Introduction

Goethe said that, “to grasp that the sky is blue everywhere, one does not need to travel around the world” (1836, p. 266). Indeed, every human being, I believe, shares Goethe’s strong intuition: it is not necessary to travel widely to know that we all live under the same sky. Nevertheless, it is very likely that to admire a blue sky from some corners of the planet may present challenges. Imagine trying to view a pure blue sky from Delhi or Cairo, the most polluted mega-cities in the world.22 Apart from constituting a statistical fact, it is also basic intuition that we have not been very respectful of our ecosystem in the global process of industrialization, still in its premature stages in many developing countries. Under this sky, sustainability has become one of the most pressing issues for theories intended to conceptualize justice in intergenerational terms.23

This Promethean era, to use Jonas’s adjective (1979), has given rise to unprecedented volatility between human action and ecological fragility. Contemporary predictive knowledge, epistemological tools and the practical range of human activity have evolved to a level patently superior to any past incarnations. Taking this into account, I shall argue that sustainable development requires a thinking rooted in praxis regarding the effects of our present actions on the future, considering not only the ecological level but also, moral and socio-political sustainability (Avner de-Shalit 1997, p. 130). Theories of justice deal with the questions of how to distribute resources and what is essential for human well-being, and recognize the importance of identifying a concept of justice that extends towards the future. There can be no intergenerational justice without human sustainable development; equally, sustainable development can not take place without thinking of justice for the future.

With this premise in mind, I will present a brief genealogy of the concept of sustainable development (and its consanguinity with human development). I will limit this overview to show the origins of sustainable development, recognizing its historical and ideological connection with the paradigm of economic growth. The bias that considers development and economic growth to be nearly identical still prevails in mainstream economics. Although it is proven true that there is a positive correlation between the increase of economic variables and social progress, the two should not be confused as identical. It is imperative to recognize the excessive emphasis that many economists place on economic growth as the only driving force for development, and the corresponding belief that growth axiomatically results in the benefit of all population sectors. These hypotheses are considered so apodictic that they prevent consideration of what is really substantive in people’s lives, and do not commonly lead to a reflection on the principles of development.

In Development as Freedom, Amartya Sen argued that, “[d]evelopment consists of the removal of various types of unfreedoms that leave people with little choice and little opportunity of exercising their reasoned agency” (1999, p. xii). It is clear that there is the temptation among an important sector of neoliberal economics, with strong influence in public policies of countries with economic and military power, to perpetuate a thinning, a devaluation of the notions of development and well-being. For this reason, I aim to defend that while economic growth can be an important factor for development, development is not grounded solely in economic growth.

I believe that this conceptual map is a useful first step for thinking about justice for the future and the spaces of social responsibility. The human actions that constitute the current third wave of globalization have produced a fragility in both human and environmental terms (Ricoeur 1997). The evolution of the normative basis of development is the prelude to the primary concern here: to bring to the fore the central question of what we want to leave to future generations.24 Answering this question is neither a simple nor an immediate task. As a second step, I shall examine contemporary mainstream conceptions of sustainable development, and highlight their limits in comparison to the capabilities approach in the intragenerational sphere. In the intergenerational sphere, the stakes involve what we consider valuable for our descendants and future individuals to inherit. The claim is that the substantive elements for a human life are the ones that should be preserved and proliferated (Sen 2013), so the analysis of the ends and means of sustainability is fundamental to extending notions of justice across generations.

I propose that, while the capabilities approach has proven to be absolutely prolific in praxis and a superior alternative to resource-based or utility-based approaches, in the context of prospective justice it still needs to be philosophically complemented beyond the schema of coexisting generations. The last part of this study is devoted to outlining some elements that can inform a deeper investigation in this sense. In particular, I will underline the need for examining our obligations towards future generations, and investigate the process of selecting valuable capabilities and their content, in the domain of intergenerational justice.

