Shared Goal
What we do now should leave a better future for those who come after us.
We propose intergenerational stewardship as a shared direction: preserve and improve the conditions that allow present and future people to flourish, while leaving them meaningful freedom to choose their own lives.
This includes protecting ecological foundations, expanding knowledge and capability, repairing inherited harm, and avoiding hidden costs and irreversible damage passed to others.
Limits on the pursuit of progress
An abstract promise of humanity's future must not become a blanket justification for sacrificing living people. Claims of progress must account for who benefits, who pays, and who can refuse or challenge the decision.
More wealth, technological capability, or institutional power does not automatically establish improvement. Proposed measures should examine health, agency, freedom from domination, ecological conditions, knowledge, belonging, and the distribution of benefits and burdens.
These measures are provisional and may conflict. A single score must not conceal those conflicts. Future people's preferences remain uncertain; preserving options and the ability to correct mistakes therefore matters.
Questions to resolve
- What constitutes a better future, and who participates in defining it?
- How do present needs and future risks receive fair consideration?
- How should nonhuman life enter the moral framework?
- What evidence would show that a claimed improvement causes greater harm elsewhere?