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On synchronic direct intergenerational reciprocity: a reply to Corvino

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2025

Matthew Wiseman Open the ORCID record for Matthew Wiseman [Opens in a new window]
Matthew Wiseman*
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USC School of Philosophy, 3709 Trousdale Parkway, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA
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Abstract

Fausto Corvino has recently argued in this journal that, given present people’s reasonable expectation of future people’s economic activity, present and future people stand in the relation required by both of the two main camps of justice as reciprocity: justice as self-interested reciprocity and justice as fair reciprocity. In reply, I argue that on neither view is the relation Corvino identifies the relation the view requires and that neither view endorses his principle of intergenerational distributive justice, Transgenerational Sufficiency, in a contract between generations. I show that these concerns generalize to any view of synchronic direct intergenerational reciprocity.

Keywords

intergenerational justicejustice as reciprocitynon-reciprocity problemintergenerational sufficientarianismjust savings principle
Type
Reply
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Economics & Philosophy , First View , pp. 1 - 17
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© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press

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