Any comprehensive philosophical theory of intergenerational justice should provide an answer to at least three questions. First, what is a generation? Do we take it as a whole with independent status or as a mere aggregate of individuals? Should we treat “birth cohorts” issues and “age groups” issues differently? Second, do we owe anything to future and past people? Don’t people need to exist to have rights? Wouldn’t future people be better off with a polluted environment than with not existing at all? And does it make any sense to claim respect for dead people and to define consecutive obligations towards them? Third, if we do have obligations, at least to the people of the future, how should we define them?
