A dominant area of inquiry within intergenerational ethics concerns how goods (and bads) ought to be justly distributed between noncontemporaries. Contractualist theories of justice that have broached these discussions have often centered on the concepts of mutual advantage and (indirect) reciprocal cooperation between rational, self‐interested beings. However, another prominent reason that many in the present feel that they have obligations toward future generations is not due to self‐interested reciprocity, but simply because they care about what happens to them. Care ethics promises to be conceptually well‐suited for articulating this latter reason: given that future generations are in a perpetual condition of dependency on present‐day people's actions, this is precisely the kind of relational structure that care theorists should be interested in morally evaluating. Unfortunately, the care literature has been largely silent on intergenerational ethics. This article aims to advance this literature, offering the blueprints of what a care ethic concerning future generations—a “future care ethic”—should look like. The resultant ethic defends a sufficientarian theory of obligation: people in the present ought to ensure the conditions needed to encourage and sustain a world that enables good caring relations to flourish.

中文翻译：

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关怀伦理和对子孙后代的义务

在代际伦理学中，一个主要的研究领域涉及商品（和商品）应如何在非当代人之间合理分配。展开这些讨论的契约论正义理论通常以理性，自私的存在者之间的互利和（间接）对等合作的概念为中心。但是，当前许多人认为自己对子孙后代有义务的另一个突出原因不是由于自私的互惠，而是因为他们关心自己的后代。护理伦理有望在概念上很好地说明后一个原因：鉴于后代永远处于依赖当今人们行动的状态，这正是护理理论家应该对道德评估感兴趣的一种关系结构。不幸的是，护理文献对代际伦理学基本上没有任何评论。本文旨在推动这些文献的发展，提供有关子孙后代的护理伦理（“未来护理伦理”）的蓝图。由此产生的伦理学捍卫了义务主义的充分主义理论：当前的人们应该确保鼓励和维持一个使良好的关爱关系蓬勃发展的世界所需的条件。