Table Of ContentTOWARDS THE ETHICS OF A
GREEN FUTURE
Whatare our obligationstowardsfuture generationswhostand tobeharmedbythe
impactoftoday’senvironmentalcrises?Thisbookexploresecologicalsustainabilityas
a human rights issue and examines what our long-term responsibilities might be.
This interdisciplinary collection provides a basis for understanding the debates
on the provision of sustainability for future generations from a diverse set of
theoretical standpoints. Covering a broad range of perspectives such as risk and
uncertainty, legal implementation, representation, motivation and economics,
Towards the Ethics of a Green Future sets out the key questions involved in this
complex ethical issue. The contributors bring theoretical discussions to life
through the use of case studies and real-world examples. The book also includes
clear and tangible recommendationsfor policymakers onhow to put the suggestions
proposed in the book into practice.
This book will beof great interest toall researchersand students concerned with
issuesofsustainability and humanrights, aswellasscholars ofenvironmental politics,
law and ethics more generally.
Marcus Düwell holds a chair in philosophical ethics at Utrecht University, and is
the Director of the university’s Ethics Institute. His research focuses on ethics of
human rights, ethics of future generations and bioethics.
Gerhard Bos’s research is directed towards the conceptual underpinnings of human
rights and the implications for long-term responsibilities. He worked at the Ethics
Institute at Utrecht University as a postdoctoral researcher, and coordinated the ESF
Research Networking Programme ‘Rights to a Green Future’ (2011–2015).
Naomi van Steenbergen divides her research time between moral psychology,
ethics and climate justice. She is currently co-editing a book on practical self-
understanding. Besides her research and teaching in philosophy, she works as a
literary and academic translator.
ROUTLEDGE STUDIES IN SUSTAINABILITY
For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com/Routledge-
Studies-in-Sustainability/book-series/RSSTY
Transdisciplinary Research and Practice for Sustainability Outcomes
Edited by Dena Fam, Jane Palmer, Chris Riedy and Cynthia Mitchell
A Political Economy of Attention, Mindfulness and Consumerism
Reclaiming the Mindful Commons
Peter Doran
Sustainable Communities and Green Lifestyles
Consumption and Environmentalism
Tendai Chitewere
Aesthetic Sustainability
Product Design and Sustainable Usage
Kristine H. Harper
Stress, Affluence and Sustainable Consumption
Cecilia Solér
Digital Technology and Sustainability
Engaging the Paradox
Edited by Mike Hazas and Lisa Nathan
Personal Sustainability
Exploring the Far Side of Sustainable Development
Edited by Oliver Parodi and Kaidi Tamm
Sustainable Modernity
The Nordic Model and Beyond
Edited by Nina Witoszek and Atle Midttun
Towards the Ethics of a Green Future
The Theory and Practice of Human Rights for Future People
Edited by Marcus Düwell, Gerhard Bos and Naomi van Steenbergen
TOWARDS THE ETHICS
OF A GREEN FUTURE
The Theory and Practice of Human
Rights for Future People
Edited by Marcus Düwell, Gerhard Bos and
Naomi van Steenbergen
Firstpublished2018
byRoutledge
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Names:Dèuwell,Marcus,1962-editor.|Bos,Gerhard,editor.|Steenbergen,
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Title:Towardstheethicsofagreenfuture:thetheoryandpracticeofhuman
rightsforfuturepeople/editedbyMarcusDèuwell,GerhardBosandNaomi
vanSteenbergen.
Description:Abingdon,Oxon;NewYork,NY:Routledge,2018.|Series:
Routledgestudiesinsustainability|Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
Identifiers:LCCN2017061087(print)|LCCN2018015028(ebook)|ISBN
9781315115788(eBook)|ISBN9781138069312(hbk)|ISBN9781138069329
(pbk)|ISBN9781315115788(ebk)
Subjects:LCSH:Environmentalethics.|Sustainability--Moralandethical
aspects.|Humanrights.
