The essays selected for this volume show how relations between past, current and future
generations have become a major subject of philosophical research since the 1970s. The …

Notice: This PDF version was distributed by request to members of the Friends of the SEP
Society and by courtesy to SEP content contributors. It is solely for their fair use …

This chapter discusses intergenerational justice by distinguishing between sufficientarian
and egalitarian conceptions of justice. A strictly egalitarian position by which understands a …

What do we owe to our descendants? How do we balance their needs against our own? Tim
Mulgan develops a new theory of our obligations to future generations, based on a new rule …

Some people are worse off than others. Does this fact give rise to moral concern?
Egalitarianism claims that it does, for a wide array of reasons. It is one of the most important …

To what extent should parents be allowed to use selection technologies (such as
preimplantation genetic diagnosis) to determine the characteristics of their children? And is …

In our lives, we aim to achieve welfare for ourselves, that is, to live good lives. But we also
have another, more impartial perspective, where we aim to balance our concern for our own …

I defend the 'Repugnant'Conclusion that for any possible population of happy people, a
population containing a sufficient number of people with lives barely worth living would be …

Utilitarianism, the approach to ethics based on the maximization of overall well-being,
continues to have great traction in moral philosophy and political thought. This Companion …

In Derek Parfit's original formulation the Repugnant Conclusion is stated as follows:“For any
possible population of at least ten billion people, all with a very high quality of life, there must …