Intergenerational Justice as a Social-Ethical Challenge

Abstract

The article draws the reader’s attention to the category of intergenerational justice, that is justice concentrated on the space between two points that are distant from each other, and asks the question about how social relations improved during the life-time of one generation and how they deteriorated in the life-time of another; as well as one if one generation may burden another one that follows it with its own charges, in this way setting itself free of them. In a long-term perspective intergenerational justice is the main ethical challenge that concerns not only German and Polish demography, but practically that of all the European Union countries. In the worldwide scale especially the problem of ecology is significant, as well as the problem of dealing with natural resources. Since in the political process future generations do not yet have the right to make decisions, there is a threat that their interests will be neglected, and the present generation will make profits at the cost of the future ones. This is why drawing everybody’s attention to so important ethical issues is one of the Church’s significant tasks.