculpture or an installation. Often
these memorials are meant to commemorate crimes that previous members
committed in the name of a political society whose currently living
members now want to carry out actions of public symbolic compensation
or restitution for these crimes toward the victims and their
descendants. Such acts have been carried out since the 1970s in
Germany, and there is evidence of an international practice of
symbolic
 compensation.[20]
 Those who carry out acts of symbolic compensation will want to
provide some real compensation to those who currently suffer as a
result of the same past wrongs, to help those who currently are
victims of similar injustices, and to prevent such injustices from
happening
 again.[21]
 The reasons for acts of symbolic compensation provide reasons for
real compensation where this is possible. Symbolic compensation
belongs to the measures likely to have the effect of providing
surviving victims or groups with assistance in recovering or regaining
membership and recognition in their respective societies, such that
they are once again able to lead lives under conditions of
 justice.[22]



The practice of symbolic compensation as understood here aims at
recognizing past people as victims of injustices without presupposing
that they can be current bearers of interests or rights. Insofar as
people generally have an interest and a just claim to enjoy the
reputation they deserve while alive, and insofar as the reasons for
their just claim can oblige us even after the bearer of the interest
and the just claim has ceased to exist, our carrying out acts of
symbolic compensation can be understood as fulfilling a surviving duty
toward dead people who were wronged in the past, namely the duty of
restoring to them the posthumous reputation they deserve.


## 6. Concluding Remarks



Arguments as developed in the ongoing debates on (the foundations of)
intergenerational justice can help to justify several obligations of
currently living people vis-a-vis future people and towards
past people. Currently living people are obliged (i) not to violate
the rights of future generations
 (SS2)
 and (ii) (at least some presently living people might well be
 obliged)[23]
 to provide compensation to contemporaries with respect to harms
victims in the past suffered at the hands of past perpetrators
 (SS5).



By employing a threshold notion of harm which may be understood as a
central element of a sufficientarian conception of intergenerational
justice
 (SS4.4),
 but could also be an element of other substantive understandings of
intergenerational justice
 (SS4.2
 and
 SS4.3),
 we can justify conclusions about both types of present
generations' duties. Basic needs or central capabilities are
plausible currencies of a sufficientarian interpretation of
intergenerational justice that relies on the threshold notion of harm
 (SS4.1).
 The threshold notion of harm can be understood as a constitutive
element of a complex understanding of harm (disjunctive notion)
 (SS3,
 and, in particular,
 SS3.2).



The special features of our relations to (remote) future
people--especially the lack of particular knowledge, the
impossibility of cooperation, and the permanent asymmetry of influence
 (SS1)--do
 not stand in the way of attributing rights to them that ground
corresponding duties owed by us
 (SS2
 and
 SS3).
 The fact that past wrongs are among the necessary conditions for the
existence and identity of people currently alive is compatible with
the view that these persons have rights to compensation owing to the
impact of these past wrongs on their well-being, and that these rights
can ground corresponding duties owed by their contemporaries
(forward-looking understanding of the significance of past injustices)
 (SS5.1).
 However, the Non-Identity Problem is not relevant for many indirect
victims' claims to compensation owing to past and historical
injustices
 (SS5.2).
 Even when we allow for the possibility of the ongoing impact of past
injustices to be just today, namely owing to changes of relevant
circumstances, we will have to investigate the extent to which the
conditions for such a supersession of historical claims are met for
each case. If supersession of historical claims occurs it might well
be partial and and for the time being, and not full and final
 (SS5.3).



Rights-based considerations of intergenerational justice bear not only
upon "same people choices" but also upon both types of
"different people choices" that Parfit distinguishes,
including what he calls "different number choices"
 (SS2
 and
 SS3).
 However, widely shared concerns for the continuation of human life
and at a high level of well-being cannot be accounted for solely by
rights-based considerations
 (SS4.6).
 Also, the moral significance of past wrongs should not be interpreted
solely in terms of the impact of these injustices on present and
future people's well-being. If we allow that intergenerational
relations are not exclusively governed by duties with correlative
rights, the notion that we can stand under surviving duties towards
dead people who cannot be bearers of rights vis-a-vis present
people
 (SSSS5.4-5)
 is compatible with the forward-looking understanding of the
significance of historical injustice. Also, the notion that we stand
under an obligation towards future people to which no rights of future
people correspond--namely, under the obligation not to destroy
willfully the goods inherited from our predecessors and the conditions
that are constitutive of persons' pursuit of future-oriented
projects
 (SS4.6)--is
 compatible with the view that we do stand under some obligations of
intergenerational justice to which the rights of future people
correspond.