The question of development

From the point of view of the North, interest in how nations grow and how this can benefit individuals is not new at all. Something similar can be found in the writings of the classical economists: Adam Smith, David Ricardo, the Marquis of Condorcet, Thomas Malthus and John Stuart Mill, not forgetting the great utopian Karl Marx. In the absence of the term ‘development’, they wrote of civilization and decay, of wealth, evolution and poverty, of capital and population growth. Curiosity related to knowing the causes of prosperity was the engine of their hypotheses regarding economic expansion and international trade. The study of modern development did not arise until after World War II with the evolution of economic growth theories that dated back to the 1930s and 1940s.

In the context of anticolonialism in the late 1940s, governments in Asia and Africa began to approach the economists of Britain and the United States to seek advice on the appropriate methods to boost their economies. First World economists, encouraged by the idea of making the emerging countries flourish like their own, perceived in the implementation of their economic model the perfect solution. The diagnosis grosso modo of why some countries were poor and others rich was expressed as the former having a problem of low income that would be easily correctable by expansion of their GDP: more income, more well-being. A new line of very fertile thought emerged in this way, which finds in the model of neoclassical economics the panacea of development. Nonetheless, the prescriptions of wealthy country economists who pushed population control, foreign investment, the promotion of education and the availability of loans and debits to underdeveloped countries, turned out to be not only misleading in most cases, but totally disastrous in many (Easterly 2001, p. xi-xii). The failure of this model motivated a number of economists to provide a more accurate measure of what makes a human life considered to be a good human life, and the idea of human development was born during the 1970s.

The first human development report, commissioned two decades later to Mahbub ul-Haq by the United Nations, proposed that:

Human development is a process of enlarging people’s choices. The most critical ones are to lead a long and healthy life, to be educated and to enjoy a decent standard of living. Additional choices include political freedom, guaranteed human rights and self-respect. (UNDP 1990, p. 10)25

In comparison with the previous ideological archetype, this approximation represents a more comprehensive assessment of quality of life, because the informational focus is not goods and/or resources, but the well-being of people. Similarly to the capabilities approach, the concept of human development is a perspective inspired by the Kantian conception of human dignity; human beings should be recognized as ends and not only as means.26

The term ‘sustainable development’ first appeared in the publication of the World Conservation Strategy by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN 1980). However, the expression did not become popular until the publication of the Brundtland report, which advocates for conceptualizing development as the fulfillment of individuals’ needs:

Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains within it two key concepts: the concept of ‘needs’, in particular the essential needs of the world’s poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment’s ability to meet present and future needs. (WCED 1987, p. 43)

Income, needs and capabilities

GDP (or its counterparts, income or wealth per capita) is a precise quantifying measure that is quintessential to economic analysis. This is certainly useful for explaining how production could be maximized, formulating an idea of the availability of goods and services, and measuring levels of occupation. Often, wealth is also the gateway to having a voice in political decision-making. However, this type of assessment also hides a trap difficult to circumvent, because taking the shortcut of reductionism can have real consequences for people’s lives. The question of income is ineluctable in measuring gender inequality and intergenerational justice. For instance, women generally have less access to the job market than men and are occupied in sectors in which wages are lower— something that translates into both the limitation of the full and autonomous realization of their freedoms, as well as hindering wider economic development. But income, wealth and resources are means to something else, so sustainability that aims only at sustainable income and/or consumption should not avoid the question about what we want to create, preserve and transmit to next generations—the ends of sustainability.27

Consider the following illustration: Alma has a high income level and holds a leadership position in a company where gender pay discrimination does not take place. In terms of income (interpersonal income per capita comparison), we can say that Alma is well-positioned and that this helps her not only to satisfy her basic needs, but also to enjoy other aspects of her life that she considers significant. When widening the informational focus to establish that Alma lives in Mexico City, one of the most dangerous cities for women in terms of public transport (VAWG, p. 2), and that the probability of suffering verbal and/or physical abuse is very high, then it seems relevant that her set of freedoms is not entirely satisfactory. Alma is being prevented from realizing the primal capabilities of physical integrity (Nussbaum 2011), bodily integrity and security, as well as the ability to be respected and treated with dignity (Robeyns 2003).28 One could still claim that Alma’s income would make opting for private transportation a feasible option, but defending this statement would mean to fall into the trap of reducing the set of possible options for Alma, and thus her freedom to choose.

