Agents in Rawls’s original position are denied knowledge of their identities, but
as Derek Parfit argues, the one thing of which they cannot be denied knowledge is
the fact of their existence (1984: 392). This creates motivational difficulties: we can
be impartial between existing people but not between existing and possible people.
Although in his later work Rawls retains the just savings principle, he revised its
derivation. He retains the idea that the principles in the original position are chosen
in the present (Rawls, 2001: 160), but there is a shift in the motivational connection
between generations. In A Theory of Justicehe stipulated the generation choosing
the principles of justice care for at least two subsequent generations. Rawls now
acknowledges this is inconsistent with the motivational assumption of mutual
disinterest (Rawls 2001: 160n). The agreement is, therefore, between all generations,
and ‘we say the parties are to agree to a just savings principle subject to the condition
that they must want all previous generations to have followed it’ (Rawls, 2001:
160). Since no generation knows its place among the generations this implies all
later generations, including the present one, are to follow it.
There is, however, a tension in Rawls’s derivation of this principle, which Parfit
quite rightly picks up on, but does not state correctly. Rather than saying persons
must exist in the original position, there is a duality: in entering the original position
you confirm your moralexistence, but because you do not know your generation
then you cannot be sure you actuallyexist. Since the actions of one generation
determine the size of a future population one of the questions which you as an
agent in the original position must confront is whether you should exist. If the level
of resources in the 20-billion population of World 2 falls below a certain ‘social
minimum’ then conceivably we, as agents behind a veil of ignorance, could will that
some of usshould not exist, but it is arbitrary who does exist.
This may seem a rather precious philosophical problem but it is useful in
separating out different moral and political theories. Rawls’s problem only arises
if we interpret him as a Kantian: moral and political principles are generated, or
legitimated, from the pre-political standpoint of a rational agent. A more political
reading of Rawls would leave questions of procreation to individuals (local justice)
or states (global justice), so long as they did not violate human rights. A state might,
for example, choose to disadvantage parents who have large families. Other moral
theories solve the problem by rejecting Kantian individualism. Utilitarians, for
example, are only concerned with the overall level of well-being either in total
(classical utilitarianism) or per capita (average utilitarianism) – utilitarians are no
respecters of persons and so the strange situation of having a moral duty to a person
not to bring him or her into existence does not arise. Ecologists – distinct from
environmentalists – see the earth as the ultimate object of moral concern, and not
individual human beings, and so they would not conceive of intergenerational justice
as the performance of duties correlating to the rights of future individuals.Summary
We have explored three positions on global justice. The first position – cosmopoli-
tanism – argues for an extension of the universalism of domestic justice to the global
sphere. The discrepancy between domestic and global justice is, cosmopolitans498 Part 4 Contemporary ideas