such demands-early generations need do nothing at all forlater generations. Surely early generations have some duty to enable theirsuccessors to live better than themselves. An ideal of sustainability, or of aconstant level of well-being through time, may be attractive to think of whenstarting from a high level of well-being. But, it is not so attractive whenstarting from a low level of well-being. There is nothing inspiring about aconsistently maintained level of misery. Yet Barry's view allows consistentmisery to persist. It finds nothing objectionable in a sequence where the firstgeneration passes on a very limited range of opportunities and resources to thenext generation, and so on. Surely this sequence of events is objectionable.There may not be as stringent a duty to improve conditions for futuregenerations as utilitarianism claims, but there must be some such duty thatexists.Personally, there has to be a middle between utilitarianism for futuregenerations and Brian Barry's egalitarian view. I feel that our so-called dutyis only to make the conditions of future generations reasonably good. If peoplefollow utilitarianism, then we will say that we have a duty to give futuregenerations a reasonable quality of life through demanding sacrifices ofourselves. And if people followed Barry's egalitarian view, then futuregenerations may be stuck in the same rut as past generations. That is why amiddle-road must be used. By taking these two ideas, then we can see that eachgeneration should pass on to its successors a range of opportunities that allowsfor a reasonable quality of life. However, it should not be seen as a duty. Ifit is seen as a duty, then most humans may be turned off by the prospect oftaking care of their environment for future generations. If it is seen byhumans that our environment is a precious jewel, then we will more than likelywant to share it with our future generations....
