Page 35 - Sustainability Communication Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Theoritical Foundations

18 K. Ott et al.

conditions to accomplish a good (rich, flourishing) life, i.e. a life worthy of a human
being. This approach encompasses capabilities such as ‘being able to live to the end
of a human life of normal length; not dying prematurely, or before one’s life is so
reduced as to be not worth living’; ‘being able to have attachments to things and
people outside ourselves’; and ‘being able to live with concern for and in relation to
animals, plants and the world of nature’. The list is based on ideas of the intrinsic
richness of human existence and on the idea that a good human life lies in the
exercise and performance of specific human capabilities.
While anti-egalitarians deny that equality has any intrinsic value and thus limit
intergenerational duties to an absolute standard (Frankfurt 1987), in the theory of
strong sustainability also comparative aspects of justice above the absolute standard
ought to be taken seriously. The comparative standard can be justified with the
Rawlsian ‘veil of ignorance’ (Rawls 1973), which would have to be designed in
such a way that the individuals behind it do not know to which generation they
belong. Rawls’s idea of reciprocity, which suggests an equal distribution as the
starting point, leads to the conclusion that rational persons would probably choose
a comparative standard as far as this is feasible within safe environmental limits.
The comparative standard can also be justified without recourse to Rawls. The
conviction that from the moral point of view in the generational chain no generation
is ‘special’ can be combined with a prohibition of primary discrimination (Tugendhat
1993) and the disputed ‘presumption in favour of equality’ (P). This constitutes a
sufficient premise to shift the burden of proof in favour of an intergenerational com-
parative standard. The justification of P rests on the transfer of generally accepted
principles (equal moral considerability of every person, equality before the law,
equality of opportunity) to the sphere of distributive justice. In the end, both lines of
justification converge to similar results.
The third core question leads to the next level of the theory, since it cannot be
answered at the abstract level of theoretical moral justifications. It encompasses the
widely debated issue about the ‘fair bequest package’ that current generations owe
to future ones.

What Do We Owe to Future Generations? Arguments in Favour
of ‘Strong Sustainability’

Different approaches within communication about sustainability have to deal with
the question at a conceptual level. A constitutive issue for the distinction between
the various concepts of sustainability is the question of what legacy (the ‘fair bequest
package’) current generations owe to subsequent ones. Legacies involve the produc-
tion, preservation and reproduction of, in the language of economics, packages of
different kinds of capital. The concepts of weak and strong sustainability diverge
basically on what they respectively consider a fair bequest package. This is due to
different assumptions regarding the extent to which natural capital can reasonably
be substituted by human capital and man-made capital.