Justice as Reciprocity and Future Generations

Central to accounts of justice as reciprocity is the idea of social cooperation based on mutual exchange and mutual benefit coupled with a motive to return benefits because of benefits received. Many claim such views of justice are problematic because they do not offer a satisfactory account of intergenerational justice. Of course, those who defend theories of justice as reciprocity need not think that all matters of justice have to do with reciprocity or that considerations of justice exhaust all the moral concerns that are important for policymaking in liberal democratic states. Even so, it is crucial to determine if views of justice as reciprocity direct us in any way when it comes to the interests of future persons. In this paper, I aim to sketch an account of one way that theorists of justice as reciprocity might explain why members of society must consider how their practices and policies will affect future people and why they must take action to create and sustain conditions so that future members of society can live as free and equal citizens in a just society.