Capability Deprivation as Intergenerational Harm
International Society for Environmental Ethics, American Philosophical Association Eastern Division Meeting
New York, NY - January 8, 2019
This project seeks to (re)frame the possibility (and, indeed, the reality) of our harming future generations in terms of their core capabilities, as defined by Martha Nussbaum (2003, 2006, 2011). I advance a multi-dimensional threshold conception of harm based on Nussbaum's capabilities list by drawing on work by Breena Holland (2008, 2012) and Lukas Meyer (2003). By making a forward-looking application of Nussbaum’s arguments that respect for human dignity requires enabling an ample threshold level of ten core capabilities, I submit that we can better understand, quantify, and begin to mitigate the harms we can inflict on future generations. In this talk, I also experiment with a "tiered" prioritarian version of the capabilities approach in response to (well-founded) worries about morally tragic climate scenarios from Henry Shue (2014) and and Darrel Moellendorf (2014).