Talking with the future: Sustainability as intergenerational dialogue

"I'm sorry I was ever effected to the Board of Selectmen," Walter thought as he walked down the path into Johnson's Pasture. He'd come this way on a whim, hoping that the combination of walking and looking out over the land would help settle his mind. "I just don't see how such a peaceful place could be the source of such controversy." Mumbling to himself, Walter stopped at the top of the rise to collect his thoughts.

Johnson's Pasture was one of the few remaining undeveloped pieces of land in town. While the property took its name from the field that was prominent from Route 30, it was actually much larger. It included substantial woodlands (with a stand of virgin timber), a swamp, and a sizable pond. The property was irregularly shaped, snaking behind roads and several housing developments. It had been given to the town in the 1920s by the Johnson family, who had owned it since the mid-18th Century. The pasture had been the site of a small battle in the Revolutionary War, and soldiers had hidden supplies in the swamp throughout the war. Now it was used mainly for walking, bird watching, sledding, and the like, though science classes from nearby schools and universities made annual trips to see the stand of old trees and some rare species of flowers that grew in the swamp. It was also the site of town festivities on Patriot's Day and the Fourth of July.

"This is probably the biggest battle this town has seen since the Revolutionary War," Walter mused. It had started with the GenTech proposal. The company (the town's largest employer) wanted to expand its headquarters. GenTech preferred to stay in town but only if it also could build a cut-off to Route 64. Each of these projects would carve a big piece out of Johnson's Pasture. Everybody had a view, and the arguments were intense. Many people were claiming that they knew what would be best for their children or their grandchildren. Nobody would own up to looking out for his or her own interests; they all claimed to be concerned only about what was best for posterity.

Only they couldn't agree on what that was. Supporters of the GenTech proposal pointed to the importance of the plan to the town and the regional economy. They said that it heralded a bright future with new jobs. Opponents pointed to the need to respect history and to protect fragile wildlife habitats and traditions--all of which, they claimed, were irreplaceable. The terms of the gift from the Johnson family did not help. They only specified that the property had to be used for "the benefit of current and future citizens of Wahlboro."

Walter took his responsibilities as an elected official seriously, but all the talk about the needs of future generations had raised doubts in his mind about how to proceed. "I just wish I could jump ahead in time and talk to people from a future generation," Walter thought, "and hear what they had to say about all the claims being made in their name."

Walter sat down. Sunlight reflected off the grass, leaves, and cars passing below, raising sharp bright points everywhere. As he squinted, the forms of the landscape and people faded into the brilliance as if into a descending fog. Somewhere in the back of his mind he thought he heard a voice.

VOICE OF THE FUTURE (VOF): Who wants to talk to me?

WALTER: I do. I'm confused about what I should do about this field and these woods. Some people in town seem to think we should trade off the interests of future generations in historic preservation and environmental protection to ensure present-day jobs. Should I do that? Don't they have a good point?

VOF: No, I don't think so. You might remind these folks that they do other things all the time that take into account the needs of future generations. It's not unrealistic to ask them to do so in this case.

WALTER: You know, that's true. Many of my neighbors are quite focused on the interests of their children and grandchildren, at least some of the time. They join organizations that promote values that have meaning only if they're thinking in terms of the long-range future and not just immediate or short-term needs. When they do that, they're taking into account what future generations will want and need.

VOF: Right. Look around you. People do all kinds of things in their private lives that demonstrate a concern for the future. They try to save money or put land aside for their children or grandchildren. They may try to do something similar by spending time or money restoring a river or replanting trees that were killed by a storm. Others may donate money for medical research to minimize the effects that a disease will have on people in the future. Think how many actions people take that can't possibly be construed as self-interested or self-serving. There are many ways in which people act out their concerns for future generations. To sort through the interests of future generations in a particular situation, it may be helpful to imagine talking with someone like me.

WALTER: Do you really represent future generations? Do you really speak for them?

VOF: In a way, yes. But maybe not in the way you think. It's misleading, for instance, to think of me or anyone I speak for as having a fixed identity. Who and what we are depends on what you do. If you decide to let GenTech expand its plant, different people will move to town from those that will come if you don't. Different people will be neighbors. Different people will meet, get married, and have children. You can see how, over the course of a couple of generations, this will affect the identity of the residents of the town. Of course, it's not just your choice; many other choices coming together over many decades will influence who's around and what the town is like in fifty years.

WALTER: So you can't really speak for anyone. Then how can you make claims or comments on what we do here and now?

VOF: As you point out, I'm somewhat restricted. However, I think there is a lot I can say that may be helpful, if you want to listen.

There are, for instance, things I'm likely to want, no matter what happens: things you couldn't imagine doing without, like clean water and air. What's important to you and to your sense of yourself as a person and a resident of Wahlboro? What history, places, or experiences do you share with other residents? I'm going to continue to be concerned about the same things.

