Human Rights and Intergenerational Ethics

Abstract

Abstract Do future generations have (human) rights? A lot of philosophers have doubted that one can meaningfully ascribe “rights” to people who do not exist (yet) and whose existence depends on decisions current generations have to make. The human rights regime is, however, based on the assumption that all human beings have dignity. This entails the duty of human beings to ensure the necessary condition of future people to live an autonomous life. The chapter will deal with those questions in three steps. First, it will sketch what an ethics of human rights in an intergenerational perspective would look like. Second, it will discuss under which philosophical assumptions such an ethics is legitimate. Third, the chapter will briefly outline some implications of such an ethics of human rights.