Future Generations: A Prioritarian View

How should we take account of the interests of future generations? This question has great practical relevance. For example, it is front and center in arguments about global warming policy. Unfortunately, the question is doubly difficult-doubly, because it not merely implicates generic disputes about the structure of moral obligations (disputes between consequentialists and nonconsequentialists, welfarists and nonwelfarists, and so forth), but because the appropriate treatment of future generations implicates distinct problems that are not resolved merely by adopting one or another generic framework. This Article addresses the appropriate treatment of future generations within the framework of prioritarianism. In prior articles and a forthcoming book, I argue that the "social welfare function" ("SWF") approach to policy choice provides a systematic, implementable, and theoretically well-grounded method for rendering policy sensitive not only to efficiency, but also to equity-to the fair distribution of well-being.' In particular, I defend a "prioritarian" SWF. N