Lo spazio teorico della giustizia intergenerazionale: linee per un percorso di ricerca

The notion of intergenerational justice poses a relatively new challenge to political and moral philosophy. The purpose of this article is to define and isolate the theoretical space that this concept deserves within the broader research perspective of justice theories. We will focus in particular on two theoretical pillars: environmental sustainability, with a precise focus on the issue of the so-called “carbon budget”, and financial sustainability, with reference to welfare systems and public debt. Both pillars will then be analysed in a double perspective, taking into account both the duties of socio-economic justice towards future people and the problem of how the costs of intergenerational justice should be shared between the present individuals in the light of intragenerational inequality. This will allow us to introduce the other essays that make up this special issue of the Lexicon of Public Ethics and that, on the whole, aim at outlining a multidisciplinary research path that takes into account the normative aspects of intergenerational justice and their concrete possibility of realization.