The concept of sustainable development is an attempt to balance two moral demands placed on the environment. The first demand is for development,including economic development or growth. It arises mainly from the interestsof people who live in developing countries. Their present poverty gives them alow quality of life and calls urgently for steps to improve their quality oflife. The second demand is for sustainability, for ensuring that we do not riskthe future in the sake of gains in the present. This arises from the interestsof people in the future who will need access to a reasonable quality of life,non-renewable resources, unspoiled wilderness, and a healthy biosphere. Thesetwo moral demands do conflict. In fact, economic growth is the prime source ofthreats to the natural environment.We have a rough sense of what a good quality of life for humans consistsof. Also, we can make some rough judgments about when a person's quality oflife has increased or decreased. Utilitarianism about future generations saysthat people should weigh these increases impartially with respect to times. And,in particular, should not prefer a smaller increase in the present well-being tolarger increases in the future. We should try to maximize the sum of increasesin well-being across times counting future lives equally against those in thepresent. Our moral goal should always be to produce the greatest total of suchgains, no matter by whom they are enjoyed.Utilitarianism has been extensively discussed by philosophers, and manyobjections have been raised against it. Two objections are especially relevanthere. First, utilitarianism is an extremely, even excessively demanding moralview for most humans. If we have a duty always to bring about the best outcome,than any time we can increase the well-being of others (which is just about atany time), we have a moral duty to do so. There is no moral time off, no moralrelaxation, nor is there a moral...
