16: Intergenerational Justice
The increasing capacities of humankind to change the living conditions of future generations as well as the increasing capacity to foresee these changes have resulted in an expansion of the temporal dimension of political responsibility. At the same time, these developments raise a number of complex and controversial ethical questions: Are we justified in taking future dangers less seriously because of their temporal distance? Is it only fair not to make provisions for later generations at the cost of the present generation, given that economic growth and technological progress will make later generations more comfortable anyway?
The seminar discusses the sources of intergenerational inequalities and alternative ways of distributing resources and wealth across generations for greater intergenerational fairness. A fair intergenerational distribution of limited resources requires economic mechanisms that shift resources from lucky towards unlucky generations. The seminar links this discussion, among others, to current problems of fiscal sustainability, environmental sustainability and of ageing and imbalances in the pension system. It also discusses how the exceptional costs of large scale natural disasters (earthquakes) or financial and economic crises are spread out over present and future generations via public and private debt and also via private bequests.
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Dr. Dieter BIRNBACHER
Professor, Institute of Philosophy, Heinrich-Heine University of Düsseldorf
| 1966-1973 | Studium der Philosophie, der Anglistik und der Allgemeinen Sprachwissenschaft in Düsseldorf, Cambridge und Hamburg |
| 1969 | B. A. (Cambridge) |
| 1973 | Promotion Hamburg |
| 1978 | Akademischer Rat |
| 1974-1985 | Mitarbeit in der Arbeitsgruppe Umwelt Gesellschaft Energie an der Universität Gesamthochschule Essen (Leitung: Klaus Michael Meyer-Abich) |
| 1988 | Habilitation (Essen) |
| 1993 | Professor für Philosophie an der Universität Dortmund |
| 1996 | Professor für Philosophie an der Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf |
Dr. Christian KEUSCHNIGG
Director, WPZ - Economic Policy Center, and Professor for Public Economics, University of St.Gallen
| 1987 | Doktor rer.soc.oec. (Ph.D. in Economics), Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck |
| 1995 | Venia Docendi, Economic Policy and Public Finance, University of Vienna |
| 1997-2001 | Professor of Public Economics, University of Saarland; Director of European Institute, Economics, University of Saarland |
| since 2001 | Professor of Public Economics and Director of FGN-HSG, University of St. Gallen |
| 2012-2014 | Director, Institute of Advanced Studies, Vienna |
| since 2015 | Director, Wirtschaftspolitisches Zentrum, St. Gallen |
