Future generations

This essay reviews and evaluates alternative approaches to intergenerational justice as they arise in ecological economics. Classical Utilitarianism favors aggressive steps to stabilize climate and the provisioning of ecosystem services. Yet utilitarian approaches to intergenerational justice raise a variety of paradoxes and critiques. Rights-based theories can provide a foundation for either “weak” or “strong” sustainability as an approach to governing ecological-economic systems. The strong sustainability criterion can be operationalized through the application of Sen’s Capabilities Approach.