No Time for Limitarianism? The Temporal Scope of Having Too Much

Limitarianism holds that it is bad or unjust if some people have too much. It has been the subject of much debate in the last few years. Yet one crucial question, so far not discussed, is the temporal scope of “having too much.” Should we think of limitarianism in terms of lifetimes—whereby extreme wealth refers to how much we have over our entire lives? Or should the principle be time-sliced—referring instead to how much we have at any given moment? Reading the literature, it might seem obvious that limitarians mean the second. In this article, we argue that the answer is not evident. Both solutions run into considerable difficulties, and none of the answers that limitarians may provide are entirely satisfactory. We identify the most plausible ways forward, which, although in favor of time-slice limitarianism, also considerably curtail limitarianism’s ambitions.