Institutions For Future Generations

Abstract

In times of climate change and public debt, a concern for intergenerational justice should lead us to have a closer look at theories of intergenerational justice. It should also press us to come up with institutional design proposals to change the decision-making world that surrounds us. This book focuses on institutional proposals aimed at taking the interests of future generations more seriously. It does so from the perspective of applied political philosophy, being explicit about the underlying normative choices and open to the latest developments in the social sciences. It provides citizens, activists, firms, charities, public authorities, policy-analysts, students, and academics with the body of knowledge necessary to understand what out institutional options are and what they entail if we are concerned about today’s excessive short-termism. After two introductory chapters, four general chapters provide analytical tools needed to look at any type of future-sensitive institutional proposal. This part includes chapters on theories of intergenerational justice, on approaches to measuring intergenerational transfers, on whether claiming to represent future generations or invoking violations of generational sovereignty can make sense. The rest of the book includes eighteen chapters, each of them focusing on a specific proposal. Eight proposals are about future-focused institutions, i.e. bodies for which rendering policy more future-oriented is the main or exclusive purpose. The other ten chapters consider various ways in which institutions that are not specialized in future-oriented policy can nevertheless become more future-sensitive.

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