Clark Wolf

Anthropogenic climate change policy involves tradeoffs between the rights and welfare of present and future people. A theory of justice should provide guidance to help make these tradeoffs appropriately and fairly. This chapter develops a revised Rawlsian theory of intergenerational justice, and applies it to the problem of climate policy. But unlike the received Rawlsian view, the view developed in this chapter considers the incorporation of a ‘needs principle’ as a first principle of justice. This principle specifies that meeting basic needs is the first priority of justice, prior even to the principle protecting fundamental liberties.

This paper considers the extent to which market institutions respond to the needs and morally significant interests of future generations. Such an analysis of the intertemporal effects of markets provides important ground for evaluation of normative social theories, and represents a crucial step toward the development of an adequate account of intergenerational justice. After presenting a prima facie case that markets cannot provide appropriate protections for future needs and interests, I evaluate and reject two of the most promising arguments that purport to rebut this case. None of these arguments is adequate to show that markets will protect the interests of future generations. Given important grounds for pessimism about non-market solutions, this leaves little room for hope that we can successfully preserve productive resources that future generations will need to satisfy their basic needs. However, I tentatively suggest where this hope may reside.

Calls to regulate or restrict scientific research are often a matter of politics, and public desire to regulate science may have its source in several different underlying interests: on one side, people may be motivated by an interest to control risks, prevent harms, or limit access to powerful or dangerous technologies. These interests are easy to understand, and often provide entirely appropriate and creditable grounds for regulation. In a darker vein, people may be motivated by more general mistrust of science, or by moral or religious disapproval of some kinds of research. While these motives may be easy to understand, clearly they should be resisted. But if researchers hope to avoid inappropriate regulations, we need to be prepared to explain our research to the public. And when research is funded by tax dollars, it is especially important that scientists should be able to justify its benefit to taxpayers and legislators.

In the film Dirty Pretty Things, one of the main characters, Okwe, discovers that his employer, "Sneaky", is running a peculiar business. During the day Sneaky seems an ordinary hotelier. But on the side he runs a service to provide counterfeit passports for illegal immigrants who wish to remain in Britain. He arranges for poor immigrants to "donate" one of their kidneys, which he sells to people in need of a transplant. In return, he provides the "donors" with forged passports or immigration documents. Unfortunately he employs an incompetent physician to perform the surgery. We never discover how many of those who participate in Sneaky's scheme die after their kidneys are removed. But what we discover about the procedure gives us reason to believe that few could survive.

Taking his cue from a brief comment by an obscure Greek poet, Isaiah Berlin made a famous taxological distinction between intellectual hedgehogs and foxes. Intellectual hedgehogs know "one big thing." They have a key insight that gives them a perspective from which to view and discuss many different problems. Intellectual foxes "know many things." "Foxes" have many different and sometimes unrelated insights, flashes of insight and understanding that come from many different sources. When you meet a hedgehog, it's a fair bet that you can make an informed prediction about what she or he will say about many different subjects. At least, you may be able to do this if you have an understanding of the Big Underlying Insight that unifies the Hedgehog's thought. But when you meet an intellectual fox, it wiU be difficult to predict his or her perspective or opinion in novel domains. Those who have more tools to choose from have more available options, and the reason the fox is hard to catch is that it is harder to predict.