On Resisting the Intergenerationally Jealous Virtues

There is a pressing need for a global, intergenerational & ecological ethic. Typically, philosophers pay less attention to the intergenerational aspect, since they assume that intergenerational ethics involves only a modest extension of ethics for contemporaries. By contrast, I argue that intergenerational ethics has the potential to play a transformative role. One reason for concern is that modeling for the future based on the norms of ethics for contemporaries may facilitate intergenerational tyranny. In particular, there is a clear risk that focusing on ethics for contemporaries will lead to an embracing of "intergenerationally jealous virtues” that come into conflict with central touchstones for intergenerational ethics. In this paper, I elaborate on the touchstones and on the challenge of the jealous “virtues". I also explore what this diagnosis reveals about potential solutions.