Does Intergeneratinal Justice require that we abandon consumerism?

Background & Motivation

The impact of consummatory behaviors on future generations

Objectives

Does Intergenerational Justice require that we abandon consumerism?

• To talk about over consumption of resources as a main negative factor in the world degradation unjust to the future generations.
• To analyze the issue of consumerism which is raising conflicts between our concern for global justice and the well-being of future generations.
• To encourage the ethical behavior of human beings towards the sustainable development of the future.

• The unintended impacts of human actions are now creating problems like global warming and the extinction of multitudes of species, problems which raise ethical issues about how we should live our lives and organize our societies, and which present challenges never encountered by previous generations.

• In 2011 more than 1 billion people went hungry (aprox. 50.000 deaths per day are due to poverty-related causes.)
• In contrast to the large segment of humankind that is living in extreme poverty, there is a large segment living in great affluence.
• According to Thomas Pogge it would cost only “around one percent of the disposable incomes of the most affluent tenth of humankind” to eradicate severe poverty and hunger.

International Conference Global Justice: Norms and Limits

Bucharest, 10 - 12 May, 2012

Lavinia - Ioana Udrea

M.A. in Applied Ethics

Now-a-days globalization and the consumatory behavior

The responsibility of humans for “future children”

Consumerism & future people(2)

Consumerism & future people(1)

How should we pay to protect future generations from the effects of global injustice?

• Globalization promotes global access to ideas and cultural integration.

• The significance of globalization has lain not in eliminating nationhood.

• Humans` first step should begin with the concerning about a not-yet-existent “thing”, therefore, our responsibility for a future ecological planet.

• Hans Jonas “the claim for existence begins only with existence”;"Act so that the effects of your

action are compatible with the permanence of

genuine human life".

• Next generations may come to exist depending on our present actions, which can affect future persons in the same way that they affect present persons.
• Our choices can influence the life of future generations in a variety of different ways, for example: to lose their benefits they might have enjoyed, or worse, to inhered problems and disadvantages of the past generations, etc.

• The concept of intergenerational justice can be defined in a very simple way:

"to meet the needs of the present without

compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

• The question “Does Global Justice Require that We Abandon Consumerism?” arises in the context of justice because of our difficulty to accept/ understand that we really have obligations of justice toward members of future generations.

Robin Attfield explains that:

“environmental responsibilities cannot entirely be based on human interests, even when future interests are fully taken into account (because environmental injustices in the present affect our responsibilities with regard to the future), but in the same time, on future interests that should be represented in present decision-making.”

Duties to the Future

In need of global justice(1)

In need of global justice(2)

Does Global Justice Require that We Abandon Consumerism?

• Yes.

• Hans Jonas considers that to preserve the integrity of human beings essence which implies his natural environment and moreover, to save this world from the dangers of this times

• Barnabas Dickson suggested that in modern society the relation between individuals

• we have to accept that it will be a future mankind and then to realize that we are responsible for their condition, for the quality of their life.

• we need to think about the transactions and relations between successive generations.

• Relations between the generations affect relations between generations living at different times.

• The global community should be aware of worldwide loyalties and responsibilities

• The global justice should be considered the common heritage of humankind,

• In this context, global justice becomes a normative ethic of the kind in which obligations do not stop at national boundaries and are not grounded in any particular interest.

No education for Moral Responsibility

Global justice & moral education

My next steps

Global Justice connected to people

In conclusion, what are our next steps:

• cultivating moral responsibility is a way to improve well-being and quality of life of human beings.

• In the future I will discuss those solutions that can provide a balance between collective interests and the specific problems of the environment.

• Different relations to the world bring different sources of global justice concerns.

• people miss out key opportunities for enrichment and social improvement.

• People manifest no interest for next generations.

• Moral education is necessary to prepare people for reducing the harm they produce to the world they live in.

• Teaching moral responsibility towards nature is largely neglected.

• human beings don`t have any trained skill for translating environmental knowledge into specific actions and don`t develop their global consciousness.

• to understand how consumerism affects the well-being of human beings and to analyze the different meanings of global justice in our own contexts;
• to reflect on central problems related to both concepts, such as severe poverty, environmental pollution, the so-called ‘clash of cultures’, democratic deficits, the legitimacy of humanitarian interventions, the political constraints of the global justice movement and the gap between theory and practice;
• to train human beings to develop skills for translating global justice knowledge into specific actions and rise the moral consciousness of the others.

• needs to be connected to people's daily lives, to be grounded, relevant and able to stimulate practical positive human action.

• This initiative should be human-centered

Thank you for your attention !