Classification:LCCGE42(ebook)|LCCGE42.T682018(print)|DDC179/
.1--dc23LCrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2017061087
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TypesetinBembo
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CONTENTS
List of contributors vii
1 Introduction 1
Gerhard Bos, Marcus Düwell and Naomi van Steenbergen
2 Why ‘rights’ of future people? 9
Marcus Düwell and Gerhard Bos
3 Risk and rights: how to deal with risks from a
rights-based perspective 28
Lukas H. Meyer, Fabian Schuppert, Harald Stelzer and
Adriana Placani
4 Looking into the future: finding suitable models and scenarios 48
Joachim H. Spangenberg
5 Pathways for future generations in existing legal human
rights provisions 66
Elina Pirjatanniemi
6 Political representation of future generations 79
Danielle Zwarthoed
7 Intergenerational justice in the context of developing countries 110
Adrian-Paul Iliescu, Ileana Dasca˘lu, Thierry Ngosso and
Naomi van Steenbergen
8 Climate economics and future generations 131
Klaus Steigleder
vi Contents
9 Motivational aspects of a politics of sustainability 154
Dieter Birnbacher
10 Governance towards a green future 167
May Thorseth and Fabian Schuppert
11 Ethics of a green future: a research agenda 191
Marcus Düwell and Karsten Klint Jensen
Index 201
Political bodies, agreements and legal documents 206
CONTRIBUTORS
Dieter Birnbacher is Professor Emeritus of philosophy at the University of
Düsseldorf, Germany. He is a member of the Central Ethics Commission of the
Bundesärztekammer (German Medical Association) and a member of Leopoldina,
National Academy of Sciences. His publications include books on action theory,
ethics, medical ethics and environmental ethics as well as on Wittgenstein and
Schopenhauer.
Gerhard Bos’s research looks at the conceptual underpinnings of human rights
and their implications for long-term responsibilities. He coordinated the ESF
Research Networking Programme ‘Rights to a Green Future’ (2011–2015). He is
currently co-editing a number of books, including Human Dignity in Philosophy and
Applied Ethics – China and the West (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).
Further relevant publications include ‘A Chain of Status: Long-term Responsibility
in the Context of Human Rights’, in G. Bos and M. Düwell (eds), Human Rights
and Sustainability: Moral Responsibilities for the Future (Routledge, 2016).
Ileana Dasca˘lu holds a PhD in philosophy from the University of Bucharest,
Romania, with a thesis on equality of opportunity in an intergenerational context.
She is currently a lecturer at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of
Bucharest, working on political philosophy and philosophy of education.
Marcus Düwell is Director of the Ethics Institute of Utrecht University, the Neth-
erlands. He is a member of the board of Utrecht University’s Institutions of Open
Societies, editor-in-chiefof the journal Ethical Theory and Moral Practice (Springer) and
vice-presidentoftheHelmuthPlessnerSociety.Recently,hedirectedbiggerresearch
projects on human dignity as foundation of human rights, Western and Chinese
concepts of human dignity, practical self-understanding, future generations and
viii Listofcontributors
climate ethics. He is co-editor of the Cambridge Handbook of Human Dignity (Cam-
bridgeUniversityPress,2014);HumanRightsandSustainability(Routledge,2016);and
author of Bioethics: Methods, Theories, Domains (Routledge, 2012).
Adrian-Paul Iliescu is a Romanian philosopher, doing research in the analytic
(Wittgensteinian) tradition in political philosophy and applied ethics. His most
important book is Wittgenstein: Why Philosophy Is Bound to Err (Peter Lang, 2000).
Among his more recent papers are ‘How Is Equality Possible? An Analysis of the
Idea of Intrinsic Equality’, Transylvanian Review, 32(1) (2013); and ‘The “Missing
Link”:PolarizationandtheNeedfor“TrialbyJury”Procedures’,inD.Birnbacher
andM.Torseth(eds),ThePoliticsofSustainability:PhilosophicalPerspectives(Routledge,
2015). He currently focuses on social justice and intrinsicalism.
Karsten Klint Jensen is a PhD and Associate Professor of philosophy at Umeå
University, Sweden. His research lies primarily in ethical theory and applied ethics.
A dominant theme has been the interface between ethics and other disciplines, e.g.
economics, decision theory, animal welfare studies, environmental science, risk
assessment and risk perception studies. He has participated inseveral major national
and international interdisciplinary research projects. A common theme of his con-
tributionsto these projects is the uncovering of the values underlying disagreement
and conflict between stakeholders.