This idea is perhaps shown even more clearly in the context of someone suffering from a serious disease. It is salient to compare how well a severely ill person can lead his/her life possessing a high level of wealth, but needing constant medical treatment, to the real set of opportunities of another person with less wealth, but good health. In this context, it is wise to ask which of the two people is the ‘poorest’ (Sen 1999, p. 124). It should be noted that it is not a terminological problem that has to do with the word ‘poverty’, but rather a deep problem that implies a certain conception of well-being and human life. It is clear, then, that sometimes having a high income does not mean having more freedoms. What we do with income and wealth, the opportunities they provide us, and how they contribute to our good life is affected by a series of circumstances that explain the heterogeneity of the human sphere. Without capabilities, individuals could have a generous income, yet remain unable to transform it into valuable functionings –achieved ‘beings’ and ‘doings’. The global initiative that promotes basic income, which seems to be producing encouraging results in a pilot experiment started this year in Finland, is directed towards achieving a minimum threshold of income (economic egalitarianism) and also ensuring long-term sustainability of that crucial element for quality of life. Even this initiative has limitations, overemphasizing values that flow through the veins of the economic system and neglecting others.

Compared to the frameworks of thought built on the priority of resources, income or consumption, the most solid alternative is undoubtedly the one proposed by the Brundlandt Report. It is the result of a normative trajectory in line with the principles that inspire human rights as universal guarantees, and ultimately in favor of a more ‘human’ development. A possible criticism of this perspective is that it ignores the point that needs considered as mental states can sometimes be an unreliable criterion for intergenerational justice. Individuals sometimes struggle to identify their ‘real’ and complex needs, beyond those most basic to survival. Frequently, we adapt our preferences and expectations to cultural, social, political or religious circumstances that appear to be natural and good for ourselves. The political implication of this mechanism is that the frontier between real needs and conditioned mental states is usually very vulnerable; consequently, policies often collapse in preserving people’s autonomy and identifying real preferences. Secondly, there is the problem of who decides what are the relevant needs, a recurrent question in social justice theories. In addition, we must understand what are the minimum needs to be fulfilled, and then how to solve the tension between present people’s needs and those of future persons: what is the intergenerational threshold that requires political protection? To fulfill needs for the sake of needs cannot be a complete answer to the problem of human sustainable development—not only because of the aforementioned reflections, but also because a solely needs-based perspective does not embrace other essential aspects, such as the freedom to choose whether to satisfy those needs or not (Sen 2013, p. 11–12).

Capabilities and principles for intergenerational justice

It is clear that there is an elusive element to developing a more inclusive view of current and future human flourishing—one that is worthy of being promoted and transmitted. This criterion might well be the currency of capabilities, offering a relevant informational space to assess and compare individual advantages and social injustices.

I contend that there is strong justification for normative orientation based on capabilities compared to other current proposals, of which I have reviewed here only those based on income and wealth, or human needs as a source of responsibility and sustainability. The capabilities approach gives attention to human diversity and embraces the coexistence of different impartial reasons of justice, by understanding that the action of specifying capabilities consists of a poiesis, and in this sense constitutes what John Rawls called ‘the exercise of public reason’. The real opportunities that individuals have, or the ‘freedom to’ do and be what they consider of value, are the criteria to be complemented with other fundamental elements for human life. In this sense, the capabilities approach is a perfect example of an incomplete theory with a pluralist view of values. This starting point might be crucial for a future-oriented ethics. What is involved is the possibility, and not only the factual realization, of a personal set of freedoms. In terms of intergenerational justice, focusing only on achievements can perpetuate a dominant set of ways of doing, policies and status quo, which may lead us to an undesirable state of things.

Focusing attention on real opportunities can help us diagnose new forms of inequality that are born out of the progress of technoscience. Equally, the way to advance a correct conception of intergenerational justice from a sustainable point of view, is to place the attention on the role that individuals have as agents of their own lives and not merely as passive recipients of others’ will: this idea constitutes the bedrock of the capabilities framework. A perfect example of this, in the context of reinforcing women’s agency, is that the education of women in India has proven to be effective in many different aspects, such as decreasing infant and neonatal mortality, improved family nutrition, increasing women’s autonomy within the home and the prolongation of life expectancy (Saidi Reddy 2014, p. 229). In countries where women are better educated and more integrated into the workforce, those women also tend to have fewer children, which has positive implications for global climate issues (Sen and Drèze 2013, p. 15–17).