Also, I'm not interested in inheriting a lot of problems that will restrict my choices or put my welfare at risk: buried oil tanks or unmarked industrial wastes will cost much more to clean up in the future when the pollution has spread than it would cost you to fix them now. Not all of this may seem relevant to the problem you're facing currently, but my point is that there is a lot I can say.

WALTER: O.K. So it's probably worth talking to you. But what can you tell me about Johnson's Pasture? How should I vote on the GenTech proposal? And what about all these people making competing claims in your name?

VOF: Wait a minute. One question at a time. I'm delighted to hear that people are concerned about my welfare, but I wonder what the limits of this advocacy are. Remember, my generation is likely to be as diverse as yours. People will want and pursue different things for themselves and for the future. I don't think you should limit this diversity by your choices. The future is not something that you can expect people to agree about, now or later.

Now you're the Selectman, and I don't want to tell you how to carry on your business, but I think you should differentiate between the diversity of things that people do in their private lives (and as members of voluntary associations) and what happens when a public policy or political question is raised. The odds are I won't be connected with you or other current residents of Wahlboro along family lines or through organizations, but I will be connected with you and your contemporaries as citizens of the same town, the same state, and so on. Perhaps you ought to think through what the public and political character of your choice tells you. Your choice should be different from what it would be if you owned Johnson's Pasture with a group of people and were trying to decide whether or not to sell it.

WALTER: I can do that, and I see how that might limit our conversation. But what should I do in this particular case? How do I decide or even think through the problem?

VOF: Earlier you said that you were being asked to trade off jobs against historic preservation and environmental protection. The first thing I would ask is if this is really the case. Are the jobs and economic return just for now, or do you expect a stream of benefits that will extend into the future? How certain are the benefits? Will there also be costs? How certain are these? Your subsequent choices will look different depending on how you answer these questions.

WALTER: But some people say that we shouldn't be so concerned with future costs and benefits--that we should focus on what is best for people who are here now.

VOF: By talking to me you're already entertaining the idea that you ought to consider how future generations will be affected. My guess is you want to be fair. After all, a lot of what you have was passed on to you. Now, you might accept this and still favor a plan that benefits the present generation over future generations. But it seems to me you would need some very special reason to justify such an approach. Is there no other way the same objective could be met? I doubt that is the case.

If, for instance, you had convincing evidence or reasons that future residents of Wahlboro will be better off than you are, you might have good reason to give preference to your welfare and discount the needs of the future. If future costs seem improbable, you also may choose to disregard them, and I would be hard-pressed to find fault.

But do either of these conditions really describe your situation? The costs associated with expanding the GenTech plant are definite, even if there is some disagreement about their magnitude. And I don't see how you could expect with any certainty that future generations will be better off than you, come what may, much less that everyone in future generations will be better off. From where I sit there's just too much uncertainty and too many potential problems for you to give yourself permission to give future needs such low priority. And even if you could make such a case, wouldn't it be much clearer to make it directly in the terms you would use to justify it, rather than relying on the rough, and often misleading, corollary that the events you're concerned with are remote in time?

Of course, you could give special status to the welfare of future generations and postpone benefits now so that people can have a better quality of life in the future. But I don't expect that you will, and I'm not even sure I would want you to. After all, I wouldn't want to be bound by a rule like that when my turn comes.

WALTER: Wait a minute. I do want to be fair, if I can figure out what fair is. Now you're telling me that I have to consider your welfare, unless I can show that you'll be better off than I am or that you're unlikely to be harmed. I must accept this, or I wouldn't be talking to you. Yet just acknowledging this doesn't help me decide what to do about Johnson's Pasture.

VOF: But we're getting there. Look at the problem this way. You're used to asking questions as part of the process of thinking through problems like this. If a child grabbed the biggest piece of cake, you might ask him, "What if everyone did that?" Can't you look at this problem in the same way? What would happen if every generation did as you propose? Or, another way to put it is, "Don't make an exception of yourself." You also could ask, "Am I setting a precedent I would want future Selectmen and residents to follow?" Finally, "Is this something I would have wanted previous generations who lived in Wahlboro to have followed?" These questions give you some perspective on the choice you have to make and the way you're going about it.

"Use what you want and don't worry about tomorrow," wouldn't, for example, be likely to pass such a test. Where would you be if past generations had done that? Remember you inherited the pasture from the Johnsons and from previous residents of the town. If they were as self-interested as some people today seem to be, you wouldn't have Johnson's Pasture to worry about, would you? The notion of stewardship is a pretty good one and would pass the test, I think.

If such rules seem too binding, you could allow certain kinds of trades If you're going to use up something, you should make an offsetting investment. This is another possible test you could use to evaluate each of the choices you are considering. If you develop Johnson's Pasture, can you make an alternative investment that will add as much or more to the welfare of future generations as keeping it would? And will you really make that investment?

WALTER: But some people claim Johnson's Pasture is irreplaceable. If this is the case, how can I think about trades of equivalent value?

