By Prof. Naomi Klineberg
Every nation makes promises to the future—through constitutions, treaties, or climate pledges. But promises can be broken, and debts can accumulate. The question is not whether harm carries forward. It is whether future generations, who cannot consent or negotiate, are owed repayment for harms they inherit.
The Language of Debt
We speak of “carbon debt,” “sovereign debt,” and “social debt.” Debt implies an obligation: something owed, enforceable, perhaps collectible. But can we owe the unborn? They have no courts, no representatives, no voices in our debates. If obligations require reciprocity, how do we justify duties toward those who cannot answer back?
The Precedent of the Past
Nations have paid reparations before. Germany after World War II compensated Holocaust survivors. The United States has debated, and occasionally enacted, reparations for slavery and internment. These cases show that moral debt can outlive its original victims, traveling across decades. If backward-looking reparations are possible, why not forward-looking ones?
Yet differences remain. Past victims can testify; their descendants can organize politically. Future generations cannot. Is it coherent to frame duties to them in the same way we frame duties to those who suffered yesterday?
Responsibility Across Time
Climate change sharpens the dilemma. Every ton of carbon emitted today will warm the atmosphere for centuries. Coastal flooding in 2100 will be the direct result of choices made in 2025. If we accept responsibility for harms we cause in space—to neighboring nations—why should we not accept responsibility for harms we cause in time?
But how far should this responsibility stretch? If future generations invent new technologies or adapt in unforeseen ways, will our present-day caution seem excessive—or necessary? Do we risk paternalism when we attempt to design the conditions of lives not yet lived?
The Limits of Reparations
Suppose we agree that nations owe a debt to the future. What form should repayment take? Financial transfers set aside in sovereign wealth funds? Stricter environmental laws enforced now? Education policies that privilege the unborn over the present? Reparations usually imply compensation after harm. But with the future, prevention is often the only meaningful currency. Can prevention be called repayment, or is it simply prudence?
A Question Without Closure
Perhaps the deeper issue is whether morality itself requires reciprocity. If obligations are grounded not in mutual benefit but in respect for humanity as such, then future generations—though absent—command duties from us. In that case, we may not be free to ask whether reparations are owed. We may be compelled to act as though they are.
The question remains: will we treat the unborn as creditors whose claims we must honor, or as abstractions convenient to ignore?
