Future generations and the evidential veil of ignorance

Journal article

Ideal Contractualism views principles of justice as corresponding to what rational, mutually disinterested persons would collectively choose behind a veil of ignorance. It is well-known that Ideal Contractualism faces profound challenges in accounting for justice between generations. We present a unified solution to these problems that involves rejecting the assumption that the parties conceive of their choices as causally efficacious and assumes instead that the parties choose in light of the news value of their decision. And we explore what concrete principles would be chosen by the parties as governing intergenerational justice against the backdrop of this assumption.

Authors: Gustafsson, JE; Mogensen, AL

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Journal: Economics & Philosophy
• Pages: 1-18
• Publication date: 2025-12-09
• Acceptance date: 2025-03-24
• DOI: 10.1017/s0266267125100473
• EISSN: 1474-0028
• ISSN: 0266-2671
• Language: English
• Keywords: population ethics; dynamic choice; Social contract theory; evidential decision theory; the veil of ignorance; intergenerational justice