VOF: If it's really irreplaceable, then it would indeed be difficult to make an appropriate trade. Whether or not it's irreplaceable, however, will become a lot clearer when various trades are considered in a public forum.

What would it have been like to grow up without Johnson's pasture? How would your life have been affected? What about others, both in the past and now? Has the property been important to other generations? How closely is your sense of a being a resident of Wahlboro or even a citizen of the United States tied to the experiences and events associated with Johnson's Pasture? What if previous residents had given it up? What would have been different in your life?

WALTER: Aren't we coming back around to what we were talking about earlier--things that people will want, whatever else they want? We talked about goods and commodities closely tied to physical welfare, but maybe we should include other things as well. Don't people also value their ties to the past?

VOF: Think about what you would do if you had to choose a limited number of items to put in a box that was being sent on a spaceship to another planet. What would you put in the box? Why? Would you want a photograph of Johnson's Pasture to be included? This may help you sort out what is most meaningful.

WALTER: So we're talking about not just what's physically essential, but also what adds meaning and value to life. Isn't choice also important? I value choice, and I know others do. A decision to develop Johnson's Pasture will be difficult to reverse. If we go that way, we would be foreclosing options that would otherwise be open to future generations. On the other hand, there is little choice without opportunity. If we neglect economic development, we also may restrict choice, now and in the future

VOF: Isn't what you're engaged in now also a choice? Isn't having the opportunity and capacity to make these choices important to you? You're certainly behaving as if it were. Is this something that future generations also might value? Would you want to put some note about it in the box?

WALTER: So you're suggesting that the exercise of choice is something I value independently, not just because it helps me get what I want. I hadn't thought about it that way, but that may be part of why I feel so concerned about the current controversy.

VOF: Exactly. And actions that respect the idea and practice of choice sustain its importance. From what I've heard you say, these are things you would want to pass on.

WALTER: That's true. From what you've told me, I guess we have a lot of choices to make here in Wahlboro. As we decide about the GenTech proposal, we're going to be deciding about what we value about ourselves, our surroundings, our experience, and the course of our lives up until now. Everything you've pointed out is going to require serious reflection on what is important.

Part of what we should try to do is provide a forum in which people are encouraged to describe the things that are important to them--like potable water, decent air, an adequate level of nutrition, shelter, and energy--and that provide an acceptable quality of life. We probably should look especially hard at choices that might put these things at risk. Beyond these minimal tangible conditions, however, I think we need to ask what is important to making our experience meaningful, at least as members of this community.

VOF: So what are you going to do about Johnson's Pasture?

WALTER: I guess we'll start by arranging to talk with each other in a much more serious and sustained way than we usually do. To begin, we'll need to create a forum in which we can discuss these kinds of questions. Many people are going to have something to say, and I think we should make sure they have an opportunity to shape the discussion and participate in it. As a Selectman, it's my responsibility to listen, to speak, and to try to get people to listen to each other. When we have factual questions, I'll try to secure the best technical advice we possibly can get. It seems unlikely that this will tell us what to do, but, as you've pointed out, we can devise various tests to guide our judgment. Of course, none of them is likely to be definitive either. Perhaps, in the end, taking seriously our responsibility to future generations will mean going around and around until we can reach a decision whose premises and implications are clear and comfortable. It seems that a large part of our responsibility to the future is tied to how we confront problems rather than to a specific set of decision rules.

Lawrence Susskind is a professor of Urban and Environmental Planning at MIT, the director of the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program at Harvard Law School, and the chairman of the Consensus Building Institute, a not-for-profit organization that provides mediation services in complex public disputes in the United States and abroad. David Laws is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT. His dissertation research focuses on how questions about intergenerational responsibility are raised and responded to in public disputes and decision-making.

SUGGESTED READING

The authors have drawn on ideas form some of the following sources in composing this dialogue and offer this list for further reading:

Seyla Benhabib. "Afterword." The Communicative Ethics Controversy. Seyla Benhabib and Fred Dallmayr, eds. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1990.

Daniel B. Botkin. Discordant Harmonies: A New Ecology for the Twenty-first Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.

Jennifer Brown, Ed. Environmental Threats. London: Bellhaven Press, 1989.

Joshua Cohen. "Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy." In Alan Hamlin and Philip Petit, eds. The Good Polity: Normative Analysis of the State. New York: Basil Blackwell, 1989.

--. "Moral Pluralism and Political Consensus." In David Copp and Jean Hampton, eds., The Idea of Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Jane English. "Justice Between Generations." Philosophical Studies 31 (1977): 98.

Thomas Nagel. "Moral Conflict and Political Legitimacy." Philosophy and Public Affairs 17 (1988): 227-37.

Derek Parfit. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984.

John Rawls. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.

--. Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971.

Lawrence Susskind and Jeffrey Cruikshank. Breaking the Impasse. New York: Basic Books, 1987.

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