What is Intergenerational Justice?

We humans can be quite short-sighted in our behaviours and mindsets. While philanthropy stands out for its future focus through instruments like perpetual endowments & legacy gifts, there is often little conversation about what is right or just when it comes to the relationship between past, present, and future generations. Whether or not its made explicit, the concept of intergenerational justice is at the heart of many choices philanthropies make. Intergenerational justice grapples with core questions, like:

We can distinguish between different kinds of responsibilities to past and future generations. Simon Caney in his article, Justice and Future Generations, outlines at least four types:

One of the hard-to-wrap-your-head-around features of intergenerational justice is the absence of direct reciprocity between people across generations. We are not in direct relationship with deceased generations. And we will not be in direct relationship with future generations who are yet to be born, or who might not be born because of our actions today. That means there is a permanent asymmetry in power relations between living people, those who lived in the past, and those who will live in the future. Couple that with what we know about human psychology, that we find it harder to be motivated by far away concerns, and we can see why short-termism so often prevails.

Philanthropy is an institution predicated on a longer-term view. Indeed, a core value proposition to donors is legacy -- the idea of passing along something of value, of ensuring an indelible link between past and future. But, it’s not only benefits that can be passed along. It’s also the accrual of harm. Harm occur in the form of money acquired and amassed as a result of land theft, unsustainable resource extraction, human exploitation, and/or policies that disproportionately privilege a few. Harm might also come in the form of upholding an image of benevolence in the face of continued dominance and oppression.

Indeed, questions of intergenerational justice focus not just on divvying up material resources, but also on distributing capabilities, happiness, honors & obligations, and harms.

While there aren’t obvious or wholly objective answers about how to achieve intergenerational justice, arguably philanthropy, with its inbuilt interest in a gifting relationship between generations, is well positioned to host a more fulsome conversation. Only by making assumptions transparent and wrestling with different distributive approaches might we more fairly calibrate benefits and harms over time.

There are some different principles and philosophies that might guide the just distribution of harms and value amongst generations. Here we offer a few and interpret some of their possible implicaitons for philanthropy.

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  What is owed?

  Intergenerational Justice asks about what each generation owes past and future generations.
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  Categories of responsibilities

  These responsibilities are economic, ecological, bioethical, and political in nature.
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  No direct reciprocity

  One challenge of intergenerational justice is that we are not in direct relationship and we have unequal power over other generations at the point of decisions.
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  Let's talk about intergenerational justice

  As an institution concerned with intergenerational gifts, philanthropy is uniquely positioned to host deeper conversations about what is just.
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  The good and the bad

  We pass on both value and harms to future generations, including intangible resources, capabilities, happiness, honours & obligations, and harms like losses, offenses, and retribution.
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  Many ideas of justice

  Some of the different beliefs about what we owe to other generations include sufficientarianism, relational egaliatrianism, luck egalitarianism, and the Seventh Generation principle.

Experiences & Observations

How do you think about your personal responsibility to past, present, and future generations? When you give, what time horizon are you focused on, and why?

Reactions & Impressions

Which beliefs about intergenerational justice resonated most with you or provoked a reaction? Do you hold a belief that was not represented here?

Questions & Hunches to test

How might a foundation you are close to better understand the link between present-day social challenges and past decisions, policies, and sources of philanthropic wealth?