next article in this issue  |
Preview first page |
Document Details : Title: Facing toward Past and Future Subtitle: A Historical Form of Moral Responsibility Author(s): SMITH, Steven G. Journal: Ethical Perspectives Volume: 31 Issue: 4 Date: 2024 Pages: 225-246 DOI: 10.2143/EP.31.4.3294100 Abstract : We have a transgenerational moral sensitivity and can assume responsibility for how we share large-scale accumulations of action with non-contemporaries in the past and future. This historical enlargement of responsibility lacks an important stringency because it does not involve facing an actual other or situation; a threatening farther future can be written off because ‘we won’t have to face it’ (or, more importantly, them). Electively, we can imagine ourselves facing our forerunners and descendants; for instance, I can visit the Lincoln Memorial and let Lincoln’s statue and his inscribed Gettysburg Address motivate me to contribute to the transgenerational project of American democracy. There is no real facing in this scenario because there is no possibility of interaction. But there can be a morally serious, realistically circumspect facing toward past and future actors and situations. Setting up and maintaining institutional endowments is a strong model of this form of responsibility. We are responsible to each other in the present for how we face toward the past and future, not only because we are jointly participating in the accumulation of shared action but also because we are all affected by the more and less considerate ways in which this is done. |
|
