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9 - Double Intergenerational Responsibility

From a Western-Eastern View

from Part III - Humanity Facing the Near Environmental Future

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2024

Hiroshi Abe
Affiliation:
Kyoto University
Matthias Fritsch
Affiliation:
Concordia University, Montréal
Mario Wenning
Affiliation:
Loyola University, Spain
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Summary

What is intergenerational responsibility? The present chapter aims at answering this question by demonstrating the following two points. First, future-oriented responsibility essentially requires past-oriented responsibility and vice versa (I call the former the ‘foreseeing-care-prevention’ type and the latter the ‘letting-the-dead-be’ type). Hence, second, intergenerational responsibility is composed of these two different and interdependent types of responsibility. I begin by clarifying what is meant by the foreseeing-care-prevention-type. Interpreting Derek Parfit and Hans Jonas, I try to characterize it in detail. Then I address the letting-the-dead-be type. In this context, I deal with Confucianism and the Japanese philosopher Tetsurô Watsuji. Lastly, I discuss how both of the types of responsibility are interconnected with each other, and conclude that our intergenerational responsibility means that we are responsible for future people and responsible to past generations at the same time.

Type
Chapter
Information
Intercultural Philosophy and Environmental Justice between Generations
Indigenous, African, Asian, and Western Perspectives
, pp. 167 - 177
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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References

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