Can a Positive Social Discount Rate Be Fair to the Future? On the Primacy of Practical Reason

Abstract

In the paper I argue that social discounting of the future fails, in more general terms, because by focusing on existence or time distance, neglects the fact that future generations are participants in the same chain of human succession. Making use of Gosseries’ discussion in the book What is Intergenerational Justice? I argue that existence and time distance are morally irrelevant factors, because human succession is mapped on the structure of our practical rationality, and particularly on the notion of valuing per se. By criticizing Gosseries’ insistence on impartiality, I argue first that valuing is a diachronic enterprise that necessitates the fact that human generations should exist, something that creates certain duties of sufficientarian justice. Second, I argue that valuing is also a synchronic enterprise, unveiled in our attachment to fellow people that interact with us in the here and now, something that also creates special duties of justice to them.