Abstract
Contemporary theories of justice fail to recognize that the concepts constitutive of our political practices - including ‘justice’ itself - have historically mutable meanings. To recognize the fact of conceptual change entails an alteration in our understanding of justice between generations. Because there can be no transhistorical theory of justice, there can be no valid theory of intergenerational justice either-especially where the generations in question are distant ones having very different understandings of justice. The upshot is that an earlier generation cannot aspire to act justly toward a later distant generation whose members’ understanding of justice differs radically from theirs. Conceptual change and incommensurability render the very idea of intergenerational justice incoherent. Even so, such radical relativism need not entail moral nihilism.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 321-337 |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| Journal | Inquiry (United Kingdom) |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue number | 1-4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 1985 |
| Externally published | Yes |
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ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Health Policy
Cite this
The incoherence of intergenerational justice. / Ball, Terence.
In: Inquiry (United Kingdom), Vol. 28, No. 1-4, 1985, p. 321-337.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - The incoherence of intergenerational justice
AU - Ball, Terence
PY - 1985
Y1 - 1985
N2 - Contemporary theories of justice fail to recognize that the concepts constitutive of our political practices - including ‘justice’ itself - have historically mutable meanings. To recognize the fact of conceptual change entails an alteration in our understanding of justice between generations. Because there can be no transhistorical theory of justice, there can be no valid theory of intergenerational justice either-especially where the generations in question are distant ones having very different understandings of justice. The upshot is that an earlier generation cannot aspire to act justly toward a later distant generation whose members’ understanding of justice differs radically from theirs. Conceptual change and incommensurability render the very idea of intergenerational justice incoherent. Even so, such radical relativism need not entail moral nihilism.
AB - Contemporary theories of justice fail to recognize that the concepts constitutive of our political practices - including ‘justice’ itself - have historically mutable meanings. To recognize the fact of conceptual change entails an alteration in our understanding of justice between generations. Because there can be no transhistorical theory of justice, there can be no valid theory of intergenerational justice either-especially where the generations in question are distant ones having very different understandings of justice. The upshot is that an earlier generation cannot aspire to act justly toward a later distant generation whose members’ understanding of justice differs radically from theirs. Conceptual change and incommensurability render the very idea of intergenerational justice incoherent. Even so, such radical relativism need not entail moral nihilism.
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U2 - 10.1080/00201748508602055
DO - 10.1080/00201748508602055
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84928220781
VL - 28
SP - 321
EP - 337
JO - Inquiry
JF - Inquiry
SN - 0020-174X
IS - 1-4
ER -