Why posterity matters: environmental policies and future generations

This study raises the issue of obligation towards the commodity of the environment and its provision for future generations. The author states that policies aimed at dramatically improving the welfare of the present population can cause severe environmental risks for future generations. The moral implications of this are addressed in six chapters. The author argues for the adoption of a system of integernerational justice which also provides a moral basis for environmental policies. The concept of the transgenerational community is developed. Criticisms of current utilitarian and contractarian and rights-based theories of obligation to future generations are supplemented by an open-discussion and questions chapter. -I.C.White