THE SENSE OF DOING THE RIGHT THING: RAWLS AND KANT ON THE CLIMATE DEALS

The Sense of Doing the Right Thing: Rawls and Kant on Climate Agreements center dot Global warming and, generally speaking, climate change is one of the greatest challenges for intergenerational justice. Why should the current generation respect climate agreements when this type of conduct implies a unilateral sacrifice in terms of present consumption and, at the same time, uncertainty about the future benefits? John Rawls replies to this dilemma by introducing the just savings principle and assuming the human capability to exercise a sense of justice. However, when applied to issues between generations, the sense of justice seems to be ineffective and not particularly binding between an ex-ante deliberation and the corresponding ex-post conformist behavior because excessively founded on heteronomous circumstances. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a discussion and a reinterpretation, both theoretical, of the Rawlsian sense of justice within the intergenerational context, identifying in the Kantian sentiment of respect its conditio sine qua non: consciously choosing to `activate' the sense of justice would mean being able to self-determine one's own will and therefore to act as free moral agents.