Intergenerational justice

Abstract

At the close of the fifteenth century, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola prophesied that in the coming modern age, through science and technology, human beings would determine their fate. This well-known Italian philosopher of culture envisaged humanity’s deepest aspirations to improve the quality of life by the new vistas opened up by science and technology. After so many centuries of science and technology, during the last few decades we have learned that our unrestrained economic and technological expansion, based on the nineteenth-century myth of progress, has in many ways impoverished rather than improved the quality of human life. It is not science and technology as such which are to be blamed for environmental degradation, but rather those in whose hands these powers have fallen and the way they were used short-sightedly. For many years science and technology were used for personal, national, regional and continental profit to the detriment of many born and unborn people. It is a shame that for many centuries science and technology were used as an instrument of rule over nature and of power over society and human beings, both living now and in the future. Indeed,we are facing an irony that the cultural forces of science and technology, rather than ‘liberating’ humankind, are now the greatest threat to the quality of life of both present and future generations. Science and technology, which were expected to improve considerably the quality of human life, have increased hunger, poverty, war and environmental hazards, but they have also created serious future risks and burdens. Now that the international community is convinced that science and technology offer both blessings and curses, most countries have adopted environmental policies designed to stem ecological degradation. Science and technology can work wonders only if they are put to the service of all humankind and are guided by the ethical principles of intergenerational solidarity, co-operation, sharing, justice and equity.