The earth belongs to the living

Thomas Jefferson and the problem of intergenerational relations

Bibliographic Data

ID4833153
AuthorsTerence Ball (Arizona State University, corresponding author)
Year2000
Volume9
Issue2
Pages61-77
Publication date2000-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironmental Politics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0964-4016 • E-ISSN: 1743-8934
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09644010008414524
OpenAlexW2057384783
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited17

The contention that future people have interests and rights that we are obligated to respect is not new and did not originate in modern ‘environmentalist’ sensibilities. It received an early airing two centuries ago from thinkers as disparate as Kant, Burke, and Thomas Jefferson. I deal in the main with Jefferson's claim that ‘the earth belongs in usufruct to the living’ and its implications for protecting posterity's interests, and secondarily with ideas about intergenerational relations in Kant, Burke, and Paine. That these ideas had their origins in a decidedly different political context ‐ namely, in reactions to and reflections upon the French Revolution ‐ does not preclude their being recycled and reused in our own day for quite different purposes

Archaeology · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · French revolution · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Climate Change and Geoengineering · History · Law · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics

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