Intergenerational Cooperation and the Social Contract
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23201065 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Joseph Heath (0000-0001-6024-4371, University of Toronto, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Pages | 92-108 |
| Publication date | 2021-03-10 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | CHAPTER |
| Venue | Oxford Handbook of Intergenerational Ethics (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190881931.013.6 |
| OpenAlex | W3137741265 |
| ISBN | 9780190881931 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 15 |
John Rawls made the enormously influential suggestion that society can be conceived of as a “cooperative venture for mutual advantage,” governed by a “theory of justice,” which is a set of principles that specify an acceptable division of the “benefits and burdens of cooperation.” It follows, however, that if there are no opportunities for mutually advantageous cooperation in a particular domain of social interaction, then these interactions cannot be governed by principles of justice. Certain commentators have argued that this analysis precludes the application of Rawlsian-style contract theory to questions of intergenerational justice, on the grounds that there can be no reciprocity between non-contemporaneous generations, and thus no possibility of intergenerational cooperation. Yet despite having become influential in the literature, this claim is incorrect, being based upon an overly narrow, direct conception of reciprocity. Many systems of cooperation, both in nature and in human society, are based on indirect reciprocity, where the individual from whom a benefit is received need not be the same as the individual to whom a benefit is provided. Once the possibility of indirect reciprocity is taken into account, one can see that there is no obstacle to the development of systems of intergenerational cooperation. The analysis of such systems provides the foundation for a contractual approach to questions of intergenerational justice.
Division of labour · Economic Justice · Economics · Epistemology · Foundation (evidence) · Law and economics · Neoclassical economics · Obstacle · Political science · Positive economics · Reciprocity (cultural anthropology) · Set (abstract data type) · Social contract · Social science · Sociology · Climate Change and Geoengineering · Computer Science · Law · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Political Philosophy and Ethics
The Folk Theorem in Repeated Games with Discounting or with Incomplete Information
Intergenerational Equity and Exhaustible Resources
Wronging Future People
Contractualism and utilitarianism
The savings problem in the original position
A Theory of Intergenerational Justice
Distributive Justice and Climate Change. The Allocation of Emission Rights
The Possibility of Cooperation
A Mathematical Theory of Saving
Are generational savings unjust
Contractarianism and rational choice
Intergenerational Justice and the Non-Reciprocity Problem
The Structure of Intergenerational Cooperation
The moral consequences of economic growth
| Citations per year | 1.5 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2024 - 2026 (3) |
| Highly cited | No |