Lukas H. Meyer has pursued research on justice and responsibility in space and
time. He is Director of the Institute of Philosophy of the University of Graz,
Austria, head of the interdisciplinary doctoral programme ‘Climate Change’, funded
by the Austrian Science Fund, and the leader of research projects on aspects of
intergenerational justice, historical injustice and climate ethics. Meyer is one of the
founding editors of the journal Moral Philosophy & Politics (De Gruyter). His books
include Historische Gerechtigkeit (De Gruyter, 2005); Intergenerational Justice (Oxford
University Press, 2009, ed. with Axel Gosseries); Legitimacy, Justice and Public Inter-
national Law (Cambridge University Press, 2009); and Climate Justice and Historical
Emissions (Cambridge University Press, 2017, ed. with Pranay Sanklecha).
Thierry Ngosso is a Cameroonian philosopher and business ethicist. He holds a
PhD in philosophy from the University of Louvain, Belgium. He is currently
writing his habilitation dissertation entitled ‘Climate Responsibility of Firms as Pri-
mary Agents of Justice’ at the Institute for Business Ethics of the University of St
Gallen. He is also Visiting Professor of political and moral philosophy at the
DepartmentofPhilosophyoftheCatholicUniversity ofCentral Africa (Cameroon).
Elina Pirjatanniemi is Professor of constitutional and international law at Åbo
Akademi University in Turku, Finland. She is also the Director of the Institute for
Human Rights at the same university. She is an expert on human rights, as well as
asylum and migration law, and on the relationship between human rights and
Listofcontributors ix
criminal justice. She is also docent in criminal law at the University of Turku,
Finland. Her publications cover several areas of law, with a particular emphasis on
human rights, the environment and criminal law.
Adriana Placani is Assistant Professor in political philosophy at the Institute of
Philosophy, Universityof Graz,Austria. Her current research focuses on normative
questions in the philosophy of risk, with a special emphasis on the assignation of
moral responsibility for risk impositions.
Fabian Schuppertislecturerinpoliticaltheoryandphilosophy,aswellasDeputy
Director of the Centre for the Study of Risk & Inequality at Queen’s University,
Belfast, UK. He received his PhD from Queen’s in 2010, before taking up a
postdoctoral position at the Centre for Ethics in Zurich. Fabian works on issues in
climate justice, risk ethics, resource governance and political philosophy.
Joachim H. Spangenberg is Research Coordinator at the Sustainable Europe
ResearchInstituteSERI Germany, Cologne, andSeniorScientistattheHelmholtz
Centre for Environment Research, Leipzig. With a PhD in economics, but an
academic background in biology (MSc) and ecology, he is an inter- and transdis-
ciplinary researcher by education and dedication. He works on sustainable devel-
opment strategies, scenarios, models and indicators, including the limits of
economic growth, environmental conflicts, sustainable consumption and ecosystem
servicesandtheirvaluation.JoachimservesontheExecutiveandSteeringCommittees
of several academic associations, and on the Scientific Committee of the EEA.
Naomi van Steenbergen holds a PhD in philosophy from the University of
Essex, UK. She divides her research time between moral psychology and climate
justice. She is currently editing a book (with Marcus Düwell and Jos de Mul) on
practical self-understanding. Besides her research and teaching in philosophy, she
works as a literary and academic translator.
Klaus Steigleder is Professor of applied ethics at the Institute of Philosophy I and
Director of the interdisciplinary master’s programme ‘Ethics – Economics, Law,
andPolitics’attheRuhr-Universität,Germany.Thecurrentfocusofhisresearch is
on economic ethics, climate ethics, energy ethics and risk ethics.
Harald Stelzer is Professor of political philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy,
UniversityofGraz,Austria.Thecurrentfocusofhisresearchisondecision-making
under uncertainty from the perspective of normative theory as well as in applied
ethics, with a special focus on climate engineering.
May Thorseth is Professor of philosophy at NTNU Norwegian University of
Science and Technology, department of Philosophy and Religious Studies. She is
director of NTNU’s Programme for Applied Ethics, and a co-editor of Etikk i
