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Concept
Future generations
Summary
Future generations are cohorts of hypothetical people not yet born. Future generations are contrasted with current and past generations, and evoked in order to encourage thinking about intergenerational equity. The moral patienthood of future generations has been argued for extensively among philosophers, and is thought of as an important, neglected cause by the effective altruism community. The term is often used in describing the conservation or preservation of cultural heritage or natural heritage.
The sustainability and climate movements have adopted the concept as a tool for enshrining principles of long-term thinking into law. The concept is often connected to indigenous thinking as a principle for ecological action, such as the seven generation concept attributed to Iroquois tradition.
The term refers to the impact which the currently living generation has on the world which future generations will live in, the world they will inherit from humans living today. This concept is referred to in the most widely quoted definition of sustainability as a part of the concept sustainable development, is that of the Brundtland Commission of the United Nations on March 20, (1987): "sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
The use of future generations in international law is in part recognized by the Charter of the United Nations which focuses on preventing the "scourge of war" on future generations. With the publication of UN Secretary-General's landmark Our Common Agenda report in September 2021, there has been a renewed interest in understanding, action for, and representing future generations in the multilateral system.
The financial state of people in future generations is widely debated. However, a study in 2022 revealed that a majority of people believe that the financial state of future generations will be worse than their current state.
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