The Strings Attached to Bringing Future Generations Into Existence
The Strings Attached to Bringing Future Generations Into Existence
Many people believe that we have moral duties towards those we bring into existence in the short term: our children. Many people also believe that we have moral duties towards those we bring into existence in the long term: future generations. In this article, I explore how these beliefs are connected. I argue that the present generation is morally responsible for future generations in virtue of bringing them into existence. This responsibility entails moral duties to ensure that future people have adequate life prospects. These duties are held directly towards future generations. I argue that this direct argument can overcome challenges that indirect arguments, which justify moral duties concerning future generations via moral duties towards present children, face. The upshot is that considerations from procreative ethics help to illustrate that the present generation stands in a morally relevant special relationship to future generations, a fact that is often overlooked in intergenerational ethics.
857-869
Unruh, Charlotte, Franziska
03d892f2-a946-4b8c-b421-3f77b91f88f9
November 2021
Unruh, Charlotte, Franziska
03d892f2-a946-4b8c-b421-3f77b91f88f9
Unruh, Charlotte, Franziska
(2021)
The Strings Attached to Bringing Future Generations Into Existence.
Journal of Applied Philosophy, 38 (5), .
(doi:10.1111/japp.12532).
Abstract
Many people believe that we have moral duties towards those we bring into existence in the short term: our children. Many people also believe that we have moral duties towards those we bring into existence in the long term: future generations. In this article, I explore how these beliefs are connected. I argue that the present generation is morally responsible for future generations in virtue of bringing them into existence. This responsibility entails moral duties to ensure that future people have adequate life prospects. These duties are held directly towards future generations. I argue that this direct argument can overcome challenges that indirect arguments, which justify moral duties concerning future generations via moral duties towards present children, face. The upshot is that considerations from procreative ethics help to illustrate that the present generation stands in a morally relevant special relationship to future generations, a fact that is often overlooked in intergenerational ethics.
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Accepted/In Press date: 30 April 2021
e-pub ahead of print date: 9 June 2021
Published date: November 2021
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
The main research on this article was conducted at the University of Southampton, supported by an Arts and Humanities Research Council PhD studentship (Grant number [AH/L503939/1]) and a Royal Institute of Philosophy Bursary. Final revisions were made at the Technical University of Munich. I had the idea for this article during my time as a PhD fellow at the Centre for Moral and Political Philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2018, and I thank the Centre, and especially Avner de-Shalit, for discussion. I am very grateful to Anca Gheaus, Ben Saunders, Teresa Baron, and Sigmund Schilpzand for extremely helpful written comments on earlier drafts of this article and audiences at the Graduate Conference in Political Theory 2019 at the University of Oxford and the Graduate Conference in Political and Legal Theory 2019 at the University of Warwick for discussion. I thank anonymous reviewers for the Journal of Applied Philosophy for their insightful comments, which have significantly improved the article.
Funding Information:
The main research on this article was conducted at the University of Southampton, supported by a Arts and Humanities Research Council PhD studentship (Grant number [AH/L503939/1]) and a Royal Institute of Philosophy Bursary. Final revisions were made at the Technical University of Munich. I had the idea for this article during my time as a PhD fellow at the Centre for Moral and Political Philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2018, and I thank the Centre, and especially Avner de‐Shalit, for discussion. I am very grateful to Anca Gheaus, Ben Saunders, Teresa Baron, and Sigmund Schilpzand for extremely helpful written comments on earlier drafts of this article and audiences at the Graduate Conference in Political Theory 2019 at the University of Oxford and the Graduate Conference in Political and Legal Theory 2019 at the University of Warwick for discussion. I thank anonymous reviewers for the for their insightful comments, which have significantly improved the article. Journal of Applied Philosophy
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Authors. Journal of Applied Philosophy published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society for Applied Philosophy.
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 449734
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/449734
ISSN: 0264-3758
PURE UUID: 1df0c88e-dcf9-46f0-8ddf-11c643164dd0
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Date deposited: 15 Jun 2021 16:30
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 12:38
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Author:
Charlotte, Franziska Unruh
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