Care Ethics and Obligations to Future Generations

Abstract

A dominant area of inquiry within intergenerational ethics concerns how goods (and bads) ought to be justly distributed between noncontemporaries. Contractualist theories of justice that have broached these discussions have often centered on the concepts of mutual advantage and (indirect) reciprocal cooperation between rational, self‐interested beings. However, another prominent reason that many in the present feel that they have obligations toward future generations is not due to self‐interested reciprocity, but simply because they care about what happens to them. Care ethics promises to be conceptually well‐suited for articulating this latter reason: given that future generations are in a perpetual condition of dependency on present‐day people's actions, this is precisely the kind of relational structure that care theorists should be interested in morally evaluating. Unfortunately, the care literature has been largely silent on intergenerational ethics. This article aims to advance this literature, offering the blueprints of what a care ethic concerning future generations—a “future care ethic”—should look like. The resultant ethic defends a sufficientarian theory of obligation: people in the present ought to ensure the conditions needed to encourage and sustain a world that enables good caring relations to flourish.

Facing the Future: Conceiving Legal Obligations Towards Future Generations

“…Those who argue in favour of conceiving obligations towards future generations seem to be motivated by the thesis that short-termism and the focus on the present are ill-advised regarding the future of our own offspring and humankind in general (e.g., Caney, 2022;Gheaus, 2016;Groves, 2014;Jonas, 1984, p. 22;Randall, 2019), maybe even ourselves. This is dramatically obvious when it comes to climate change (see, e.g., Brooks, 2020;Caney, 2022;Shue, 2021, pp.…”

“…Even though it shows some similarities to the concepts of relational autonomy and relational self, the conceptual angle is very different. The approach I am taking only draws on the claim of an interpreter according to which the posited legal order acknowledges fundamental rights and does not rely on concepts of relational autonomy (or the relational self), nor does it draw on theses about the human nature, e.g., caring for others as part of human nature (Groves, 2014;Randall, 2019), just parenting as a fundamental interest of human beings (Gheaus, 2016), or the interest of being part of a project bigger than ourselves-one that continues even without us (Scheffler, 2018). This article does not aim to develop arguments on why we should acknowledge legal obligations towards future people and future generations (in the sense that we should opt for their acknowledgement).…”

Care Ethics, Bruno Latour, and the Anthropocene

“…Indeed, ultimately care is experienced on a personal level, but that does not mean that care cannot extend across time and space in a manner that is not proximal. As Thomas Randall has observed, environmental ethics is a demanding subject for care ethics given the intergenerational nature of environmental concern [27]. Such temporal and spatial abstraction makes the object of care much less relationally tangible.…”

“…Imagination is a necessary element of care, as manifested in empathy and considering responsive actions [29]. However, Randall employs the term "imaginal" as a hybrid between that which is imaginary and that which is constrained by reality [27] (p. 537). Imaginal activity opens up the possibility of a relational understanding with future generations beyond immediate proximal interplay.…”

“…Accordingly, "the present generation forms imaginal relations with future generations by virtue of their being part of a transgenerational community. That is, persons use their imaginal content to envision how their community will be inherited by, and make better the lives of, future generations" [27] (p. 540). Imagination stitches together present and future in a relationship of inherited care.…”