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In all his voluminous writings, John Rawls devotes less than twenty pages to his discussion of "the question of justice between generations."1 Unfortunately, his discussion of this important topic is both rough and unclear. As a result, not only have his views been widely misunderstood, but they also have been subjected to a number of unjustified criticisms.2 In this paper, I will attempt to defend Rawls's theory of intergenerational justice. To do this, however, I must first clear up a number of confusions that can be found both in Rawls's work and in the secondary literature. Therefore, I will begin with a careful reconstruction of his theory of intergenerational justice, one that both clarifies the just savings principle and places it within the overall structure of Rawls's theory. I will also attempt to derive some specific social policies from it. Next, I will critically evaluate the arguments that Rawls offers in support of it. Unfortunately, I argue, none of those arguments succeeds. I believe, however, that Rawls hints at another argument for the just savings principle that grounds that principle on the concept of the "sense of justice." In the last part of this essay, after outlining that argument, I will critically assess it, and argue that careful attention to Rawls's theory of intergenerational justice will cast new light on the foundations of Rawls's full theory of justice.
1.
Rawls reduces "the question of justice between generations" to a set of questions involving "the just savings principle." In doing so, Rawls makes the simplifying assumptions that discussions of intergenerational justice should be conducted almost completely in economic terms and that, as a result, present generations will have discharged their justice-based duties to future generations when they have "saved" at a rate consistent with this principle. Intergenerational duties, in Rawls's view, require only that each generation "put aside . . . a suitable amount of real capital" (TJ 285), including "not only factories and machines, and so on, but also . . . knowledge and culture, as well as. . techniques and skills . . ." (TJ 288) ". . . [and] learning and education" (TJ 285). Clearly, this is a limited list; and a limited idea of what each generation owes its descendants. I will...