Why Worry About Future Generations? (Uehiro Series in Practical Ethics)

by Samuel Scheffler

When people speak of reciprocity in the intergenerational context, often what they mean is that we have reasons to “pay it forward,” or to benefit the next generation in the ways that we ourselves were benefited (or should have been benefited) by the previous generation. This is sometimes described as a principle of reciprocity in an extended sense, or as a principle of indirect reciprocity, or as something that resembles a principle of reciprocity. Consider, for example, Samuel Freeman’s remarks, when discussing a version of the principle that we should benefit our successors in the same ways that we would have wanted our predecessors to benefit us. Freeman writes: “While this is not a principle of reciprocity—after all, future generations are not able to reciprocate the benefits we bestow on them by bestowing benefits on us—it resembles a principle of reciprocity in that it says in effect: ‘Do unto future generations as you would have previous generations do unto you.’ ”5, 6