Time and the Generations: Population Ethics for a Diminishing Planet

by Partha Dasgupta

Overview

How should we evaluate the ethics of procreation, especially the environmental consequences of reproductive decisions on future generations, in a resource-constrained world? While demographers, moral philosophers, and environmental scientists have separately discussed the implications of population size for sustainability, no one has attempted to synthesize the concerns and values of these approaches. The culmination of a half century of engagement with population ethics, Partha Dasgupta’s masterful Time and the Generations blends economics, philosophy, and ecology to offer an original lens on the difficult topic of optimum global population.

After offering careful attention to global inequality and the imbalance of power between men and women, Dasgupta provides tentative answers to two fundamental questions: What level of economic activity can our planet support over the long run, and what does the answer say about optimum population numbers? He develops a population ethics that can be used to evaluate our choices and guide our sense of a sustainable global population and living standards. Structured around a central essay from Dasgupta, the book also features a foreword from Robert Solow; correspondence with Kenneth Arrow; incisive commentaries from Joseph Stiglitz, Eric Maskin, and Scott Barrett; an extended response by the author to them; and a joint paper with Aisha Dasgupta on inequalities in reproductive decisions and the idea of reproductive rights. Taken together, Time and the Generations represents a fascinating dialogue between world-renowned economists on a central issue of our time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231550031
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	06/25/2019
Series:	Kenneth J. Arrow Lecture Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Partha Dasgupta is Frank Ramsey Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Cambridge; a fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge; and visiting professor at the New College of the Humanities, London. His books include Human Well-Being and the Natural Environment (2001) and Economics: A Very Short Introduction (2007).
Professor Dasgupta is the Frank Ramsey Professor of Economics at the University of Cambridge. He is also the Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University and is currently President of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. His books include Economics: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2017), Human Well-Being and the Natural Environment (OUP, 2004) and An Inquiry into Well-Being and Destitution(OUP, 1993).

Table of Contents

In Memoriam: Kenneth Joseph Arrow (1921–2017)
Foreword, by Robert M. Solow
Preface
Random Thoughts on “Birth and Death,” by Kenneth J. Arrow
Birth and Death: Arrow Lecture
1. Economic Demography
2. Utilitarian Ethics
3. Ends and Means
4. Synopsis
Part I: Foundations
5. Genesis Under Total Utilitarianism
6. Death
7. A Problem Like Sleeping Beauty
8. Generation-Centered Prerogatives in the Timeless World
9. Generations Across the Indefinite Future
Part II: Applications
10. The Biosphere as a Renewable Natural Resource
11. Estimates of Globally Optimum Population
12. Technology and Institutions
13. Existential Risks and Informed Ends
Appendix 1: Socially-Embedded Well-Being Functions
Appendix 2: Common Property Resources and Reproductive Choices
Appendix 3: Notes on Rawls’ Principle of Just Saving
Appendix 4: Modeling the Biosphere
Appendix 5: Inclusive Wealth and Social Well-Being
Appendix 6: Valuing Freedom of Choice
References
Commentary on Birth and Death, by Scott Barrett
Commentary on Birth and Death, by Eric Maskin
Commentary on Birth and Death, by Joseph Stiglitz
Response to Commentaries
Epilogue
Socially Embedded Preferences, Environmental Externalities, and Reproductive Rights, with Aisha Dasgupta—Reprinted from Population and Development Review (September 2017)
Contributors
Author Index
Subject Index

Editorial Reviews

[Dasgupta] uses unique and original analysis of the link between environment, population and material consumption.

Choice

A brilliant and original analysis of the population-consumption-environment nexus that will determine the quality of human futures on this troubled planet. This book will set the standard with which future discussions on this vital subject are conducted.

Peter H. Raven

In recent decades, we’ve seen human impacts on the biosphere surge far beyond sustainable levels, raising deeply vexing questions about the path ahead. With intellectual elegance and insight, Dasgupta delves into the moral, economic, and environmental dimensions of global population and living standards. This rigorous book opens a normative approach to the fraught choices confronting all of us.

Gretchen Daily

With this wonderfully wide-ranging, brilliant, and generous book, Partha Dasgupta joins his admired mentor, Kenneth Arrow, in the elite band of economists who have appreciated and contributed to the philosophical underpinnings of their subject. The relationship goes both ways, for by bringing in an economist’s sense of ecological and biological realities, he is able to modify and transcend the contributions of philosophers such as Mill, Sidgwick, Ramsey, Rawls, and Parfit. The result is an astonishing monument to a lifetime of hard thought about population, sustainability, savings, and human welfare.

Simon Blackburn

An excellent work.

Quarterly Review of Biology

What a book! Written with pellucid refinement and compelling responsibility, it incisively appraises humankind’s numbers in tandem with assessments of ecology, time, personal decisions, and varied social and economic circumstances. Composed at the frontiers of norms and methods, philosophy and economics, demography and social analysis, Time and the Generations offers a systematic and bracing homage to heterodox reason in the spirit of Kenneth Arrow.

Ira Katznelson

Time and the Generations is a fascinating and enlightening work. Partha Dasgupta and his interlocutors have created a captivating and challenging book.

Menahem Yaari