Nevertheless, I believe that there is a cardinal absence within the literature of capabilities of subjects strictly linked to prospective responsibility. The most interesting attempts at complementing the approach by including an idea of intergenerational justice have been confined, in most cases, to the frontiers of the concept of sustainable development. Broadly speaking, critics agree that the conditions lacking in the basic theoretical framework for the possibility of intergenerational justice are twofold: firstly, more attention must be paid to the preservation of nature and the relationships between people and environment; and secondly, there is also a marked concern to explain the links between systems and individuals, and to emphasize that motivational problems are alleviated if the individual burden is shifted to the political character of the system.29

In my view, and in light of the above, the notion of responsibility should take center stage not only for intragenerational human relations, but also for justice between generations. An idea of justice anchored in a future-oriented ethics should analyze rights and obligations (as well as their scope and limits) in the creation of capabilities. That is: to whom are these obligations established; whose are the responsibilities; and, what nature do they have? I also consider that in the task of defining obligations towards future generations, it is important to add to the initial theoretical framework some explanation of the reasons people may have for giving more weight to some capabilities than others. Going beyond the empirical description of capabilities can give a greater impetus to the creation of public policies aimed at intergenerational justice. In principle, there should be no conflict between the freedom to choose the life that one considers valuable to live and deliberating upon which are the components that allow us to affirm that a life is ‘good’. Focusing only on freedom as ‘the freedom to choose’ is undoubtedly a political end, but when it comes to addressing the issue of what we want to leave to future generations, we must reinforce the debate by suggesting some elements that may be intrinsically good for the lives of human beings.30 Even if we cannot immediately articulate what it means to achieve a ‘good human life’, we do feel a strong indignation when we come into contact with an injustice, as the philosophies of Ricoeur and Sen have taught us. The identification of what prevents many human lives from being considered ‘good’ could be a prosperous point of departure for conceptualizing responsibility for the future.

A central issue, frequently the object of controversy, is the necessity of a preconceived list of capabilities. In this matter, Nussbaum’s proposal shows some advantages. This is an especially sensitive issue in intergenerational justice. If it is problematic in the present to establish whether it is morally or politically legitimate for someone to generate one list with universal validity (with all the nuances Nussbaum considers necessary: being always open to discussion, revisable, and sufficiently abstract), at the intergenerational level emerge the added difficulties that these choices can not be discussed with the unborn, and that such a list cannot mitigate epistemological uncertainty.31 At the very least, it is essential to understand that any such list must, by its very nature, change with time. Additionally, we need one type of list for addressing concrete problems and another for more universal and abstract levels of implementation. We must also ask what conflicts could arise between the capabilities of individuals of different generations and what are the priority rules in these cases of conflict. Furthermore, some capabilities are exhaustible (Basu / López-Calva 2011) by present generations, and must therefore be reexamined for the sphere of intergenerational justice. Conversely, some capabilities are very fertile (Wolff / de-Shalit 2007), and could well expand across many generations.

These and other related questions show clearly the enormous complexity of the subject. I have tried to contribute an outline of valuable itineraries for investigating the ends of sustainable justice, as well as some guiding principles for a research agenda for intergenerational justice, embedded with the notions of responsibility and capabilities. While we may not yet have a full grasp of what intergenerational justice demands, we have an intuition that tells us that we should at least leave the world as we have found it, if not with more and better options (Barry 1977, p. 275). This is common sense, which we all share beyond philosophical positions (Visser’t 1999, p. 2–3). Thus, in terms of obligations, we are beneficiaries—we use the resources of the planet that we have inherited—but we are also responsible, because we have duties in relation to future people’s well-being. The intuition is also that humans across generations (as well as, recalling Goethe’s poetic words, around the world) are not going to want fundamentally different things. This should remain foremost in our minds as we further develop theories of intergenerational justice.

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